Indiana University Summer Language Workshop (SWSEEL)
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The Indiana University Language Workshop (formerly known asSWSEEL) is one of the oldest and largest summer language programs in the United States. Located on the Bloomington campus of Indiana University (IU), the workshop was founded in 1950 at the height of the Cold War to provide intensive training in Russian and later other less commonly taught foreign languages. For the almost 75 years of its existence, the Workshop has provided language training to over ten thousand students. It is widely known in the United States for its quality and variety, especially among university programs in Slavic, East European and Central Eurasian studies.


History

The first workshop was held from June 20 to July 25, 1951. It was called "Russian Workshop for graduate and undergraduate students" and was advertised as a "five-week course for men and women who desire a better understanding of the Russian language." Sponsored by the IU Department of Slavic Studies and the IU Summer School, it was limited to 40 "qualified students." The cost of tuition, board, and room in 1951 came to $185. The program was successful and soon grew to the point where yearly enrollments numbered about 200 students. In 1963 Polish and Serbo-Croatian languages were added and the program, now encompassing eight weeks of study, was renamed as the Slavic Workshop. Soon Czech language was added. The Slavic Workshop also featured language study tours to the Soviet Union, in which more than 100 students participated each summer. When the program underwent a significant expansion in the 1990s with the addition of several new languages, including non-Slavic languages, it was rechristened the Summer Workshop in Slavic and East European Languages (SWSEEL), a name that remained in place (despite the increasingly prominent role of Central Asian and other languages from outside of Eastern Europe) until 2013, when it received its current name of the Indiana University Language Workshop.


Languages

The language offerings in the Summer Language Workshop vary every summer. To date (through the summer of 2021), a total of 38 languages have been taught in Summer Language Workshop.
Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
is the only language that has been taught every summer since the foundation of the program. The other languages are:
Albanian Albanian may refer to: *Pertaining to Albania in Southeast Europe; in particular: **Albanians, an ethnic group native to the Balkans **Albanian language **Albanian culture **Demographics of Albania, includes other ethnic groups within the country ...
,
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
, Azerbaijani,
Bulgarian Bulgarian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Bulgaria * Bulgarians, a South Slavic ethnic group * Bulgarian language, a Slavic language * Bulgarian alphabet * A citizen of Bulgaria, see Demographics of Bulgaria * Bul ...
, Chechen,
Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...
,
Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus' Places *Czech, ...
,
Dari Dari (, , ), also known as Dari Persian (, ), is the variety of the Persian language spoken in Afghanistan. Dari is the term officially recognised and promoted since 1964 by the Afghan government for the Persian language,Lazard, G.Darī  ...
,
Estonian Estonian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Estonia, a country in the Baltic region in northern Europe * Estonians, people from Estonia, or of Estonian descent * Estonian language * Estonian cuisine * Estonian culture See also

...
,
Georgian Georgian may refer to: Common meanings * Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country) ** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group ** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians **Georgian scripts, three scrip ...
,
Hindi-Urdu Hindustani (; Devanagari: , * * * * ; Perso-Arabic: , , ) is the ''lingua franca'' of Northern and Central India and Pakistan. Hindustani is a pluricentric language with two standard registers, known as Hindi and Urdu. Thus, the langu ...
, Hungarian, Kazakh,
Kyrgyz Kyrgyz, Kirghiz or Kyrgyzstani may refer to: * Someone or something related to Kyrgyzstan *Kyrgyz people *Kyrgyz national games *Kyrgyz language *Kyrgyz culture *Kyrgyz cuisine *Yenisei Kirghiz *The Fuyü Gïrgïs language in Northeastern China ...
,
Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish languages *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern Kurdistan **Eastern Kurdistan **Northern Kurdistan **Western Kurdistan See also * Kurd (dis ...
, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Mongolian,
Pashto Pashto (,; , ) is an Eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family. It is known in historical Persian literature as Afghani (). Spoken as a native language mostly by ethnic Pashtuns, it is one of the two official languages ...
,
Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
,
Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken *Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...
,
Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...
,
Romanian Romanian may refer to: *anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania **Romanians, an ethnic group **Romanian language, a Romance language ***Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language **Romanian cuisine, traditional ...
, Serbian/Croatian, Slovene, Slovak, Swahili,
Tajik Tajik, Tadjik, Tadzhik or Tajikistani may refer to: * Someone or something related to Tajikistan * Tajiks, an ethnic group in Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan * Tajik language, the official language of Tajikistan * Tajik (surname) * Tajik cu ...
,
Tatar The Tatars ()Tatar
in the Collins English Dictionary
is an umbrella term for different
,
Tibetan Tibetan may mean: * of, from, or related to Tibet * Tibetan people, an ethnic group * Tibetan language: ** Classical Tibetan, the classical language used also as a contemporary written standard ** Standard Tibetan, the most widely used spoken dial ...
,
Turkish Turkish may refer to: *a Turkic language spoken by the Turks * of or about Turkey ** Turkish language *** Turkish alphabet ** Turkish people, a Turkic ethnic group and nation *** Turkish citizen, a citizen of Turkey *** Turkish communities and mi ...
,
Turkmen Turkmen, Türkmen, Turkoman, or Turkman may refer to: Peoples Historical ethnonym * Turkoman (ethnonym), ethnonym used for the Oghuz Turks during the Middle Ages Ethnic groups * Turkmen in Anatolia and the Levant (Seljuk and Ottoman-Turkish desc ...
, Uighur,
Ukrainian Ukrainian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Ukraine * Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe * Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine * So ...
, Uzbek,
Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
.


