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Ronald Vroon

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Professor and Chair, Slavic Languages & Literatures

Department: Department of Slavic, East European & Eurasian Languages & Cultures
326A Kaplan Hall, Box 951502
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1502
Phone: (310) 825-8724 (office) or (310) 825-3856 (dept.)
Email: vroon@humnet.ucla.edu
Website

Keywords: Russia, Literature, Central Asia

Education

  • BA, Russian and English, University of Michigan (1969)
  • MA, Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Michigan (1971)
  • PhD, Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Michigan (1978)

Research

  • The works of Velimir Khlebnikov
  • The poetry of Aleksandr Sumarokov
  • The history of the Russian lyric sequence
  • Archaism in Russian culture

Publications

Books

  • Velimir Xlebnikov’s Krysa: A Commentary. Stanford: Stanford Slavic Studies, 1988.
  • Velimir Xlebnikov’s Shorter Poems: A Key to the Coinages. Ann Arbor, Michigan: Michigan Slavic Materials, 1983.

Editions

  • Sumarokov. Ody toržestvennyia. Elegii ljubovnyia. Reprintnoe vosproizvedenie izdanii 1774 goda. Prilozhenie: Redaktsii i varianty. Dopolneniia. Kommentarii. Stat’i. [A. Sumarokov. Solemn Odes. Love Elegies. Redactions and Variants. Supplementary Texts. Commentary. Essays]. Moscow: Izd. OGI, 2009).
  • Khlebnikov. “Großuch”. Faksimil’noe vosproizvedenie rabochei tetradi. Transkriptsiia. Svodka tekstov. Commentariia [The “Großuch”: A Facsimile Reproduction of the Notebook, Transcription, Reconstruction, Commentary]. Moscow: Azbukovnik Publishers. Forthcoming 2016).

Edited Books

  • Jurij Lotman. The Structure of the Artistic Text. Ann Arbor: Michigan Slavic Materials, 1977. 300 pp. (with Gail Lenhoff; translated, with Preface: i-vii; annotations throughout).
  • The Structure of the Literary Process. with P. Steiner and M. Červenka. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Co., 1982. 613 pp.
  • Velimir Khlebnikov. Collected Works, Vol. II. Tr. Paul Schmidt. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989. 400 pp.
  • Readings in Russian Modernism: To Honor Vladimir Markov. UCLA Slavic Studies. New Series II. Ed. with John Malmstad. Moscow: Nauka, 1993. 406 pp.
  • Velimir Khlebnikov. Collected Works, Vol. III. Tr. Paul Schmidt. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997.
  • Poetika, istoriia literatury, lingvistika: sbornik k 70-letiiu Viacheslava Vsevolodovicha Ivanova [ Essays on Poetics, Literary History and Linguistics. Presented to Viacheslav Vsevolodovich Ivanov on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday]. Ed. A. A. Visagin, R. Vroon, M. L. Gasparov et al. Moscow: Izd. OGI, 1999.
  • I vremia i mesto: Istoriko-filologicheskii sbornik k shestidesiatiletiiu Aleksandra L’vovicha Ospovata [A Time and a Place: An Historico-Philological Collection in Honor of Alexander L’vovich Ospovat’s Sixtieth Beirthday]. Moscow, 2008. 640 pp. Ed. R. Vroon, R. Leibov, A. Nemzer et. al.
  • Velimir Khlebnikov v XXI stoletii. statei [Velimir Khlebnikov in the 21st Century]. Co-edited with V. Tereekhina, N. Pertsova, and S. Starkina. Moscow, 2013.

