2006 AAASS Prizes

[NewsNet]

The American Association for the Advancement of 
Slavic Studies (AAASS), the leading private, 
nonprofit organization dedicated to the 
advancement of knowledge about Russia, Central 
Eurasia, and Eastern and Central Europe, 
presented its annual awards on November 18, 2006, 
during the 38th National Convention held at the 
Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC.

Two gentlemen received the Association’s highest 
honor­the Distinguished Contributions to Slavic Studies Award:

Moshe Lewin, Professor Emeritus of History at 
University of Pennsylvania, was presented with 
the award “in recognition of his incomparable 
erudition, seminal scholarship, and intellectual 
creativity over a long and distinguished career.”

James R. Millar, Emeritus Professor of Economics 
and International Affairs at George Washington 
University, was presented with the award in 
“recognition of his service to the field as a 
scholar, teacher, mentor, and leader.”

The following scholars received Association’s 
book prizes for their recently published monographs:

Francine Hirsch, an Associate Professor of 
History at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, 
received the Wayne S. Vucinich Book Prize awarded 
for the most important contribution to Russian, 
Eurasian, and East European studies in any 
discipline of the humanities or social sciences, 
for Empire of Nations: Ethnographic Knowledge and 
the Making of the Soviet Union, published by Cornell University Press.

Christina Kiaer, an Associate Professor in the 
Department of Art History at Northwestern 
University, received an honorable mention from 
the Vucinich Book Prize committee for Imagine No 
Possessions: The Socialist Objects of Russian 
Constructivism, published by MIT Press.

Two scholars received the Marshall Shulman Book 
Prize for an outstanding monograph dealing with 
the international relations, foreign policy, or 
foreign-policy decision-making of any of the 
states of the former Soviet Union or Eastern Europe:

Alexander Cooley, an Assistant Professor of 
Political Science at Barnard College and Faculty 
member of Columbia University's Harriman 
Institute, received the prize for Logics of 
Hierarchy: The Organization of Empires, States, 
and Military Occupations, published by Cornell University Press.

Milada Anna Vachudova, an Assistant Professor in 
the Department of Political Science at the 
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 
received the prize for Europe Undivided: 
Democracy, Leverage & Integration After 
Communism, published by Oxford University Press.

David Ost, Professor of Political Science at 
Hobart and William Smith Colleges, received the 
Ed A. Hewett Book Prize for an outstanding 
publication on the political economy of the 
centrally planned economies of the former Soviet 
Union and East Central Europe and their 
transitional successors, for The Defeat of 
Solidarity: Anger and Politics in Post Communist 
Europe, published by Cornell University Press.

Alison Fleig Frank, an Assistant Professor in the 
Department of History at Harvard University, 
received the Barbara Jelavich Book Prize for a 
distinguished monograph on any aspect of 
Southeast European or Habsburg studies since 
1600, or nineteenth- and twentieth-century 
Ottoman or Russian diplomatic history, for Oil 
Empire: Visions of Prosperity in Austrian 
Galicia, published by Harvard University Press.

Timothy J. Cooley, an Associate Professor of 
Ethnomusicology at University of California, 
Santa Barbara and Affiliated Faculty in the 
Global and International Studies Program, 
received the AAASS/Orbis Books Prize for Polish 
studies for the best book in any discipline on 
any aspect of Polish affairs, for Making Music in 
the Polish Tatras: Tourists, Ethnographers, and 
Mountain Musicians, published by Indiana University Press.

Douglas Northrop, an Associate Professor of 
History and Near Eastern Studies at the 
University of Michigan, received the W. Bruce 
Lincoln Prize, which is awarded biennially for 
the first published book of exceptional merit and 
lasting significance for the understanding of 
Russia’s past, for Veiled Empire: Gender and 
Power in Stalinist Central Asia, published by Cornell University Press.

The Association also recognized the achievements 
of the following junior scholars:

Heather Diane DeHaan, an Assistant Professor in 
the Department of History at Binghamton 
University, received the Robert C. Tucker / 
Stephen F. Cohen Dissertation Prize for an 
outstanding English-language doctoral 
dissertation in the tradition of historical 
political science and political history of the 
Soviet Union as practiced by Robert C. Tucker and 
Stephen F. Cohen, for her dissertation titled 
“From Nizhnyi to Gorkii: The Reconstruction of a 
Russian Provincial City in the Stalinist 1930s.”

Diana Mincyte, a Visiting Assistant Professor 
position in the Department of Advertising at the 
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 
received the AAASS Graduate Student Essay Prize 
for an outstanding essay by a graduate student in 
Slavic Studies for "The Pasteurization of 
Lithuania: Informal Food Markets and 
Globalization," which also won the graduate 
student essay competition at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Michael Powell, 2006 Ph.D. graduate in 
Anthropology from Rice University, received the 
Title VIII Award for an outstanding policy paper 
on East European Affairs by a graduate student or 
recent Master’s or PhD graduate, for “NGO 
Networking and the Passage of a Transparency Initiative in Poland.”

Brian Grodsky, an Assistant Professor of 
Political Science at University of Maryland, 
Baltimore County, received the Title VIII Award 
for an outstanding policy paper on Eurasian 
Affairs by a graduate student or recent Master’s 
or PhD graduate, for “Civil Society and 
Democratization: Warnings from Uzbekistan.”

In addition, three junior scholars received an 
honorable mention for an outstanding policy paper on Eurasian affairs:
Vanja Mladineo and Kathryn Roman received an 
honorable mention for “Evolving Democratization Assistance: The Kyrgyz Model.”
Jordan Hamory received an honorable mention for 
“Overcoming Barriers to Substitution Therapy in Ukraine (HIV/AIDS)”

# # #






For additional information about the AAASS, the 
awards presentation, an electronic version of 
this press release, full text of the citations 
for the awards, and contact information for prize 
winners or publishers, please contact: Dmitry 
Gorenburg, Executive Director of AAASS, tel.: 
617-496-9412, e-mail: gorenbur at fas.harvard.edu, 
Web site:http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~aaass/prizes.html. 

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