Peter Kusliy
formerly Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Philosophy, now University of Massachusetts, Amherst
NYI changed my life. It helped me realize that I want to change my profession and gave me an exclusive opportunity to start a new career. I was over 30 when I first came to this school in 2012. Intensive learning in formal semantics and syntax gave me a chance to appreciate these disciplines and realize that I want to pursue my studies in theoretical linguistics. After coming to NYI for several years I was able to apply and be accepted to a leading program in linguistics in the United States and give up my former profession. Right now I am in my forth year in the graduate program but continue to come to NYI for additional training and discussions with its outstanding faculty. I really appreciate the opportunity to come to NYI and I am very grateful to those who make this summer institute possible.Rajesh Bhatt
UMass, Amherst
The NYI was an intellectually stimulating experience. I learned a lot from my students as well as from the other classes. The research interests of a significant subset of the faculty overlapped in such a way that the students got a true "stereo" experience. But the most exciting thing for me were the students: rarely have I taught students who were so eager. Their enthusiasm allowed my introductory syntax class to be simultaneously about foundational and cutting-edge issues in syntactic theory.Barbara LeSavoy
Director Center of Women's and Gender Studies, SUNY College at Brockport
NYI is extraordinary. I serve as Director of and faculty in Women and Gender Studies at The College at Brockport, State University of New York (SUNY). And I taught three very different seminars at NYI for three consecutive summers beginning from 2014-17. In addition to teaching at NYI, in 2015, I brought one American student, and in 2016, I led nine American students to NYI. Our NYI learning experiences have been life altering. Unlike the majority of US study abroad options, NYI places students in a global classroom where they learn from top-notch scholars from across Russia and the world. Similarly, NYI allows American students to live and learn with Russian students from across the country, forging diverse and lasting friendships. They come home as global citizens and with a love for Russian life and the Russian people that stays with them. Current political instability between nations makes NYI even more significant, where we must make every effort to protect and nurture our joint international collaborations. NYI is a strategic model of educational diplomacy across nations.Nerea Madariaga
University of the Basque Country
For me, the NYI program in Petersburg was the bestsummer program, because my speciality is Russiansyntax and only with the NYI program could I have excellent teachers of formal linguistics from the USA (where I cannot afford to go to study) and Russianlanguage all together. I think it is a unique chance for all European people that are working on linguistics or cultural studies.Nick Callaway
NYI was a great program, especially because of all the types of learning it involved. There was learning about language, about society, about Russia, and about my own culture from a new perspective. The professors and the environment are excellent catalysts for all kinds of learning. A very well constructed program that deserves a long life.
What I valued most about V-NYI was how people crave dialogue. Professors, students - it was important for everyone to exchange opinions and information and have an open discussion. And the NYI-V program gives you a chance not only to answer questions, learn something new but also to listen to people from all over the world. After NYI, my head was bursting with ideas and further questions and new answers. I haven't felt so inspired in a long time!
What I appreciated most was an opportunity to take a leap in Gender and Race studies, which are almost completely absent as a topic in our university system. It was an incomparable academic experience
The greatest thing for me was the opportunity to communicate with brilliant scholars from around the world, to look from a more global perspective at burning contemporary issues
Patrice Brodeur
Canada Research Professor on Islam, Pluralism and Globalization
In my opinion, the most important aspect of this program is the cross-cultural encounter that fosters multiple dimensions at once, thus leading to a truly transformative learning experience for all those involved, students, faculty and staff alike.
NYI is that rare opportunity to connect with great minds around the world. The approach is both professional and friendly. You feel part of something valuable, great and rare
Robyn Stein deLuca
Dept. of Cultural Analysis and Theory, Stony Brook University
NYI was a fantastic experience because of the great camaraderie among students and faculty.
