Carol Reynolds

Dr. Carol Reynolds weaves history, humor, and high energy into everything she does.  She has lived and taught in Germany at various times, starting in 1981.  Her research interests include German Romanticism and the musical court of Frederick the Great.  She founded and directed Southern Methodist University’s Study-in-Germany Program and enjoys leading tours, including a Rhine-Main-Danube Donors’ Tour for the University of Maryland and the University of North Carolina as well as Russian tours for The Dallas Symphony and The Dallas Opera.  She is fluent in German and Russian and maintains a home in Weimar.

After her career as professor of Music History at SMU, Dr. Reynolds and her husband Hank moved to a ranch in North Central Texas.  Surrounded by goats, dogs, and cows, she began designing multi-media Fine Arts curricula.  Her popular Discovering Music: 300 Years of Interaction in Western Music, Arts, History, and Culture (2009) has reached students across the world.  In 2011 she released a cross-discipline course called Exploring America’s Musical Heritage.  She is now creating a curriculum on the history of sacred music from Jewish Liturgy to 1600.  

Dr. Reynolds is a staunch advocate of Arts Education at every stage of life and speaks regularly at educational conferences across the U.S.   She is popular speaker for organizations like The Dallas Symphony, Van Cliburn Concerts, The Dallas Opera, Tulsa Symphony, Kimball Museum, Fort Worth Opera, San Francisco Wagner Society, The Davidson Institute, and The Smithsonian Associates in Washington, D.C.   Dr. Reynolds is a frequent Smithsonian Journeys Expert and has led unforgettable journeys to Russia, the Baltics, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Germany.

Hugh Agnew

Hugh Agnew has been fascinated by the lands and peoples of Russia and Eastern Europe since he first walked into a Russian language class in 10th grade. Having decided as an undergraduate to major in History and focus on the region, he pursued doctoral study at Stanford and became a history professor. He has taught graduate and undergraduate courses on the history of Eastern Europe and the Balkans, the Russian Revolution, Europe from Cold War to Detente, the Habsburg Empire, and nationalism at Queen's University in Canada, the National University of Singapore, and (since 1988) at the George Washington University, where he is a member of the Institute for Russian, European, and Eurasian Studies at the Elliott School of International Affairs. He is also Senior Associate Dean for Academic and Faculty Affairs at the Elliott School. Agnew has published books on Czech history and many articles on aspects of East European history, the Habsburg Empire, and European history. His insightful talks on past Smithsonian Journeys throughout Eastern Europe have made him a favorite with Smithsonian travelers.

Alexander J. Motyl

Alexander J. Motyl (Ph.D., Columbia University, 1984) is professor of political science at Rutgers University-Newark. He served as associate director of the Harriman Institute at Columbia University in 1992-1998. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia, and the USSR, he is the author of Pidsumky imperii, 2009; Puti imperii, 2004; Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires, 2001; Revolutions, Nations, Empires: Conceptual Limits and Theoretical Possibilities, 1999; Dilemmas of Independence: Ukraine after Totalitarianism, 1993; Sovietology, Rationality, Nationality: Coming to Grips with Nationalism in the USSR, 1990; Will the Non Russians Rebel?; State, Ethnicity, and Stability in the USSR, 1987; The Turn to the Right: The Ideological Origins and Development of Ukrainian Nationalism, 1919 1929, 1980, and the editor of over ten volumes, including The Encyclopedia of Nationalism, 2000. He is currently compiling The Holodomor Reader: An Anthology of Documents on the Ukrainian Genocide, 1932-1933. His novels include Whiskey Priest, 2005; Who Killed Andrei Warhol, 2007; Flippancy, 2009; and The Jew Who Was Ukrainian, 2011.

John Micgiel

John S. Micgiel is a historian specializing in the modern history of East Central Europe. Having received his Ph.D. from Columbia University, he spent nearly three decades teaching in the University’s School of International and Public Affairs where he was, among other administrative assignments, long-time Director of the Institute on East Central Europe. Professor Micgiel has authored or edited ten books on the region and is a frequent visitor to its academic institutions.  For many years he has been recurring Visiting Professor at Warsaw University’s East European Centre.

Christopher Brennan

Christopher Brennan, lecturer at the London School of Economics and Political Science, is a historian of Central and Eastern Europe with a special interest in the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, Germany and the history of the Czechs. Though British, he grew up in south-western France. He obtained a BA in Modern Languages (German and Russian, plus Czech) at the University of Bristol and a Master’s in Slavonic Studies from Oriel College at the University of Oxford.

Dr. Brennan studied for a PhD at the London School of Economics on the subject of the collapse of the Habsburg Empire and the responsibility therefore of its last monarch, Emperor Karl I. He taught undergraduates for four years, with a one year hiatus in Paris lecturing American undergraduates on French history and on the history of Eastern European Communism. He has  written on the memory of World War I in the former Habsburg Empire and on the Balkan Wars. He authored chapters to two volumes on the collapse of Austria-Hungary and its aftermath and is now working on a biography of Karl I.