The Temerty Contemporary Ukraine Program will be a bridge between the scholarly and policy communities with the goal of promoting a deeper understanding of Ukraine in the world. Its role is to recognize, describe, and explain the complexity of contemporary Ukraine through contributions from social scientists and policy researchers.

The program’s primary contribution will be an annual conference, beginning in the spring of 2020, dealing with issues central to contemporary Ukraine. The conference will invite scholars, policy writers, researchers, and journalists from various fields in order to advance the study of contemporary Ukraine. Date, theme, and participants will be announced in the fall of 2019.

In the fall of 2019, we will hold our opening event, featuring a public lecture and reception. Additionally, TCUP will organize four seminars as part of the HURI’s Seminar in Ukrainian Studies. Talks will include a roundtable discussion on energy politics and a research presentation by a HURI fellow.

I am excited to be part of the Ukrainian Research Institute’s commitment to contemporary Ukraine. As a scholar, I have been invested in research in Ukraine since 2012. I have pursued research on political activism and social movements among students and feminists during the 2013-2014 Euromaidan mobilizations. After receiving my PhD in sociocultural anthropology from The Graduate Center, City University of New York, in September 2016, I was a Havighurst Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor of International Studies at Miami University, Ohio. I have published academic articles in several journals, including History and Anthropology, Revolutionary Russia, and Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, and I am currently completing my first book manuscript.

As part of the Ukrainian Research Institute, I look forward to pursuing research related to the existing MAPA project, creating new modules addressing contemporary issues in Ukraine. TCUP’s initial research priorities include internally displaced populations and the conflict in the Donbas. In addition, I will continue research on politics and activism as they continue to be of crucial importance to contemporary Ukraine.

Please do not hesitate to contact me directly with questions about TCUP programming and research goals. I look forward to working closely with the broad community of people invested in engaging with complex questions about Ukraine and finding answers to contemporary problems.

Emily Channell-Justice is the Director of the Temerty Contemporary Ukraine Program at the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. She received her PhD in sociocultural anthropology from The Graduate Center, City University of New York, in 2016. Her research focuses on political participation and social movements in contemporary Ukraine, where she has done ethnographic fieldwork since 2012. She has received grants from Fulbright IIE and American Councils Title VIII Research Scholar Program, and she has taught in anthropology and international studies departments at Miami University (Ohio) and John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY).