
Dr. Hugh Agnew
George Washington University
Ph.D., History, Stanford University, 1981
Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Nationalism, language and identity; Czech-Slovak relations in and after Czechoslovakia
Mr. Orel Beilinson
Yale University, New Haven, USA (Graduate Student)
- orel.beilinson@yale.edu
- Beilinson website: http://www.orelbeilinson.com
Ph.D. History, Yale University, 2024 (expected)
Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: 19th-century and 20th-century history, literature, cultural history, everyday life
Dr. David L. Cooper
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Columbia University, 2004
Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Folktales, Romantic era literature, translation
Dr. Michael Cude
Schreiner University, Kerrville, Texas
Ph.D., History, University of Colorado at Boulder, 2013
Recent Publications:
- Co-author with Ellen Paul, “Czechoslovakia” in East Central European Migrations during the Cold War: A Handbook, ed. Anna Mazurkiewicz (Berlin: DeGruyter, 2019): 101-135.
- “The Transatlantic Slovak Question in the Interwar Period,” Slovakia (2019) 44, 82 & 83: 18-59.
- “Wilsonian National Self-determination and the Slovak Question during the Founding of Czechoslovakia, 1918-1921,” Diplomatic History (2016) 40, 1: 155-180
Dr. Kevin Deegan-Krause 
Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan
- kdk@wayne.edu
- Deegan-Krause website: www.pozorblog.com
Ph.D. in Government and International Affairs
Recent Publications:
- 2015. With Tim Haughton. Hurricane Season: Systems of Instability in Central and Eastern Europe Party Politics. Eastern European Politics, Societies and Cultures, 29(1): 68-80.
- 2019. With Sarah Engler and Bartek Pytlas. Multiple Varieties of Populism in Central and Eastern Europe. West European Politics.
- 2020. With Tim Haughton. The New Party Challenge: Changing Cycles of Party Birth and Death in Central Europe and Beyond. Oxford University Press.
Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Politics, Political Parties, Elections, Civil Society

Dr. David Doellinger
Western Oregon University, Monmouth, Oregon, USA
- doellind@wou.edu
- Doellinger website: https://wou.edu/wp/doellind/
Ph.D. History, University of Pittsburgh, 2002
Recent Publications:
- Turning Prayers into Protests: Religious-Based Activism and its Challenge to State Power in Socialist Slovakia and East Germany (Central European University Press, 2013)
Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Opposition and Resistance to State Socialism, Cold War, Religion
Mr. Kevin Duska, Jr.
The Ohio State University
M.A. Political Science, The Ohio State University, 2009
Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Eastern Slovakia, Rusin, Social Construction of Slovakia, Slovak Military Affairs
Mrs. Erin Dusza
Indiana University, Bloomington (Ph.D. Candidate)
M.A. Georgia State University
Recent Publications:
- “Pan-Slavism in Alphonse Mucha’s Slav Epic,” Nineteenth Century Art Worldwide, Vol. 13 Issue 1, Spring 2014
Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Czech and Slovak Art History and National Identity (19th- early 20th Century)
Joel Fetzer
Pepperdine University, Malibu, USA
- joel.fetzer@pepperdine.edu
- Fetzer Website: https://seaver.pepperdine.edu/academics/faculty/joel-fetzer/
Ph.D. Political Science, Yale University, 1996
Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Religion and Politics, Migration, Ethnicity
Dr. Tim Haughton

University of Birmingham, UK
- ‘Corruption, Campaigning and Novelty: The 2020 Parliamentary Elections and the Evolving Patterns of Party Politics in Slovakia’, East European Politics and Societies, 36 (3) (2022), pp. 728-752 (with Marek Rybar and Kevin Deegan-Krause)
- ‘Time Will Tell: Communism’s Shadow on Czech and Slovak Politics’, Securitas Imperii, 39 (2021), pp. 25-35
- The New Party Challenge: Changing Patterns of Party Birth and Death in Central Europe and Beyond Oxford: Oxford University Press (2020) (with Kevin Deegan-Krause)
Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Slovak Politics, especially parties and elections
Roman Hlatky
University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas (Ph.D. Candidate)
- rohlatky@utexas.edu
- Hlatky Website: romanhlatky.com
Recent Publications:
- Hlatky, Roman. 2021. “EU Funding and Euroskeptic Vote Choice,” Political Research Quarterly.
