During the stay in Lviv, Ryan will be researching the impact of Lviv's public memorials, museums, and statues on Ukrainian historical memory and perceptions of national identity. Using digital mapping platforms like ArcGIS as well as survey research, Ryan hopes to illuminate the ways in which spatial factors influence conceptions of nationhood and community within the city. He finds this research to be particularly urgent because of its connection to the study of nationalism, which has emerged as an important topic in both Europe and the United States over the past several years. The rise of right-wing, ultra-nationalist groups in Ukraine and other European countries makes questions regarding nationalism and national identity seem more compelling than ever and serves as an appropriate impetus for Ryan in his research.

The Fulbright U.S. Scholar research award for the 2019-20 academic year will support Marla’s proposal for a "" - specifically, at the old Jewish cemetery in Rohatyn. The project foresees physical preparation of a portion of the cemetery plus the research and development of detailed designs which can be used to plan and implement rehabilitation of the site, conserve recovered headstone fragments, create informational signage at the site, and promote shared memory. A key component of the project is the documentation of methods, designs, issues, and solutions for use in comparable Jewish heritage projects in the region. The goals of the project are securing and protecting this historic heritage site, helping to re-integrate memory of Rohatyn's former Jewish community into the modern life of the city, and networking with experts and activists in the region to share ideas and resources.

What stories do we tell about war? The military districts on the borders of the Soviet Union sponsored professional theaters: to raise morale, build community, and entertain the troops fighting the Cold War, and war stories were at the heart of their repertory. My book project focuses on one such military theater, on the frontlines of Soviet socialism, performing from Lviv to Kabul: the "Russian Dramatic Theater of the Sub-Carpathian Military District," or Teatr PrikVO. Through this institution, its people, its location, and its audiences, we can trace the shifting role of the public, the state, and the arts in the postwar Soviet Union and in wartime Ukraine today. In addition to researching book project, Mayhill hopes to contribute to the ongoing and important conversation about contemporary theater and the Soviet past through engagement with students, by teaching at the Faculty of Theater Studies and Performing Arts at Ivan Franko State University, and working with Lviv Interactive project and with the Center’s online resources about theater in the postwar period.

During her stay in Lviv Elżbieta plans to expand her research and merge intellectual history with urban studies. When residing in Lviv, she will gather materials for an article on how of the ‘Polish civilizing mission’ was reflected in Lviv’s urban space and architecture. Elżbieta is particularly interested in what meant ‘civilized’ and ‘backward’ in Lviv’s urban space? How was the ‘Polish civilizing mission’ and national domination exemplified in the historical centre? Where did Poles took their inspiration from: Habsburg, Prussia, or from more general European colonial depictions of non-European indigenous populations?

He wrote on modern urban planning in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia and is currently working on a book following his dissertation which deals with discourse and practices around informal construction in post-socialist Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In Lviv, Mišo will look for connections and contrasts between Western Ukraine and former Yugoslavia through the relationship of modern urban planning and post-socialist informal construction. He will record the architectural form and decoration of private buildings in public space, through their facades, and constellations in larger material scales, the landscapes. Informal construction, as a disruptive force in space, introduces diverse and unorthodox aesthetics to the public space and brings the presence of marginal signatures employed by diverse groups that engage in the practice.  By analyzing its visual language, Mišo plans to involve with broader questions of modern urban planning after socialism, cultural communication between the European east and west, and reconfiguration of builders’ professions and practices in increasingly integrating European economies governed by the investors.