Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures

SLA328S, The Culture of Contemporary Ukraine, 2016

Assignment 1

This assignment is due February 10, 2016 at the beginning of class.

The assignment is this: Write a book review of Laada Bilaniuk. Contested Tongues: Language Politics and Cultural Correction in Ukraine, the book we discussed in class. Please keep the length of the review between 600–900 words (use your word processor to check—that's roughly 2–3 pages). Please bear in mind that a good book review does 3 things: 1. It summarizes the contents and arguments of the book; 2. It places the contents of the book into the appropriate intellectual context—that is, it discusses how this book's contents fit into what is generally known about the topic, analyzing the implications and consequences of the arguments of this book ; and 3. It makes a subjective judgment of the scholarly merit of the book by examining its strengths and weaknesses, its successes and failures. Please note that judgment and evaluation is thus only one of three goals in your review, and it is not the most important one. Some reviewers stick only to description and avoid any judgment at all—you may choose to do so too.

Students are still responsible for the general readings assigned for class on Feb 10. Reports must still be delivered.