A unique set of professors and lecturers, the ability to create an individual schedule based on personal scientific interests, an inspiring community of enthusiastic people from all over the world,
I have been part of NYI since 2019 and it definitely one of the best things in my professional life. I learned so much about different topics, but the most important, I learned that we should never stop learning and that we should not limit ourselves to only one topic, different fields should and must be connected. Also, NYI is one of the best things for me privately because it gave me the opportunity to feel such energy and atmosphere that is really unique in the academic world. NYI remains a constant inspiration for me!
Sayan Dey
Alliance University, Bangalore, India
"NYI is not just an official school for academic and intellectual exchanges, it is a family where we all care, share, cry, laugh and heal each other.Jonathan David Bobaljik
Professor of Linguistics, 2016-2017 Guggenheim Fellow, University ot Connecticut
The wonderful NY-St. Petersburg Institute of Linguistics, Cognition, and Culture has been and remains an extremely stimulating event, of mutual benefit in many ways to all the participants, staff and students alike. Within my own field (theoretical linguistics), NYI has proven to have a rich talent pool of engaged, intelligent, intellectually curious students, many of whom have gone on to international prominence at the junior level. In addition to the recruiting for our graduate program, the Institute provides an exceptional environment for scholars at all levels, from undergraduates through established faculty, to engage with one another intensively for three weeks in a stimulating setting. Not only do we have the opportunity to dive deeply into intellectual matters, bringing differing perspectives and backgrounds to the discussion, but the close contact over the extended time allows us many opportunities to get to know each other, reaching out and establishing personal bridges across cultures. My classroom lectures may largely be limited to the theoretical material, but meeting new people every year in this format allows for robust, challenging, and stimulating exchanges of ideas on all manner of topics outside of the main classroom environment. This is a wonderful institute, and eminently deserving of continued support. It certainly has mine!
It was amazing being in a (virtual) room with students from so many different locations; it's always humbling and paradigm shifting when listening to folks from locations different from your own & working through ideas together.
Having such a diverse array of teachers and students, from universities and cities all over the world, made for a unique experience and exposed me to some fascinating viewpoints.
Learning about new things, ideas, concept and topics. Meeting new people from all over the world and making new friends. And I always wanted to attend Prof David Pesetsky syntax class. So THANK YOU V-NYI team for making my dream come true. ;)
V-NYI gave me the opportunity to get informed about the latest methods of research in modern cultural studies (which are not widely discussed in Russia yet)
Dasha Savchenko, Junior Faculty
My name is Dasha Savchenko and I am a graduate student at Pskov St Pedagogical University. As in my home university there are no professors in my sphere, I was lucky to become a participant of New York Institute for Cognitive and Cultural Studies in St. Petersburg. This experience was really illuminating and provided me with the powerful boost to keep on working in cultural studies. The whole experience became even more fulfilling when I was telling my colleagues back in Pskov about the seminars and some of them came up with an idea to take part next year. But the most precious part of my experience is the printed handouts and course materials provided for free by the NYI during the seminar. It has all the up-to-date information that our universities don’t have an opportunity to buy. So now the material that I have brought is kept in our department room, and everyone is really enthusiastic about new information coming.
Everything was really well organized: the schedule, the materials and also the atmosphere was serious and relaxed at the same time.
