BLOOMINGTON, Ill.— Illinois Wesleyan’s Isaac Funk Professor and Professor of Russian Studies Marina Balina, will lead a multi-disciplinary delegation of faculty members from Wesleyan, Illinois State and the University of Illinois on a weeklong conference to Russia, where they will discuss global children’s issues. The group leaves on Sept. 23 for Moscow and St. Petersburg for their second international colloquium with prominent Russian scholars.
The conference, titled “Transforming Childhood,” is the second organized by Balina, who has written extensively on Soviet-ear children’s literature and modern Russian life. The colloquium is supported, in part, through funds provided by the Funk Foundation endowed professorship she holds. This second gathering will build on the dialog that began in September 2010 when eight Russian scholars from several of that country’s most prominent institutions visited Illinois Wesleyan.