About PCUH

Faculty Associates and Affiliates

Bohdan Kordan

Dr. Bohdan S. Kordan

Professor in the Department of Political Studies served as founding Director of the PCUH (1998-2004).  Dr. Kordan has been with St. Thomas More College at the University of Saskatchewan since 1993.  Prior to coming to St. Thomas More, he held research and teaching positions at the University of Alberta (1982-85) and Grant MacEwan College (1988-93).  He was also invited to the University of Toronto (Erindale College) in 1991 as a Visiting Research Professor.  His current research interests include the politics of state/minority relations with specific reference to Ukrainian Canadians and Canadian multiculturalism policy.  Widely published, his most recent books include the PCERII research sponsored project Ukrainian Canadians and the Canada Census, 1981-1996 (Saskatoon: Heritage Press, 2000); Canada and the Ukrainian Question, 1939-45: A Study in Statecraft (Montreal-Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2001); Enemy Aliens, Prisoners of War: Internment in Canada during the Great War (Montreal-Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2002); and A Bare and Impolitic Right: Internment and Ukrainian-Canadian Redress (Montreal-Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2004).

Natalia Khanenko-Friesen

Dr. Natalia Khanenko-Friesen, Director (2009-2012)

An Associate Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Religious Studies and Anthropology, came to St. Thomas More College in 2001. Dr. Khanenko-Friesen earned her Ph.D. in Anthropology and Ukrainian folklore from the University of Alberta (2001). She has previously taught at the University of Toronto (visiting professor in Slavic Studies, 1999-2000) and Harvard University (lecturer, Harvard Summer School, 1994-2001), where she also coordinated the Harvard Summer School Ukrainian Language Program (1998-2000) and directed Harvard Ukrainian Summer Institute (2001). At the University of Saskatchewan, she has established in 2002 and now coordinates the Summer Session in Ukraine. Her current research interests include transnational and diasporic constructions of identities and communities; memoir writing, narrative and oral history, post-Soviet ethnological discourse in Ukraine, and post-Soviet Ukrainian identity and culture. Her articles, book chapters and reviews appeared in Anthropology of Eastern Europe Review, Canadian Folklore, Ethnologies, Journal of Ukrainian Studies, Rodovid (Journal of Ukrainian Ethnology), Slavic and East European Journal, Spaces of Identity, Canadian American Slavic Studies and various book collections.

Nadya Foty

Nadya Foty

After completing one of the last degrees offered in Ukrainian Studies at the University of Saskatchewan in 1999, Nadya was accepted into the Master’s program in Ukrainian Folklore at the University of Alberta, where she studied and worked until her return to Saskatoon in 2009. In 2003, Nadya defended her Master’s thesis entitled “Ukrainian Mock Weddings in Saskatchewan: A Celebration of Folk Burlesque” and was thereafter hired to work on the federally-funded “Local Culture and Diversity on the Prairies” oral history project as both fieldworker and project co-manager. Following her participation in the project, Nadya began working as Archivist at the Bohdan Medwidsky Ukrainian Folklore Archives, where she was employed until her move back to Saskatoon. In 2007, Nadya began work on her PhD program in Ukrainian Folklore, focusing on ethnographic methodology and two specific Ukrainian Canadian oral history projects, and is currently preparing for her candidacy exams this summer. In 2008, Nadya co-authored an exhibit and catalogue entitled “Ukrainian Weddings,” which has been displayed locally in both Edmonton and Saskatoon, as well as in various Canadian locations as far as New Brunswick since then. Given her language and folkore teaching experience obtained at the U of A, Nadya began teaching beginner and intermediate Ukrainian language classes at Saint Thomas More College  in the fall of 2009. Concurrently, she commenced her research associateship with PCUH, as well as taking on various administrative responsibilities.