- Csata, Zsombor, Roman Hlatky, and Amy H. Liu. 2021. “How to head count ethnic minorities: validity of census surveys versus other identification strategies,” East European Politics.
Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Political Parties; Voting Behavior, Nationalism
Dr. Felix Jeschke 
LMU Munich, Germany (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München)
PhD History, University College London, 2016
Recent Publications:
- Iron Landscapes: National Space and the Railways in Interwar Czechoslovakia (New York: Berghahn Books, 2021)
- “’Mountain Men’ on ‘Iron Horses:’ National Space in the Representations of New Railway Lines in Inter-War Czechoslovakia,” in: Bohemia, 56.2, 437–55 (2016)
- “Dracula on Rails: The Pressburgerbahn Between Imperial Space and National Body, 1867–1935,” in: Central Europe, 10.1, 1–17 (2012)
Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Interwar Czechoslovakia, infrastructures, tourism, migration
Owen V. Johnson (1946-2022)
Indiana University
Ph.D., History, University of Michigan, 1978
Recent Publications:
- “Entertaining the People, Serving the Elites: Slovak Mass Media Since 1989,” in Media Transformations in the Post-Communist World: Eastern Europe’s Tortured Path to Change, edited by Peter Gross and Karol Jakubowicz (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2013), pp. 149-65
- “Failing Democracy: Journalists, the Mass Media, and the Dissolution of Czechoslovakia,” in Michael Kraus and Allison K. Stanger, ed., Irreconcilable Differences?: Explaining Czechoslovakia’s Dissolution (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000), pp.163-82
- Slovakia 1918-1938: Education and the Making of a Nation (New York: Columbia University Press/East European Monographs, 1985)
Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: history of sociocultural development, especially the history of mass media in Slovakia
Stanislav J. Kirschbaum
York University, Glendon College, Toronto, On, Canada
D.Rech. Political Science, Université de Paris, 1970
Recent Publications:
- Historical Dictionary of Slovakia, 3d edition, Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2014, lxxi & 415 pages
- “Význam ťažiskových aktivít SKS” in Peter Jašek, ed., Svetový kongres Slovákov v zápase proti komunistickému režimu, Bratislava: Ústav pamäti národa, 2018, pp. 85-96
- “Sister Margit Slachta of Hungary and the Deportation of Slovak Jews”, Canadian Slavonic Papers/Revue canadienne des Slavistes, LVI (1), 2019, pp. 99-116.
Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: History, politics
Dr. Michael J. Kopanic, Jr. 
University of Maryland Global Campus
Ph.D. History, University of Pittsburgh, 1986
Recent Publications:
- Kopanic, Michael: Štefánik, Milan Rastislav , in: 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, ed. by Ute Daniel, Peter Gatrell, Oliver Janz, Heather Jones, Jennifer Keene, Alan Kramer, and Bill Nasson, issued by Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin 2020-04-20. DOI: 10.15463/ie1418.11464. https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/stefanik_milan_rastislav
- “The Milan R. Štefánik Statue in Paulhan, France,” Naše Rodina, vol 31, no.3 , Sept. 2019: 116-125.
- “The Spanish Influenza Pandemic in Slovakia 1918-19,” Jednota, April 15, 2020 pp. 18-19, 2020, updated at https://umgc.academia.edu/MichaelKopanic
Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: 20th century Slovak History, Slovak customs, Slovak Immigration, Slovak labor history
Roman Krakovsky 
University of Ottawa, Canada
Ph.D., Univerité de Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne
Recent Publications:
- Le Populisme en Europe centrale et orientale. Un avertissement pour le monde ?, Paris, Fayard, 2019, 342 p.
- State and Society in Communist Czechoslovakia: Transforming the Everyday from WWII to the Fall of the Berlin Wall, London, I. B. Tauris, 2018, 326 p.
- L’Europe centrale et orientale de 1918 à la chute du mur de Berlin, Paris, Armand Colin, 2017, 312 p.
Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: politics, populism, minorities rights, social history, authoritarianism and democratization
Mr. Kevin J. McNamara
Associate Scholar, Foreign Policy Research Institute
- McNamara Website: http://www.kevinjmcnamara.com
- kjmcnamara57@gmail.com
M.A., Political Science, Temple University, 1995
Recent Publications:
- Dreams of a Great Small Nation: The Mutinous Army that Threatened a Revolution, Destroyed an Empire, Founded a Republic, and Remade the Map of Europe (New York: Public Affairs, 2016). Translated and re-published in the Czech and Slovak republics in 2020.
