Alarm

[Vitaly A. Chernetsky]

On Wed, 9 Oct 1996, Genevra Gerhart wrote:
> OK, ladies and gentlemen.
> Check out today's New York Times.  Student population in Russian is
> less than 25,000.
> So what are you, personally and specifically going to do to double that
> number?
> Me? I'm going to try to convert the Ukrainians.
> gg
> --
> Genevra Gerhart                         http://www.wolfe.net/~ggerhart/

How and into what, may I ask? All potential smileys aside, I don't see how
"converting" students from one Slavic language to another could be in any
way beneficial for Slavic studies as a profession. If anything, trying to
be more flexible and reaching out to those interested in other Slavic
languages and cultures might help us out, not the propagation of a
"monokul'tura." It is in statements like this that the unfortunate
Russocentric "zashorennost'" of American Slavic studies displays all its
ugly implications.

Vitaly Chernetsky