Directors

1951 – 1952 Michael Ginsburg 1953 – 1961 Joseph T. Shaw 1962 – 1965 Albert C. Todd, Jr., 1966 Robert L. Baker 1967 – 1968 Maurice I. Levin 1969 Charles Gribble 1971 – 1972 Ernest Scatton 1973 Stephen Soudakoff 1974 Daniel Armstrong, Stephen Soudakoff (co-directors) 1975 – 1976 Daniel Armstrong, Rodney Sangster, Stephen Soudakoff (co-directors) 1978 Daniel Armstrong, Ronald Feldstein (co-directors) 1979 Ronald Feldstein 1986 – 2009 Jerzy Kolodziej 2010 – 2016 Ariann Stern-Gottschalk 2016 - 2017 Mark Trotter 2017 - Kathleen Evans


Instructors

Russian émigré instructors played a very important role in the program, especially through the 1950s and 1960s. The contribution of Russian émigrés to both the Language Workshop and the IU Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures is recognized by a plaque, first proposed in 2002 by William Hopkins, a PhD alumnus of Indiana University, former Summer Language Workshop instructor, and translator for the US Department of State. The inscription on the plaque reads: "Dedicated in grateful memory to the emigre Russian language teachers of the Indiana University Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures and the Summer Workshop, who provided exceptional language training to generations of American students. Through their tireless efforts and willingness to share their love of the language and culture of Russia, these dedicated educators made an invaluable contribution to the lives and careers of countless students at Indiana University and to the enhancement of Slavic Studies in the United States". The following teachers are listed on the plaque: Borovkova, Anna Ivanovna; Cetverikova, Aleksandra Sergeevna; Fedulova, Margarita Petrovna; Kuleshova, Ekaterina Leonidovna; Lopato, Natalia Lvovna; McLaws, Galina Aleksandrovna; Malenko, Zinaida Nikolaevna; Martianov, Aleksandr Dmitrievich; Oussenko, Vera Grigorievna; Sednev, Moisej Ilarionovich; Selegen, Galina; Sklanchenko, Tatiana Yakovlevna; Slaviatinskaya, Lidia Prokofievna; Soudakova, Mariamna Iokimovna; Soudakoff, Stepan Petrovich; Ushakow, Wladimir Iosifovich; Zalucki, Maria Fedorovna; Zardetskaya, Elena Florianovna. Among the most notable Russian emigres who taught in the Summer Language Workshop in 1962 and 1963 is prominent Russian writer
Nina Berberova Nina Nikolayevna Berberova (russian: Ни́на Никола́евна Бербе́рова) (St Petersburg, 26 July 1901 – Philadelphia, 26 September 1993) was a Russian writer who chronicled the lives of anti-communist Russian refugees in ...
. Of the hundreds of other instructors who either taught languages or delivered guest lectures at the Summer Language Workshop, some of the most well-known include Slavists Felix Oinas,
Edward L. Keenan Edward Louis "Ned" Keenan, Jr. (May 14, 1935 - March 9, 2015) was an American professor of history at Harvard University who specialized in medieval Russian history (especially the cultural and the political history of Muscovy). He became a pr ...
, Charles Townsend, Charles Gribble, Carl Proffer, Frank Miller, Helena Goscillo.


References


External links


IU Language Workshop Homepage
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