- “From Brussels, with Love,” The National Interest, no. 163 (September/October 2019): 41-50.
Online: “How America’s European Allies Got Stuck In a Foreign Policy Triangle,”
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/how-americas-european-allies-got-stuck-foreign-policy-triangle-74211 - “Milan R. Štefánik: His Under-Appreciated Contributions to Czecho-Slovak Independence,” Kosmas: Czechoslovak and Central European Journal, vol. 2, no. 1 (Spring 2019): 59-64. https://www.svu2000.org/kosmas/ebooks/pdf/Kosmas_Free_NS2019_02-1.pdf
Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Founding of Czecho-Slovakia, history of Czech and Slovak peoples. Geographic: Central Europe, European Union, Russia. Thematic: international relations vs. trans-nationalism; empires vs. nationalism, sovereignty, and national identity.
Dr. Christina Manetti
Polish Cultural Center (Dom Polski), Seattle, USA
Ph.D., History, University of Washington, 1998
Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: history, language, ethnography
Dr. Juraj Marušiak 
Institute of Political Science, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava
Comenius University in Bratislava, 2003
Recent Publications:
- MARUŠIAK, Juraj. “Czech Republic and Slovakia – Changing Perception of the European Integration Since 1989,” In Meandering in Transition. Thirty Years of Reforms and Identity in Post-Communist Europe. – London : Lexington Books (imprint of Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group), 2021, p. 109-134. ISBN 978-1-7936-5074-0 Hardback
- MARUŠIAK, Juraj. “‘Slovak, not Brussels Social Democracy:’ Europeanization/De-Europeanization and the Ideological Development of Smer-SD Before 2020 Parliamentary Elections in Slovakia,” In Politologický časopis – Czech Journal of Political Science, 2021, vol. 28, issue 1, p. 37-58.
- MARUŠIAK, Juraj – ZLATANOVIĆ, Sanja. “Slovakia as a Safe Country – The Perspective of the Slovak Community Members of Vojvodina,” In Slovenský národopis – Slovak Ethnology, 2020, vol. 68, issue 2, p. 136-160.
Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: political parties; contemporary history; Central European studies
Michael Mojher
Retiree, Sonoma State University Rohnert Park, CA USA
BA, Asian History, 1972
Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Slovak literature in English
Dr. Marty Manor Mullins 
Flathead Valley Community College, Montana, USA
Ph.D., History, University of Washington, 2013
Recent Publications:
- “Forgotten Velvet: Understanding Eastern Slovakia’s 1989,” New Perspectives: Interdisciplinary Journal of Central and East European Politics and International Relations, vol. 27, no. 3, (Winter 2019): 63-100. https://doi.org/10.1177/2336825X1902700304
- “Prague Spring on the Periphery: Eastern Slovak Steelworkers React to Reform and Invasion in 1968,” Kosmas: Czechoslovak and Central European Journal, vol. 1, no. 2 (Winter 2018).
- “Kicked Out: Czechoslovakia’s Postwar Policy toward Ethnic Minorities and Its Unintended Outcomes,” Slovakia, vol. 43, no. 80-81 (2017).
Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: History of Eastern Slovakia, Urban history, Contemporary Slovak politics
David Muhlena
National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library
- dmuhlena@ncsml.org
- Website: https://ncsml.org/
M.A. Library and Information Science, University of Iowa, 1992
Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Books, periodicals, archival materials, sheet music and sound recordings produced by the Slovak-American community.
Dr. Denisa Nešťáková 
Herder Institut, Marburg, Germany and Department of General History, Faculty of Arts, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia
- denisa.nestakova@gmail.com
- Nestakova Website
Ph.D. History, Comenius University in Bratislava, 2018
Recent Publications:
- “Jewish Centre and Labour Camps in Slovakia,” in Between Collaboration and Resistance. Papers from the 21. Workshop on the History and Memory of National Socialist Concentration Camps, Berlin: Metropol, 2020.
