IOPN Journals (Illinois Open Publishing Network)
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Tolerating Monsters: Challenging Extremism Through Animated Storytelling
Full text linkThis paper discusses an anime course titled Tolerating Monsters: Challenging Extremism Through Animated Storytelling, which brings together monster theory, tolerance, critical media analysis, and cultural influence to explore anime’s pedagogical potential. The course examines how animated narratives, especially those featuring nonhuman and monstrous figures, can encourage students to think critically, challenge prejudice, and develop greater acceptance of difference. By highlighting anime as both a tool of critique and a reflection of ideologies, the course demonstrates how media can be used to foster understanding, reflection, and ethical awareness in the classroom
Examining the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on community engagement with library programming at academic and public libraries through a survey approach
Full text linkProgramming and community engagement has always been a core tenet of librarianship. The COVID-19 pandemic radically disrupted how libraries were able to engage their patrons, and librarians are still seeking to understand its lasting impacts on library programming and community building. This study aims to explore how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted community engagement with library programming, identify common challenges for academic and public library programming, and pinpoint common approaches for successfully engaging communities following the height of the pandemic by administering a survey to academic and public library workers involved in organizing and/or facilitating library programming. From the survey, we found that while some academic and public library program offerings have returned to pre-pandemic engagement levels, others are still seeing a noticeable drop off. Both groups have experimented with different programming and marketing strategies to combat this issue. Multiple academic and public library workers noted that registration numbers were not indicative of attendance and drop-in hands-on programming tended to be more successful
From Exhibit to Engagement: Civic Literacy Programming in Academic Libraries
Full text linkThis article highlights a series of civic literacy and engagement initiatives developed through government information services at a large public research university library. Through Constitution Day programming, hands-on tabling events, workshops, and campus partnerships, these efforts have connected students and library users with government information in ways that support civic participation, critical inquiry, and awareness of their rights in a democratic society. Programs have ranged from interactive activities such as pocket Constitution giveaways and civic-themed trivia to in-depth workshops on voting rights and digital misinformation. A growing focus has also been placed on emerging issues such as the role of generative AI in civic discourse, helping participants build the digital literacy skills needed to evaluate information in today’s media environment. Collaborations with campus units and local community groups, including a public advocacy panel and voter registration efforts, further emphasize the importance of place-based civic engagement. While rooted in a specific institutional context, the strategies described in this article may serve as adaptable models for other libraries aiming to integrate civic learning and government information into outreach and instruction. By fostering engagement with foundational civic concepts and evolving policy issues, these programs underscore the enduring relevance of libraries in supporting informed, active, and critically literate communities
Peter I, Prokopovich … and Putin: The Russian State Narrative over the Longue Durée
Full text linkReview of: Endre Sashalmi. Russian Notions of Power and State in a European Perspective, 1462-1725: Assessing the Significance of Peter’s Reign. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2022. viii + 507 p. ISBN: 9781644694176
From Frontier to Borderland: Border Actors in Orenburg Province, 1735-75
Full text linkThis article examines the rise of borderland actors in Russia’s Orenburg province in the mid-eighteenth century. Established in the 1730s and the 1740s, the fortified line along the Iaik River became a hard border separating Russian-controlled Bashkiria and the Kazakh-Kalmyk steppes to the south. Using numerous case studies culled from the State Archive of the Orenburg Region, it considers the multi-national borderland communities (Tatar, Russian, Bashkir, Kalmyk, Kazakh, and Zunghar) that populated both sides of the Orenburg Line. Despite Russia’s attempts to control movement and monitor identities, border actors displayed considerable agency throughout this period, as their migrations, escapes, and crossings helped determine the transnational character of Russia’s southeastern region.  
Что нового рассказал “Мисопогон”о взаимоотношениях Петра I и его подданных?
Full text linkReview of E. V. Akel’ev, Russkii Misopogon: Petr I, bradobritie i desiat’ millionov “moskovitov,” Moscow, Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2022. 624 p. ISBN: 978-5-4448-1928-9.What New Things Does Misopogon Reveal about the Relations between Peter I and his Subjects?
The Bruce-Mengden and Cornelis Cruys Maps of the Lower Don (1696-1705): An Inflection Point in the Practice of Russian Cartography?
Full text linkMaps of the lower Don and Azov region produced by James Bruce and Cornelis Cruys in connection with Peter I’s 1696 Azov campaign appear to mark the point at which cartographic work undertaken on Russian territory by specialists in Russian service began moving beyond the traditional chertezh mapping model and embraced the principles of the new Western European geodesic cartography. This was becoming possible through greater familiarization with Copernican cosmography and higher mathematics, the importation of new instruments of observation, and the establishment of new centers of calculation on Russian soil. The adoption of the new geodesic cartography served the Petrine imperial project—not only in supporting communications and logistics on the empire’s frontiers, but in winning European acknowledgment of Russian Imperial sovereignty. The process of adoption also illustrates the manner in which a network of collaborating scholars in Russia and abroad was quickly assembled.
Cossacks, Empire, and the Enlightenment: From Orientalization to Republican Reappropriation
Full text linkThis article seeks to explore how Enlightenment narratives and categories framed the perception and image of the Zaporozhian Cossacks both in the imperial center and in the south-western periphery of the Russian Empire in the late eighteenth century. It demonstrates that Catherine II deployed the discourse of civilizational mission to justify the disbandment of the Zaporozhian Cossack Host and the liquidation of the Zaporozhian Sich. The historical works of Voltaire became an important source of inspiration for Catherine\u27s orientalist image of the Ukrainian Cossacks, which gained wide currency in the Russian Empire and was accepted by some representatives of the Ukrainian Cossack elite. On the other hand, the Enlightenment allowed some Ukrainians to challenge imperial hegemony by going beyond traditional estate and regional particularism and by rethinking the Cossack tradition as a democratic republican one and setting it against the supposed despotism of Imperial Russia
Making Sense of the Empire’s Others:Mikhail Chulkov’s Dictionary of Russian Superstitions and the European Enlightenment
Full text linkThis article is an analysis of Mikhail Chulkov’s Dictionary of Russian Superstitions, published in 1782. It places the dictionary in the historical and cultural context of Enlightenment Europe, from which the genre was drawn, and suggests that Chulkov’s use of the genre was part of his own efforts to fashion himself as a civilized, Enlightened man. The article considers the various practices and beliefs described in the dictionary and lays out the various categories of people those which “superstitious” practices and beliefs were ascribed. By comparing the various categories of people described in the dictionary, the article argues that Chulkov’s vision of the Others of the Russian Empire was characterized by a sympathy towards Orthodox Christians and a skepticism about the ability of non-Orthodox subjects of the empire to become civilized. It also considers how Chulkov’s treatment of women and Old Believers reveals his own anxieties about the persistence of superstition into an ostensibly Enlightened era of history
Inside the Linguistic Laboratory: The New Languages of Politics in Eighteenth-Century Russia and their Craftsmen
Full text linkReview of: S. V. Pol’skoi & V. S. Rzheutskii, eds., Laboratoriia poniatii. Perevod i iazyki politiki v Rossii XVIII veka. Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2022