Ellison Center News
Michael Biggins (Slavic Languages and Literatures and UW Libraries) has had his English translation of Slovene author Drago Jančar’s 1978 novel The Galley Slave published by Litterae Slovenicae in Ljubljana as the featured work for the 2011 Vilenica European writers’ conference. In the U.S. it will be published in late 2011 by Dalkey Archive Press. His translation from Slovene of Tomaž Šalamun’s recent collection of poems, The Blue Tower, is scheduled for publication this October by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. At present he's working on two new book-length translations from Slovene and laying the groundwork for a biography of Slovene novelist Vladimir Bartol.
Jack Coombes (MAIS REECAS 2011) was offered a job with the American Councils for International Education after completing the 2011 Critical Language Scholarship Program in Baku, Azerbaijan. He is currently the resident director of the Russian Language and Area Studies Program in Vladimir, helping American students acclimate to life in Russia and overseeing their study abroad experience.
Eric Damiana’s (MAIS REECAS 2012) English translation of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation’s political platform was published electronically by the School of Russian and Asian Studies as a part of their ongoing “Politics in Translation” project.
Gregor Thum (DAAD Visiting Associate Professor) accepted a tenure-track position at the University of Pittsburgh, starting in January 2012. The English translation of his first book on the postwar history of Wrocław recently came out: Uprooted. How Breslau Became Wrocław during the Century of Expulsions (Princeton University Press, 2011).
Natalia Wobst (MAIS REECAS 2010) recently became the Coordinator of the Black Sea Energy and Economic Forum at the Eurasia Center of the Atlantic Council. The Forum is an annual initiative that brings top government and corporate leaders together to discuss opportunities and challenges in and for Eurasia. The 2011 Forum is being held in Istanbul, Turkey.
Glennys Young’s (Associate Professor) book, The Communist Experience in the Twentieth Century: A Global History through Sources, was published by Oxford University Press in August, 2011.


