#12
Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001
From: "Jolanta M. Davis" <jmdavis@fas.harvard.edu>
Subject: NEWS: AAASS announces winners of its annual prizes
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Carol Saivetz, Executive Director
tel.: 703-418-1234 (from November 13 through November 18, at the Hyatt Regency
Hotel, Crystal City, Virginia)
e-mail: aaass@hcs.harvard.edu
web site: www.fas.harvard.edu/~aaass
AAASS To Honor Slavic Scholars at Its National Convention in Crystal City, Virginia
CAMBRIDGE, MA November 12, 2001 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, will present its annual awards for Distinguished Contributions to Slavic Studies, five book prizes, and the Graduate Student Essay Contest Prize, November 17, 2001, during its 33rd National Convention held at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Crystal City, Virginia.
Two scholars share the Association's highest honor for the Distinguished Contributions to Slavic Studies Award. Alexander Vucinich, Professor Emeritus of Sociology and History of Science at the University of Pennsylvania, is author of several groundbreaking books and essays in the field of history of science, social science, and social thought on Imperial and Soviet Russia, including Science in Russian Culture, Darwin in Russian Thought, and Einstein and Soviet Ideology. Professor Vucinich's scholarship is recognized internationally for its meticulous attention to detail and a profound respect for the individual scholars whose lives and achievements he investigates, writes the AAASS Committee on Honors and Awards
Robert V. Daniels, Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Vermont, is the dean of Soviet history in northern New England and a pioneer in the study of the Russian revolution. A former Vermont State Senator, Vice President and President of AAASS, and founder of the Vermont-Karelia "sister-state project," Daniels' 50 years of scholarly accomplishments have profoundly influenced our understanding of the genesis of the Soviet political system, from the revolution to the height of Cold War rhetoric to post-Soviet politics, "through work characterized by breadth of knowledge, graceful prose, and superb research," stated the awards committee.
This year, two distinguished recipients will receive the 2001 Marshall Shulman Book Prize for an outstanding monograph on the international behavior of the countries of the former Communist bloc. David Stone, Assistant Professor of History at Kansas State University, won for Hammer and Rifle: The Militarization of the Soviet Union, 1926-1933, published by University Press of Kansas, which the awards committee describes as "a beautifully written study of the Soviet Union's military-industrial revolution . . . that enriches our understanding of the Soviet economy after World War I." Robert English, Assistant Professor of International Relations at the University of Southern California, also won for Russia and the Idea of the West: Gorbachev, Intellectuals and the End of the Cold War, published by Columbia University Press. "In this important volume," according to the awards committee, "English carefully excavates the intellectual roots of the 'new thinking' about the world and the Soviet Union's role in it, which played a pivotal part in transforming Soviet foreign policy in the Gorbachev era."
The 2001 winner of the Ed A. Hewett Book Prize for an outstanding publication on the political economy of the former Soviet Union, East Central Europe, and/or their successor states is Timothy Frye, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Ohio State University, for Brokers and Bureaucrats: Market Institutions in Russia, published by the University of Michigan Press. The awards committee praised Frye's book as a bold and innovative work, which describes the emergence of regulatory institutions in Russia in the early 1990s as the country made the transition from central planning to a market economy.
The 2001 winner of the Barbara Jelavich Book Prize for an outstanding monograph on Southeast European or Habsburg studies since 1600 or 19th- and 20th-century Ottoman or Russian diplomatic history is Alice Freifeld, Assistant Professor of European History at the University of Florida, for Nationalism and the Crowd in Liberal Hungary, 1848-1914, published by Johns Hopkins University Press. A historical study of the legacy of the 1848 Hungarian revolution, the selection committee cited this winning volume as a "first-rate study with broad appeal."
The 2001 winner of the Wayne S. Vucinich Book Prize for an outstanding monograph in Russian, Eurasian, or East European studies in any discipline of the humanities is Alaina Lemon, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at University of Michigan, for Between Two Fires: Gypsy Performance and Romani Memory from Pushkin to Post-Socialism, published by Duke University Press. Lemon's work is an "innovative, extraordinarily insightful book that raises questions not just for students of the Romani, but for all those interested in identity and its construction," wrote the awards committee.
Two winners will be announced for this year's AAASS/Orbis Books Prize for Polish Studies for an outstanding English-language book on any aspect of Polish affairs. Karin Friedrich, Lecturer, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College, London, for The Other Prussia: Royal Prussia, Poland and Liberty, 1569-1772, published by Cambridge University Press; and Johannes Remy, Researcher at the University of Helsinki, for Higher Education and National Identity: Polish Student Activism in Russia 1832-1862, published by Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, Finland. The selection committee commended both volumes for advancing current debates on nationalism "by using fresh insights and new information . . . found by detouring along roads less traveled."
The selection committee for the Orbis Books Prize will also award honorable mention to Brian Porter, Associate Professor of History at University of Michigan, for When Nationalism Began to Hate: Imagining Modern Politics in Nineteenth-Century Poland, published by Oxford University Press. Porter's work "tackles the most difficult questions of nationalism . . . with a straightforward and bold style," stated the committee.
AAASS will also award the National Graduate Student Essay Prize for an outstanding essay by a graduate student in Slavic Studies to Stephen Norris, a graduate student in the Department of History at the University of Virginia, for his essay "Images of 1812: The patriotic war in Russian culture," a "cogently argued and well-documented work that reaches towards a meta-level analysis . . . of Russian patriotic identity."
For additional information about the AAASS, an electronic version of this press release, and the full text of the awards citations contact: Carol Saivetz, Executive Director, tel.: 617-495-0677, (from November 13 through November 18, phone the Hyatt Regency in Crystal City, Virginia, tel.: 703-418-1234), e-mail: aaass@hcs.harvard.edu, web site: http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~aaass
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