This fall, Freedom Reads welcomed two University of Michigan PhD student fellows to the team. Meet Carina and Ryan below, and read on to hear about their experience working with Freedom Reads and what they will take away from their time here.
My name is Carina Zhur, and I am a PhD candidate at the University of Michigan’s Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures. One of my favorite novels (outside of Russian and Soviet literature) is The Midnight Library by Matt Haig.
I initially became interested in working with Freedom Reads because I believe in not only the power of books, but also in the privilege of being able to read–which I think should belong to everyone. Reading is both personally and professionally significant for me, especially as a first generation college student, and as the first in my family to attend a graduate program.
I am very grateful for the opportunity to work with Steven Parkhurst on a possible new fellowship initiative proposal, as well as with Madeline Sklar and Ivan Dominguez on the Readers for Freedom Reads campaign. Both of these projects taught me how to apply research skills to subjects outside of academia. In contributing weekly to the News of Interest on the Freedom Read’s website, I was inspired by the stories I read about truly remarkable individuals! Many thanks to the Freedom Reads team for the chance to learn about, and to be humbled by, the often echoing effects of incarceration on individuals, on their families, and on their communities.
I’m Ryan Hoaglund, a PhD candidate at the University of Michigan in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literature. My research examines cultural representations of the HIV epidemic in Russia, from the late 1980s to today. I am especially interested in literary works produced by members of the various “risk groups” for HIV: gay men, sex workers, and - most frequently in the case of Russia - injecting drug users. My goal is to understand how literature allows these largely unacknowledged writers to challenge dominant stereotypes and stigmas, reimagine their own lives and place in the world, and build solidarity and community with one another.
This has obvious resonances with the mission and activities of Freedom Reads, which is what attracted me to the internship. In the last few months, I have worked closely with Lori Gruen on researching and articulating Freedom Reads' “Theory of Change.” Ideally, this is a tool that facilitates external communication as well as internal evaluations of Freedom Reads’ impact. In my free time, I have been reading the novels of Orhan Pamuk. I just finished The Museum of Innocence.