KuFC at the Prairie Conference 2026

From April 30 to May 3, a number of KuFC staff and graduate students took part in the “Prairie Conference 2026: Ukrainian Studies in Times of Global Transformations of the Humanities,” organized by Dr. Oksana Dudko and Dr. Yuliya Yurchuk at the University of Manitoba.

A variety of panels and round tables covered important topics such as war ecologies and environmental futures, heritage preservation, famines, resistance movements, Ukrainian-Indigenous relationships, and Crimean Tatar history, as well as meta discussions about the growing field of Ukrainian studies. The participants created a productive space that propelled constructive and genuine discussions and helped to further understandings about current issues in Ukrainian studies and possible future goals.

Anna Olenenko, a PhD Candidate at the KuFC, took part in the panel “Zemlia: Violence, Recovery, and Environmental Futures.” Her talk explored current research on Ukraine’s environment in the humanities, arguing there is a place for the environment and the non-human world within Ukrainian studies and the broader fields of environmental history and environmental humanities. She also examined how the Russo-Ukrainian war and its environmental impact have reshaped this field.

Two graduate students at the KuFC, Jonathan Grossman (MA) and Illia Pokotylo (PhD), together with Dr. Hanna Abakunova, Dr. Huseyin Oylupinar, Aolani Eslava-Jones, and Cody Mackoway, participated in the Alberta Round Table “Reconsidering Field, Structure, and Knowledge in Ukrainian Studies,” co-organized and moderated by Nolan Orvold. The students had the opportunity to share their experiences taking classes and conducting research on Ukrainian topics at the University of Alberta, as well as their thoughts on potential improvements to the university curriculum that would ensure greater success in Ukrainian studies among post-secondary students.

Left to right: Dr. Huseyin Oylupinar, Aolani Eslava-Jones, Nolan Orvald, Jonathan Grossman, Illia Pokotylo, Dr. Hanna Abakunova.

The KuFC is grateful to the Prairie Conference organizers and participants for creating a welcoming and intellectually engaging space for discussion and collaboration!