Interview with SAS Graduate | Dana Kakenova
Why did you join the SAS?
After graduating fr om high school, I went to St. Petersburg, wh ere I enrolled in the university in the Oriental Studies Department in the Chinese language group. However, I did not like the teaching system, the relationship between teachers and students, and the living conditions in the dormitory. As a result, I withdrew my documents fr om this university, the next year I retook the USE and entered SAS. I learned about the School from my friend, who also enrolled here. Studying in English was not a problem for me. On the contrary, I knew that it would be much more interesting for me to study in English: I knew it well, talked and read a lot in it. Sometimes it is even more convenient for me to formulate my thoughts in English than in Russian. Perhaps because I read more in English.
How did your parents feel about your choice of SAS?
My dad's main thing is that I should be comfortable, and of course my mom wants that too, but it's also important for her that I should be successful. When I took my documents from the first university, she was very upset because she thought it was more “prestigious”, but I explained to her why SAS was the best choice for me, that I would be able to move on after studying at the School. So that's what happened. She is satisfied now.
What did you like and what did not meet your expectations at SAS?
Comparing the experience of studying at the two universities, I emphasize in SAS the relationship between the teacher and the student, the opportunity to choose a learning trajectory and, of course, the community itself. In many ways, my educational trajectory has been shaped by my interactions with the people here. There is also a sense of a certain meaningfulness to what is happening at the School. It is difficult for me to do something without interest, so when writing essays, I was always attached to topics that were personally interesting to me. It's the same with my diploma: I wouldn't have been able to write it in the form in which I finally handed it in if I hadn't been interested in working on it myself. Among the negative aspects, I would probably single out the fact that in the first two years of study there were courses that were not interesting and incomprehensible to me. I understand that this is part of the compulsory curriculum, but such courses as “Numerical Methods” and “Problems of Modern Natural Science” caused in me only fatigue and the question: “Why am I here?” Also, we sometimes had to choose the topic of the final project for this or that course about the second week of the quarter, and during the course of the study there could be a desire to change the topic, but it was already chosen. And in the last week of the quartile you put a lot of effort into finalizing the essay, but then most often you forget about it. For example, sometimes I wanted to study a certain topic further, but when you are on fire with deadlines and need to write three or four more essays on other courses, you lose interest in the topic and the desire to write about it. As a result, a topic that could have grown into a very interesting project became some kind of Frankenstein's creation. At the same time, I realize that this format implies a learning system. If we studied by semesters, maybe it would be easier to do long-term projects, but it would be a different educational model.
What courses did you like to study?
By the 11th grade I already knew that I was a humanitarian. In 10th grade, I enrolled in the Ugra Physics and Mathematics Lyceum in Khanty-Mansiysk. I studied there for a month, realized that it was not my thing, and persuaded my parents to take me back. In other words, when I entered SAS, I clearly knew what I was interested in. And all the things I'm not interested in take five times as much effort. The first two years in SAS were difficult because not only humanities subjects were taught. On the one hand, having interesting compulsory courses like Art History, which I would have chosen anyway if it were an elective, is useful. On the other hand, I would have made computer science, which I almost failed in my first year, and other non-humanities subjects elective - for those who want to try, have doubts about choosing a major, or purposefully want to study it. Most of the courses I enjoyed were at the end of my second and third year: for example, the history courses of Peter Jones and Tomasz Blusiewicz and several courses of Peter Lesnik, the head of the Film and Media profile. These probably provided me with the most information that I applied in my studies. Siavash Azeri's course “Entering the subconscious mind and its construction” was also very much enjoyed. And the art course gave me the idea to maybe try my hand at curating someday. I ended up forming two majors, Cultural Studies and Film and Media.
What is your thesis about?
The topic of my thesis is “Orientalism and Gender: creating discourse in letters from Egypt by Sophia Lane Poole”. I worked together with my profile supervisor Erika Wolf and my supervisor Joanna Longden. Erika helped with the structure of the work: she was constantly monitoring, pushing me to deadlines, giving very sound advice, building objective boundaries that I could put myself in to make it easier to get through the work. And Joanna helped a lot with the content. She lives in London and found some archival documents in local libraries that I couldn't find online. She was also an absolute support during difficult periods: I could write to her, call her and just talk to her. At the defense of the diploma, I was interested in sharing the work I had done, listening to what questions it might raise, and participating in the discussion. In the end, many questions were asked, and all of them were divers — about the construction of discourse, determining the authenticity of the author's letter, sources of information; they asked whether we could consider illustrations to letters, i.e. visual material, as supporting male imperialist discourse or not; they even raised the topic of whether the work of a Western woman creates a positive or negative image of Islam. Dmitry Bayduzh was the one who asked the most questions. By the way, he also helped me with my degree when he was leading the course at the beginning of fourth year: he found a lot of sources that were very useful to me. It was a pleasure to see him and answer his questions.
Have you been involved in any extracurricular activities?
Olga Golechkova, the instructor of the course “Making History” and SAS visiting professor, invited me to work on an article co-authored with her on the topic of xenophobia towards people of Asian appearance living in Tyumen. The article is not ready yet, but a lot of work has already been done. We have collected a lot of material, conducted about twenty full-fledged hour-long interviews with representatives of different nationalities - Buryats, Kirghiz, Kazakhs, Tatars and more. So far, I have reworked the information into an abstract for the second issue of Sonder Mag (the art magazine of the creative association Sonder Art). In winter, I was its curator, by the way. I highly advise you to familiarize yourself with our local art. If anyone is interested, the first pages of the issue contain an excerpt of an article by Olga and me.
What do you plan to do after completing your bachelor's degree?
I will study at a master's program in Austria. I applied without much hope because the tuition there is very expensive (at least for me), but I was lucky: I received a grant that fully covers my tuition and an additional monthly stipend. Maybe I will continue working on the topic of my thesis. At my defense, Dmitry Bayduzh joked (or maybe not) that he expects me to write a book of at least one hundred and twenty pages on the results of my research. Perhaps someday it will be.
What is SAS to you?
SAS is wh ere I spent most of my time. Socializing with friends and professors, working on academic assignments, even personal stuff my classmates and I often did here: just coming in and working on the first floor. My classmates are my best friends. In the first years of study we had our own atmosphere: we studied and spent free time together, constantly mixed in groups and saw each other in different courses. We had some of the fondest memories as well as some of the hardest, especially the last year was very difficult. Overall, of course, the highlights of studying at SAS are related to the teachers and students.