Slava Shevchenko
Department of English Philology
I've never participated in such a program before. This program is unique because the organizers invented a very good combination of linguistic, psychological, political, sociological and gender classes. These classes were combined with lectures, films, group discussions, round tables, so nobody felt tired at the end of the day.Jonathan Rawski
Stony Brook PhD program in Linguistics
I first encountered NYI as a cognitive neuroscientist interested in language, and it transformed me professionally and personally into a linguist. I was on a master's fellowship at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, and attended NYI twice in two years and now I am 2nd year PhD student at Stony Brook. NYI is to a large extent the driver behind the choice of doctoral subject and university I chose. It is a unique place where students and teachers from all over Russia and the world study together, exchange ideas, and advance scientific and cultural studies. Everyone comes with different expectations and aspirations, and leaves a richer, more developed human. The amount of good JohnBailyn's program has done for Russian and US linguistics and students of all kinds from Russia isincalculable, and it should be maintained as such.Ulises Mejias
Prof. of Media Studies, SUNY Oswego
Apart from the opportunity NYI provides to engage intelligent and dedicated students from Russia and elsewhere, I want to emphasize that the fruits of my interactions extend well beyond the classroom. For instance, I recently published a paper I co-wrote with a former Russian student in the journal Media, Culture and Society, a top journal in my field published by SAGE. I have also advised students—not just from Russia, but from other countries as well—on their theses. To me, NYI embodies the promise that, regardless of the occasional diplomatic impasse between governments, the people of these two great nations can come together and learn from each other. I don’t know of any other US-Russia program that has the same consistent record of success, and I hope there will be continued support of this great effort.Dr. Barbara Tomaszewicz, PhD, USC
Post-doc, University of Cologne
I am a Polish citizen and in 2007 I was in my first year of a PhD program in linguistics in Germany when I attended NYI. I had attended summer schools in linguistics before (the 2 week EGG, Eastern Generative Grammar, and the 4 week GLOW Summer School) but I found NYI much more inspiring and in-depth, specifically because the faculty where from the US where the linguistics PhD programs are much structured than those in Europe and their classes at NYI were simply much much better organized. As a result, I decided to apply to PhD programs in the US, mostly those whose faculty I met at NYI, and in 2008 I started my studies at University of Southern California. I graduated with a PhD in 2015 and now I am a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Cologne, Germany. The training I received from USC has provided me with more expertise than most of my colleagues here have (my PhD dissertation was in formal semantics, but now I work as a psycholinguist running eyetracking and EEG studies). Without NYI I would have never made it to USC and I doubt I would still be in academia today.Danille Arendse
Stellenbosch University, South Africa
One of the most exciting spaces to learn, engage and create! If you have not participated in VNYI yet, PLEASE give it a TRY! You will thank me later :-)Ivan Zakharjashchev
Department of Linguistics
I could feel the excitement of the theories being carried over by the people who taught at NYI. The teachers come from an academic community where these theories are being actively developed, so they are able to transfer the excitement, to try to explain the deep underlying ideas. Our people in Moscow come from an academic community with different history and different focuses of interest, and so they cannot present the same theories as at NYI with that deep excitement. So, NYI is a good way to get acquainted with the theories that are not in focus here.Robert Hoberman
Professor of Linguistics
Teaching at NYI was one of the most stimulating and rewarding academic experiences I have had in my nearly 40 years of university teaching. My students at the NYI came from various parts of Russia and from many other countries, and were students not only of linguistics (my field) but also psychology, computer science, mathematics, literature, and cultural studies. This variety of backgrounds and training made for a uniquely thrilling interaction for me as well as the students. After each season I stayed in touch with a few students, and I know at least six or seven who have gone on to graduate degree programs in the US. One changed her field of study after the NYI and later wrote to me, "I wanted to thank you again for your class at NYI, which did the most important thing in the long run, namely, made me think in the whole direction of language usage and formed the interest in the field. Thank you for inspiring me!"There are many international academic institutes and workshops, but to my knowledge the NYI is absolutely unique in the richness, diversity, and depth of the encounters that it fosters between American and Russian scholars and students, as well as those from other countries.Tanya V. Shilina,
I have to confess that I was most excited about the opportunities that the NYI could bring to young Russian scholars like myself. Both jr faculty members and graduate students get a valuable hands-on teaching experience attending lectures of eminent professors and learning techniques of working or co-teaching in an international classroom. It is indeed a unique opportunity to further one's own work in a cross-disciplinary setting, to associate with distinguished faculty, and to contribute to this innovative humanities project.Julia Vashtalova
The experience I had this summer during the New York summer school session is invaluable in the truest sense of the word. I come from Tomsk, Siberia, and for me it was not just getting new knowledge and friends but also a gateway to my further career. Owing to participation in the project, I found an opportunity to continue my studies and research. And now I am part of the NYI administration! The perspectives on different cultures was the most valuable part.about Polly Gannon and Leah Lowe
"Fascinating content, manageable workload, many discussions, inspiring and highly knowledgeable professors, friendly and creative atmosphere."
