Individual Bios


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)

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 US_Passport-Test_Kevin2 - Kevin Deegan-Krause

Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan

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

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 DuszaMucha n Me - Erin Dusza

Indiana University, Bloomington (Ph.D. Candidate)

M.A. Georgia State University

Recent Publications:

Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: Czech and Slovak Art History and National Identity (19th- early 20th Century)


Joel Fetzer

Pepperdine University, Malibu, USA

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)
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 jeschke - 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. KirschbaumSJK.Glendon - Stanisalv 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. DSC_855_Stefanik 100th anniversary of death_Michael Kopanic keynote speech_May19 2019 - Michael Kopanic

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 img_2637_carre-roman-krakovsky-1

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. McNamarakm-book-pix-web-kevin-mcnamara

Associate Scholar, Foreign Policy Research Institute

M.A., Political Science, Temple University, 1995

Recent Publications:

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 Manetticm-photo-crop - 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 Juraj Marusiak31 - Juraj Marusiak

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 Manor Mullins Picture

Flathead Valley Community College, Montana, USA

Ph.D., History, University of Washington, 2013

Recent Publications:

Areas of Interest in Slovak Studies: History of Eastern Slovakia, Urban history, Contemporary Slovak politics


David Muhlena

National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library

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 _91A8644-min - Denisa Nestakova

Herder Institut, Marburg, Germany and Department of General History, Faculty of Arts, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia

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)

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

crokusek@ncsml.org

  • 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)

tanyapic - Tanya Silverman

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 Stolarik Portrait - Mark Stolarik

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 Leslie tiny pic

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



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