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June 20 – July 3, 2009 with Serguei Oushakine, Slavic Languages and Literatures. Spend time with Princeton undergraduates enrolled in the PIIRS Global Seminar in St. Petersburg.

The Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies (PIIRS) launched the Global Summer Seminar Series, its summer abroad seminar program for undergraduates, in 2007. In the summer of 2009, Princeton students will have the opportunity to live in St. Petersburg, Russia and study at a local university with Princeton professors. Princeton Journeys has arranged for alumni to spend a few days with the students during their program, as a part of a more extensive Journey for alumni and friends through the Baltic States.

Led by Serguei Oushakine, one of the instructors for the PIIRS program concentrating on the Avant Garde movement and its historical relevance in Russia, Princeton Journeys participants will get a taste of what today’s undergraduates are studying. Time spent in the company of the undergraduates will also allow for conversations about Princeton's place in the world today.

But the time spent with the PIIRS program is just a part of a larger whole. In the tradition of medieval Hanseatic merchants, cross the Baltic Sea under sunlit northern skies. Aboard the Island Sky, participants will have the chance to call on Baltic ports to feel the old-world charm of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia and visit the bustling, cosmopolitan capitals of Scandinavia. Attend a specially arranged concert at Helsinki's prestigious Sibelius Academy, enjoy a scenic cruise along the canals of Copenhagen, and stroll the charming streets of the historic Finnish port of Mariehamn. Admire the exquisite medieval architecture in Tallinn, Riga, and Stockholm. Tour the shipyard in Gdańsk where the historic Solidarity movement began and meet with its leader, Nobel Laureate and former President of Poland Lech Walesa. How better to experience the Baltic lands’ rich traditions and dynamic vitality as they revel in their flourishing post-Soviet cultural rebirth?

Please note: We will be sharing this voyage with travelers from the Harvard Alumni Association as well as Smithsonian Journeys.

About the Study Leader
Serguei Oushakine, Assistant Professor in Princeton's Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, will serve as Study Leader for this journey.

Born and raised in Siberia, Professor Oushakine received his degree of Kandidat of political science from St. Petersburg State University and went on to teach at Altai State Technical University. He earned his PhD in anthropology from Columbia University and held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Harriman Institute at Columbia before joining the Princeton faculty in 2006.

In 2000, The Russian Academy of Sciences awarded him its Annual Award for Young Scholars, an annual award, for the best work in the field of social sciences. Having studied history, political theory, gender, and anthropology, Professor Oushakine focuses his current research on transitional periods in Russia’s twentieth-century history and explores cultural manifestations of identity in Soviet and contemporary Russia. Based on fieldwork in Siberia in 2001-2003, his forthcoming book, The Patriotism of Despair: Communities of Loss in Contemporary Russia, documents how the social ties to and identification with the Soviet state became gradually replaced by negatively structured forms of patriotic attachment after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

To make a reservation, fill out the form in the brochure or contact Princeton Journeys at (609) 258-8686 or journeys@princeton.edu for assistance.