"As usual, they suggested tremendously interesting pieces to read and raised very important issues for discussion! I think they talked about the things (historical, cultural details) that not many of us really knew, so that we had a chance to llok at the issues from a different angle."
Barbara Partee
UMass, Amherst
I loved teaching in the NYI in 2003 and 2005, and sitting in on other faculty's great courses. Loved the varied evening programs, including fascinating films and really interesting people giving riveting talks. Loved the mixture of students and young researchers from different backgrounds and their stimulating questions and discussions. Loved the camaraderie among students and faculty. Loved St Petersburg in the summer. And the organizers and their helpers make it all work beautifully!E. K. Tan
Stony Brook University
NYI-St. Petersburg offered me the opportunity to share my knowledge with and learn from students from diverse backgrounds. This short three-week program was a wonderful experience where I was immersed in a cultural tradition that was wonderfully rich and mesmerizing..Mark Sowul
Stony Brook University
NYI had an indescribable impact on my life. At NYI I made close friends, learned new things, found new hobbies, and in St. Petersburg found a second home. If you are looking for something new in your life, you’d probably be hard-pressed to find a participant who wasn’t changed for the better.
The best thing about V-NYI was the opportunity to engage with researchers and fellow students all over the world. The classes were really diverse.
The democratic process of learning and communication.
Leonard H. Babby
Professor of Slavic Linguistics
The NYI program is, from my point of view, a work of art.
I value critical thinking and challenging the domination of situated knowledge in order to decolonise the knowledge production.
Geoff Grecynski
Department of Linguistics
In July 2005, I attended the New York-St. Petersburg Institute of Cognitive and Cultural Studies at St. Petersburg State University. Its directors have created a robust, fascinating program. I studied with students from my age to my father's, from many different countries and disciplines, and learned much from interacting with them. The curricula varied as much as the student body: I chose from a wide array of seminars, covering linguistics, psychology, philosophy, literature, film, gender studies, and the media, taught by instructors from numerous overseas and local universities. My professors communicated clearly and always facilitated discussion.Masha Esipova
Moscow State University, now NYU PhD program
NYI has been crucial to my professional development. It helped me discover and develop a passion for formal linguistics and also got me interested in sign language research, which is still one of my key interests. Apart from that, my experience at NYI allowed me to establish a professional network that was pivotal in my success in graduate school application. The faculty I met at NYI wrote me recommendation letters and provided guidance throughout the whole process. As a result, I got several offers from some of the best linguistics departments in the US, including my top choice school where I am currently a PhD student.Francesca Foppolo,
Center for Cognitive Neuroscience
I chose this particular program for the courses offered and the professors listed in the program – my main interest is linguistics and the topics were extremely interesting and all the professors were well-known names in the field. But this school turned out to be far more than a professional enrichment! What I found when I got there was a totally absorbing reality: I spent mornings and afternoons and evenings together with the students and the professors of the program, sharing ideas, amusements and interchanges, in class and outside class. I really hope to have the opportunity to repeat this experience next year, and I’m sure everybody who participated in the NYI in 2004 is looking forward for the 2005 edition! At least I am, for sure!Darcie Vandegrift
I believe the strength of the program was the opportunity for students and faculty to experientially learn about many things. I was in the minority in terms of academic discipline (the only sociologist/anthropologist), but I felt that the students gained insight into qualitative research methodology and U.S. perspectives on globalization. We discussed in depth issues of identity in the 21st century, negotiating gender, family, and work in a post-fordist era, competing conceptualizations of globalization. The students developed an open-ended interview which most then completed with a respondent outside of the course. The methodological discussions were, for me, as rewarding as the conversations about globalization. In short, I found the Institute a delight and appreciate the organizers’ efforts in bringing me to participate.Asma Barlas
Professor of Religious Studies and Politics, Ithaca College
NYI is not just a school with a solid academic reputation, but it is also a model of collaboration between the U.S. and Russia in a range of academic disciplines. As all U.S. Consuls who have spoken at its summer sessions ever year have remarked, such cooperation is especially important at a time of difficult political relations between both countries. Hopefully, they say this not as lip service to an abstract ideal but as an honest recognition of the value of initiatives like NYI. Beyond that, the school has succeeded in attracting many U.S. students to St. Petersburg and facilitating the recruitment of Russian students to programs in the U.S. What better results can one hope for?
