klimanova

klimanova@arizona.edu

Phone

(520) 621-7344

Office Hours

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Klimanova, Liudmila

Associate Professor

Dr. Klimanova is Associate Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies and an affiliated faculty member of the Human Rights Practice Program and the National Center for Interpretation. Her research and teaching interests center on the intersections of language studies, multilingualism, multiculturalism, and technology. She teaches in the Russian Studies Program, the Second Language Acquisition and Teaching (SLAT) doctoral program, and the MA Program in Human Rights Practice. Dr. Klimanova also serves as Core Faculty and the Social-Cultural Dimensions Area Chair in the SLAT Doctoral Program.

Dr. Klimanova is the author of Identity, Multilingualism, and CALL (2022) and co-director of LLC Commons, a curricular resource project for Russian language instruction. She is also the principal investigator of Footprints, a program focused on educating language teachers in place-based learning and critical pedagogies. Her scholarly work has appeared in journals such as Foreign Language Annals, Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, Language Learning & Technology, Russian Language Journal, and others. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Russian Language Journal and an Associate Editor for the Issues in the Teaching of East European and Eurasian Languages and Cultures series. She serves as Secretary for the Computer-Assisted Language Instruction Consortium (CALICO).

Dr. Klimanova welcomes students interested in exploring the linguistic and cultural dynamics of technology, language learning, and multilingualism.

Courses Taught:

RSSS150B1 – Eastern European Cinema in a Social Context

RSSS150B2 – Multicultural Russia

RSSS308 – Communicating in a Cultural Context

RSSS461 – Human Rights in Eurasia

RSSS590 – Identity, Language, and Nation

RSSS597 – Language and Digital Media

RSSS579 - Second/Foreign Language Teaching and Learning

Currently Teaching

RSSS 150B2 – Multicultural Russia

This course explores the diverse ethnic, linguistic, religious, and cultural identities of Russia's population, including the history of how such identities have evolved over time. We will discuss encounters and conflicts between mainstream and minority cultures, as well as the ways such encounters are viewed on the global stage and within Russia. By analyzing works of literature, films, historical documents, linguistics, works of art, musical recordings, and scholarship from the humanities and social sciences, students will become familiar with the most pressing debates on diversity, post-colonialism, and plurality in contemporary Russia.

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RSSS 490 – Identity, Language, & Nation

This course explores, through a range of topics and theoretical lenses, the relationship between language, identity, and larger social and cultural contexts in Russia, the Post-Soviet geopolitical arena and beyond. We will first examine the ways in which language is used to create personal and group identities and how different cultural, social, and national identities are set off against one another, and against the criteria for inclusion or exclusion within and across national boundaries and various human communities of practice. We will then examine how particular forms of speech, language varieties, and accents are tied to specific traits of speakers and the ways in which the perception of particular people and the way they communicate impacts the projection of social and cultural characteristics. Finally, we will explore the critical dimensions of the language-identity relationship, looking at the function of language to build and divide nations, define peoples, create inequalities, and shape ideologies and local literacy practices in communities, digital spaces, and educational settings. Students will examine various approaches to theorizing identity in sociolinguistics and second language acquisition studies, and will learn to disentangle such constructs as multilingual identity, national\local\ethnic identity, subjectivity, self-concept, mobile identity, digital identity, the self-system, etc.

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RSSS 590 – Identity, Language, & Nation

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RSSS 497 – Language & Digital Media

This course examines, through a range of topics and research frameworks, a relationship between language and digital media and the many ways language communication dynamics operates across changing mediascapes. The course provides a solid foundation in relevant theoretical concepts balanced with practical exercises and creative projects. The course adopts a broad interpretation of the term "media" focusing on existing online media platforms as well as on the issues that arise from various uses of digital media for social, political, and cultural purposes, including virtual community building, digital semiotics, memes, viral spreads, surveillance, political opposition and oppression, and propaganda, marginalization and liberation, participatory cultures, production dimensions, etc. The course is designed for graduate and undergraduate students in Russian sociolinguistics, and (second) language studies interested in learning how to research digital media discourse. The course is taught in English; no knowledge of Russian language is required.

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RSSS 597 – Language & Digital Media

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