Recent Articles

  • “Matematika ili mistika: k voprosu o nauchnosti istoriosofskikh vzgliadov Velimira Khlebnikova” [“Mathematics or Mysticism? On the Scientific Foundations of Velimir Khlebnikov’s Historiosophic Views”]. Nauchnye kontseptsii XX vekas i russkoe iskusstvo. Belgrade, 2011. 42-71.
  • “Liricheskii tsikl” [“The Lyric Cycle”]. In Teoriia literatury. Proizvedenie. ed. Iu. B. Borev, N. K. Gei et al. Moscow: Instut mirovoi literatury im. Gor’kogo, 2011. 126–159.
  • “K genezisu tsiklicheskikh obrazovanii v lirike Aleksandra Bloka” [“On the Genesis of Cyclic Structures in the Lyrics of Alesandr Blok”]. Shakhmatovskii vestnik 13: “Nachala i kontsy”zhizn’ i sud’ba poeta. Materialy mezhdunarodnoi nauchnoi konferentsii, posviashchennoi 90-letiiu so dnia smerti A. Bloka. Ed. I. Prikhod’ko. Moscow, 2013. 276-95.
  • “Poetry Speaks to Power: Panegyric Responses to Peter III, Catherine II and the Coup d’État of 1762.” Russian Literature 75, 1-4 (2014). 563-590.
  • “A Russian Futurist in Asia: Velimir Khlebnikov’s Travalogue in Verse.” Central Asia in Global History: Writing Travel at a Cultural Crossroads. Ed. Nile Green. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2013. 170-192.
  • “Akusticheskaia pamiat’ kak sverkhlichnostnyi tvorcheskii impul’s (na materiale Nabokova, Brodskogo i dr.)” [“Acoustic Memory as a Supra-personal Creative Impulse (Nabokov, Brodskii et al.)”]. In Pamiat’ literaturnogo tvorchestva. Lidiia Sazonova, Moscow, 2014. 449-57.
  • “K kharakteristike nauchnogo naslediia V. F. Markova” [“V. F. Markov’s Scholarly Legacy“]. In Metodologiia I praktika russkogo formalizma: Brikovskii sbornik. Vypusk II: Materialy mezhdunarodnoi nauchnoi konferentsii “II Brikovskie chteniia.”. Moscow, 2014. 75–83.
  • “Futurizm i Arkhaizm. Zametki k teme” [“Futurism and Archaisms: Some Notes”]. In 1913: Slovo kak takovoe. K iubileinomu godu russkogo futurizma,. Materialy mezhdunarodnoi nauchnoi konferentsii (Zheneva, 10–12 aprelia, 2013). St. Petersburg, 2015. 113-130.
  • “K istokam khlebnikovedeniia v russkom zarubezh’erii” (“On the Origins of Kholebnikov Studies in the Russian Diaspora”). In Velimir Khlebnikov i russkii avangard. Materialy nauchnoi konferentsii. Velikii Novgorod. 17-19 oktiabria 2014. T. V. Igosheva. Moscow: Azbukovnik, 2015.
  • “‘Lichnaia’ mifologiia v poeme V. Khlebnikova ‘Khadzhi-Tarkhan’ (k rekonstruktsii zamysla poemy)” [“V. Khlebnikov’s ‘Personal’ Mythology in the Narrative Poem ‘Khadzhi-Tarkhan’ (Toward a Reconstruction of the Poem’s Underlying Plot”]. Velimir Khlebnikov i mirovaia khudozhestvennaia kul’tura. Materialy XII Mezhdunarodnykh Khlebnikovskikh chtenii, posviashchennykh 130-letiiu so dnia rozhdeniia Velimira Khlebnikova. Astrakhan: Izd. dom “Astrakhanskii universitet,” 2015. 6-19.

Courses

University of Pennsylvania

Undergraduate

  • Elementary and Intermediate Russian
  • Seminar on Pushkin
  • Survey of Russian Literature in Translation (1800-1870)
  • Survey of Russian Literature in Translation (1870-1960)
  • Introduction to Russian Civilization
  • Topics in Russian Culture (Study Tour of the USSR)
  • Dostoevsky
  • Senior Seminar in Twentieth Century Russian Poetry

Graduate

  • Post-Symbolist Russian Poetry
  • Eighteenth Century Russian Literature
  • Seminar on Russian Romanticism

Columbia University

  • Graduate Seminar on Russian Futurism

University of California

Undergraduate

  • Introduction to Russian Civilization
  • Introduction to the Russian Novel
  • Dostoevsky
  • Survey of 20th Century Russian literature
  • Senior Seminar on Pasternak and Sholokhov
  • Russian Literature and World Cinema
  • Introduction to Russian Drama
  • Christianities East and West
  • Eastern Christianity in Comparative Perspective: History, Culture, Dogma

Graduate

  • Proseminar
  • Survey of Early 20th Century Russian Literature
  • Movements and Genres

Seminars:

  • Russian Poetry (Poetic Sequences)
  • The New Peasant Writers (Kljuev, Klyčkov, Esenin)
  • Russian Futurism
  • Early Russian Romanticism
  • Russian Symbolism
  • Velimir Khlebnikov
  • Archaism in Russian Literary Culture

Leiden University

Undergraduate

  • Introduction to Russian Avant-garde Poetry
  • Russian Symbolist Drama

Graduate

  • Russian Comedy of the Eighteenth Century

Basel University

Undergraduate

  • Three Russian Futurisms: Khlebnikov, Pasternak, Livshits