The most valuable thing about VNYI is the range of important classes I had access to. I am sure that someone like me would not have access to this unless I enroll in a big expensive uni. So, thank you for the grant and thank you for all your efforts. Loved it.
New approaches to traditional problems in the humanities
What an opportunity to listen to people working in my field! It's vital to listen to other scholars, which we miss so much since March 2020 Loved the international students and staff. I learned a lot!
In V-NYI, even though the meetings were virtual, they made me feel like we were there, physically. V-NYI brings the whole world of students and professors together. This is a true melting pot of culture, language and cognition!
The best thing about NYI I think is the intense level of reflection and interesting discussion. My classes intersected with the lectures and the world around us. Amazing.
It was my first international experience academically. It was wonderful and enriching time
NYI has given me so much motivation to continue studying linguistics...which is priceless in times of the covid pandemic when we are struggling with a decrease in motivation and depression...
What I loved most about V-NYI was the interactive aspect of the classes. The teachers were always willing to discuss the content covered in class after the seminar was over,
Christopher Potts
Professor of Linguistics
My teaching experiences at the 2004 and 2005 New York Institute were among the most satisfying of my career so far. The institute's organizers worked hard to establish a serious yet welcoming atmosphere, and my students were knowledgeable and highly engaged. Their comments were fresh and enlightening, as were the faculty lectures and symposia. I came home intellectually enriched. The NYI achieved an impressively high level of substantive cross-cultural and multidisciplinary communication. I feel fortunate to have taken part in it.Phuong Pham
St Jose State University
Virtual NYI has given me as a student who has no institute a chance to be updated and educated with a supporting community of learners and teachers. It is important for me to build capacity in writing and discover new possibilities in art.Aleksandr Kavgic
Department of English Linguistics
So far I have participated in a number of summer schools and institutes, some of which were organized and/or funded by The European Commission. However, all of them are completely overshadowed by the 2004 NY Institute. The selection of courses was excellent and it covered all the most interesting and latest topics in cognitive sciences and cultural studies which, needless to say, I cannot hear about at my host institution. However, the most important thing is that the lecturers were fantastic. All in all, the best institute I have attended so far!Peter Carravetta
D’Amato Professor of Italian Studies European Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, Stony Brook University
I taught in the Program in the Summer, 2014, a seminar on “Postmodernisms,” and it was a superlative experience. I had graduate students from all over: St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev, Zagreb, Phoenix, Ankara, Warsaw and other places, including from Siberia (can’t recall name of the city). The program itself is a paragon of organization, intellectual exchange, student interest and success stories. In three weeks in St. Petersburg just about every day I engaged in a cultural activity, listened to talks held at our center, and got to meet faculty also from all over the world. The students, whether Americans, Russians, or from any other part of the globe, loved the program, they appreciated the diversified faculty, the range of courses (from strictly linguistics ones to broad cultural, historical, or on specific themes), the opportunities to grow, and the establishment of future relationships.I should add that I have had the fortune of teaching in similar programs in Paris, Madrid, and Rome, and I can say without blinking that our Stony Brook in Russia program is the best.
I love how inspiring NYI is. Everybody’s loving what they’re doing and it makes you excited for knowledge too.