- “Regulation of sexual relations between Jews and non-Jews according to the Decree 198/1941 during the Slovak republic,” Judaica et Holocaustica 7. Women and WWII. (eds. Nešťáková, D. – Nižňanský, E.) Bratislava : Hlbina, 2016. pp. 89-117. (with Eduard Nižňanský)
- “Swedish interventions in the Tragedy of the Jews of Slovakia,” Nordisk judaisk. Scandinavian Jewish Studies. (Illman R. – Zetterholm Hedner, K. eds.) vol 27, No. 2, 2016. pp. 22-39. (with Eduard Nižňanský)
Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: 20th century History; Holocaust Studies; Gender Studies
John Palka
University of Washington, Seattle (Emeritus)
- www.jpalka.com (Palka website)
UCLA, Ph.D. 1965 (Zoology)
Recent Publications:
- “Independent but Not Alone: The Long Intellectual Journey from Nationhood to Integration,” Kosmas New Series Vol.2, No. 1, pp. 19-31 (2019).
Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: History and culture
Ms. Vanda Rajcan
Northwestern University
M.A. History, Illinois State University, 2010
Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: World War II, Holocaust, Slovak wartime state
Mary Ann Malinchak Rishel
Weill Cornell Medical College – Qatar
MFA, Cornell University
Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: History; culture
Dr. Cecilia Rokusek
National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library – Professor Emeritus Larkin University, Miami Florida

- Ph.D., Education, University of South Dakota/Vermillion, 1983
Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Interprofessional education and public health and medicine; also arts and culture in my current position
Ms. Tanya Silverman
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (Ph.D. graduate student)
M.A., Charles University, 2018
Recent Publications:
- Tanya Silverman (2023) “Bohemians in 1970s New York City: perspectives on Miloš Forman and Ivan Passer’s films,” Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 43:1, 148-166, DOI: 10.1080/01439685.2022.2096314
Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Film, visual arts
Dr. Marian Mark Stolarik
University of Ottawa 
Ph.D., History, U. of Minnesota, 1974
Recent Publications:
- Editor, The Czech and Slovak Republics: Twenty Years of Independence (Budapest: CEU Press, 2017).
- Author, Where is my Home? Slovak Immigration to North America (1870-2010) (Bern: Peter Lang, 2012).
- Editor, The Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia, 1968 (Mundelein, Il: 2010).
Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: All of Slovak history
Veronika Szeghy-Gayer

Senior researcher, Institute of Social Sciences, Centre of Social and Psychological Sciences, Slovak Academy of Sciences
Ph.D.–Cultural Studies Department, Doctoral School of History, Eötvös Loránd University of Science, Budapest, Hungary, 2016
Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Interethnic relations; Nationalism; Urban History; History of Slovakia; Hungarian minority in Czechoslovakia, 1918–1948; Jewish communities in Slovakia until 1945
Dr. Leslie Waters 
The University of Texas at El Paso, USA
PhD. History, UCLA, 2012
Recent Publications:
- Borders on the Move: Territorial Change and Forced Migration in the Hungarian-Slovak Borderlands, 1938-1948 (forthcoming from University of Rochester Press)
Dr. Svorad Zavarský
Independent Researcher affiliated with the Instituto Storico Slovacco di Roma, Bratislava
Ph. D., Slavic Studies & Neo-Latin Studies, Slovak Academy of Sciences & Comenius University, 2010
Recent Publications:
- “The Idea of Encyclopaedia at the University of Trnava around 1700,” Early Modern Universities and the Sciences, ed. Vittoria Feola (Milano: Franco Angeli, 2020) 56-82.
- “Martinus Szent-Ivany’s Notion of scientia: Some Preliminary Notes on the Semantics of Neo-Latin Science,” Acta Conventus Neo-Latini Albasitensis, ed. Florian Schaffenrath – María Teresa Santamaría Hernández (Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2020) 675-687.
- ‘‘Et meus vere paradisus audit: mandra, Poesis’: The poetry of Antonius Faber Written and Published in Bratislava between 1831 and 1853,’ Christophe Bertiau – Dirk Sacré, Le latin et la literature néo-latine au XIXe siècle: Pratiques et représentations (Roma-Bruxelles: Academia Belgica, 2019) 159-185.
Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: The Latin Culture of Early Modern Slovakia, Classical Reception, Early Modern Intellectual History of Slovakia, Jesuit Studies, Piarist Studies, The Works of Martinus Szent-Ivany S.J. (Martin Svätojánsky), Latin-Vernacular Relations in the History of Slovakia, The Latin Culture of the Slovak Greek Catholics