Ira Melkonyan (b. 1988 in Ukraine) is an alumna of ECLA of Bard who took classes mainly in philosophy, art history, and aesthetics during her 2011/2012 Academy Year. She is a theater performer and a scientist who derives inspiration from the “contradictions and paradoxes found in the symbiotic and parasitic existence of all things.” Melkonyan
TagUkraine
Between Motherland and a Spiritual Home
I finished my fall semester in Berlin and went back home to Kyiv in Ukraine quite abruptly—leaving for the airport immediately after the Goethe Training Exam for the German Language A1 level, which I took in the cozy office of ECLA of Bard’s German Instructor Dirk Deichfuss on December 20th. This space served me well in
My First Political Autumn
I have never been interested in politics. Writing about cinema, animals, food and city traffic, I always considered politics as a predictably double-dealing (although well-paid) field, which never appealed to me. However, my 2012 autumn happened to be extremely politicized. This past October, there were parliamentary elections back in Ukraine, where I come from. I
Krytyka’s Look at Ukrainian Politics
In 1997 Professor Grabowicz founded Krytyka, a Ukrainian-language journal that discusses politics, history and cultural studies, amongst other things, and serves as, “the highest standard of intellectual debate” available in Ukraine. Though this would of course be considered a respectable project in any circumstances, it became clear to us that this is a particularly important provision
Conference on Belarus and Ukraine organized by ECLA alumna in Paris
On March 20-25, 2006, Hanna Murauskaya (ISU 2004, Belarus), who is currently writing her PhD thesis at the Ecole normale supérieure in Paris, organized a Cultural Week of Belarus and Ukraine and conference (March 23-25) entitled: ‘Ukraine and Belarus – what neighbors for the European Union?’ The timing was perfect since the Cultural Week and