Liliya Khasanova
I am glad that I participated in the program because it broadened my mind and changed my outlook. I got information about what I had been thinking before but which I couldn't come across at my university as almost nobody is doing research into evolution of mind or psycholinguistics there. What I learnt at NYI conforms to what I think serious science should be. I liked the busy schedule, the interesting courses, numerous hand-outs with information which is impossible to find in our libraries in Kazan, professors that put their whole soul into their work. Everything was great! And the most important thing is that I want to go on studying, this time in America. And this is owing to NYI !about Barb LeSavoy
"Barbara LeSavoy was able to create such a safe space for people to express themselves, i had a great time"
"The professor is stunning. The seminars were creative and inspiring."
"The thought provoking discussions were incredible!"
I cannot overestimate the full engagement all organisers to develop V-NYI into a virtual format. In times of the corona virus, this is a real and global achievement.
The space for free dialogue and discussion, great courses, lectures and workshops and me trying to take part in creating an intellectual international community
Alëna Aksënova
Formerly Moscow State University, now Stony Brook University PhD program
Some summer schools are very intense and you can feel yourself growing every day. Some summer schools are fun where you enjoy every moment. Some schools are inspirational, where you meet professors and students from all over the world and they make you think about things you would never face before, thus changing you and your picture of the world. The NYI summer school combines all of the above.After the first time I went there I thought "Wow, linguistics is fun. Let me learn more about it!", and after the second time I realized that I might try to apply for a graduate school to know more. Currently I am a fourth year graduate student at Stony Brook University, doing a PhD in Computational Linguistics, and it is only because of John Bailyn and NYI summer school at St. Petersburg!Janet Dean Fodor
Distinguished Professor of Linguistics
I found the experience of teaching at the NYI Institute enormously rewarding. I have encouraged my colleagues to consider participating in the future. And I would strongly recommend a summer, or more than one, at the Institute for any graduate student or beginning faculty member who is eager to engage in research on language and cognition and who swishes to gain an international perspective on recent trends in cognitive research methods and finding.about Razvan Sibii
teaching "Covering vulnerable communities in international journalism""Although I study Linguistics, I participated in this class more than in any other. I enjoyed every aspect of it and I started thinking differently about journalism."
"Raz is a great speaker and it was a great pleasure to listen to him. He gave us some great food for thought, tipps and suggestions for writing articles and finding stories"
"Very eye-opener course on journalists' work from the inside: how to find and confirm the information, how and where to find spokespersons. It made me look on articles from different perspective and differentiate good from bad journalism."
Lena Anishchenko
The NYI school is a great place to meet people in your field, people who share your interests, which for me isn’t the everyday situation. The best thing about the school is that it offers various subjects, combining linguistic, cultural and cognitive studies. This allowed people who specialize in these fields to go beyond their narrow subject, which I think is crucial for interdisciplinary research.Ivan Soklolov
UCal Berkeley PhD Student in Comp Lit
NYI was the first venue for me to get introduced to what education really is about in western academia. It was a huge change after having been raised in the Russian system to find out that topics pertaining to my everyday life (violence, feminism, implications in media, human response to lyric work) may be the subject of study in an academic environment. I had never had such diverse, open and motivating professors as at NYI and it was a tremendous motivation behind my decision to continue education abroad. 50% of my success in getting enrolled in a US PhD programme I owe to NYI, to the knowledge and skills I got there as well as the connections I made. Having three completed NYI sessions in my portfolio made me a desirable player on the job market as well as facilitated application to quite a few projects, stipends and residencies.I am saying this with all sincerity: without NYI, I would not have the life I have now, without NYI, I would not know half of what I know now, without NYI, I would not be living with my partner now in a country that does embrace same-sex marriages. And I know many other students whose trajectories were as deeply affected by their NYI experience as mine. Rather remarkable for some three weeks per year, don't you think?
The lectures cover a vast and satisfying range of topics for beginners as well as for advanced learners. Professors are amazing and able to convey their interest for the discipline they teach.
I valued having an opportunity to not only gain the insights of professors I look up to, but interact with students across the globe. It was honestly the perfect experience..