Romana M. Bahry

Teaching

Romana M. Bahry taught at York University for forty-seven years, from 1972 to 2019, and at the University of Toronto for four years before that. At York she directed twenty courses across three fields.

Russian and comparative literature

  • Russian and East Central European Film and Culture, 1993–2019
  • Russian Culture: Continuity and Conflict, 2017–2019
  • The Russian Novel in the Nineteenth Century, 1992–2004
  • Chekhov: Plays and Short Stories, 2003–2016
  • Tolstoy, 2007–2015
  • Dostoevsky, 2010–2014
  • Love and Death in Russian Literature: Romanticism, 2004–2017
  • Petersburg in Russian Literature and Culture, 2004–2016
  • Chekhov and His Contemporaries, 1995–2003
  • Aristocrats and Rebels in Russian Literature and Society, 2005–2006
  • Russian Literature After 1917, 1996–1999

Ukrainian literature and culture

  • Literature, Society and the Arts: Ukraine, 1975–1995. Team-taught with the historian Orest Subtelny, 1983–1987
  • The Ukrainian Short Story and Novel, 1985–1989
  • The Ukrainian Short Story and Novel in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, 1978–1982
  • Ukrainian Theatre, Drama and Film, 1982–1986
  • Ukrainian-Canadian Literature and Culture, 1985–1986
  • Modern Ukrainian Literature in English Translation (directed reading), 1974–1975

Ukrainian language

  • Elementary Ukrainian, 1972–1995
  • Intermediate Ukrainian, 1972–1992
  • Advanced Ukrainian, 1974–1992

Several of the literature courses were cross-listed with English, History and Humanities.

For her Ukrainian language courses she wrote the course text Hovorimo ukrainskoiu movoiu / Let’s Speak Ukrainian, an intermediate textbook with language drills, and a set of elementary drills.

Service to the department

  • Coordinator of the Russian Section, Department of Languages, Literatures and Linguistics: 1980–1983, 1990–1991, 1997–1999, 2003–2007.
  • Women’s Studies Advisor, Slavic Section, 1984–1994.
  • Member, departmental Tenure and Promotion Committee, five terms between 1979 and 2004.

Building Ukrainian studies at York

  • Liaison and fundraising for the York University Ukrainian Studies Endowment Fund, including the $100,000 drive that established it in May 1984.
  • Negotiated a Visiting Professor Fellowship in Ukrainian language and literature for 1990–1991 with the Taras Shevchenko Institute of Literature, Kyiv.
  • Arranged the donation of 35 mm glasnost documentary films from Kyiv studios to York University’s Scott Library, 1990 and 1991.
  • Organized guest lectures at York from 1974 and public screenings of Ukrainian films from 1973.

Course numbers, every year taught and every committee are in the curriculum vitae