Dr. Bohdan Shumylovych
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Dr. Bohdan Shumylovych

historian and art historian, researcher (2011 – present), coordinator of exhibitions and Urban Video collection (2008-2011), researcher and head of the Urban Media Archive (2011-2019), head of the Public history projects (2020 – 2021), head of the Educational projects (2022 – 2023)

Bohdan Shumylovych holds a diploma in art history from the Lviv Academy of Arts (Ukraine, 1993–1999) and earned a master’s degree in modern history from the Central European University in Budapest (Hungary, 2004–2005). As a Fulbright fellow (JFDP program), he worked with the archive of the Faculty of Visual Arts at George Washington University (Washington, USA) and, during his MA studies, was also involved part-time with the Open Society Archives in Budapest. Using his experience of working with archives and his competencies as a historian and art historian, Bohdan formed the first archival projects of the Center for Urban History. An important contribution to the Center's archival practices was the formation of a film and television collection, which was later united into the Urban Media Archive. In 2020, Bohdan completed his PhD at the European University Institute in Florence, and he currently serves as an associate professor in the Department of Cultural Studies at the Ukrainian Catholic University.

At the Center for Urban History, Bohdan works as a researcher, delivers lectures, contributes to the development of thematic exhibitions, and conducts educational projects.

His academic interests center on media history in East Central Europe and the Soviet Union, as well as media art, visual studies, urban spatial practices, and creative cities.

  • 2024: Research fellow at OHPA (Open Society Hub for the Politics of Anthropocene, CEU, Vienna), comparative analysis of war-caused urbicid and urban development in Ukraine (cases of Lviv and Kharkiv).
  • 2024: Research project Late (post)Soviet Ukrainian art: urban creative groups and their involvement with the place/space of the 1980s-1990s. CEFRES non-residential fellowships for Ukrainian researchers in humanities and social sciences, granted by the French Center for Research in Humanities and Social Sciences, Prague.
  • 2024: Research project War Dreams as Texts of Endangered Scholars (Documenting Ukraine): Non-Residential Documenting Ukraine Fellowships funded by Institute for Human Sciences (Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen, IWM, Vienna).
  • 2023: Expert – Support program for Ukrainian studies named after I. Lysiak-Rudnytskyi.
  • 2023: Expert – Decolonial guide – Ukrainian version, Ukrainian Institute, ICOM Ukraine, MA (Museum Association), British Council
  • 2023: Research project Dreams of war: documenting life experiences. Hertziana Grants for Art Historians in Ukraine Funded by Getty.
  • 2023: Research project Academics Facing Autocracy: Alternative Modalities and Transnational Resilience in Higher Education, Open Society University Network (OSUN Global Visiting Fellowship)
  • 2022: Research project Diaries of War: Documenting Life Experiences of Spring 2022 (Documenting Ukraine), Non-Residential Documenting Ukraine Fellowships funded by the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM, Vienna) and the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University (HURI).
  • 2022: Project leader: Ukrainian Urban Film Cultures Since the 24th of February 2022: Researching Afterlives of the Russian Military Invasion of Ukraine. Research project funded by the University of Lodz (Poland), duration: May-September.
  • 2022: Visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study (Zukunftskolleg) of the University of Konstanz (Germany). Affiliated with the Department of History and Sociology, May-October. Project: Healing the socialist body: The Ukrainian broadcasts of Anatoly Kashpirovskii.
  • 2018-2020: Project participant: Mobile Bodies and Memory across Borders, a research group at the European University Institute in Florence (under the auspices of Dr. Luisa Passerini).
  • 2018-2020: Project participant: Ukrainian Labor and Siberian Oil in the Late Soviet Empire, a research study organized by The energy and climate research group at the European University Institute in Florence (under the auspices of Dr. Alexander Etkind).
  • 2019: Project leader: The city of the twentieth century through the prism of the digital age: an educational platform for working with cultural heritage (funded research and public history project); the project was implemented by the Center for Urban History with the support of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation. Video recordings and online storytelling.
  • 2018: Project leader: Actualization of cultural heritage through the unpacking of the audiovisual past (funded research and public history project), the project was implemented by the Center for Urban History with the support of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation, summer-autumn 2018.
  • 2014-2018: (funded research) Ph.D. fellow at European University Institute (Florence, Italy),
  • 2012-2014: Researcher: Creative Milies of Lviv: 1970-1980s, oral history project, Center for Urban History, Lviv, Ukraine. 
  • 2005-2007: Fellow, Academic Fellowship Program (AFP), Returning scholar, Open Society Institute, High Education Support Program (OSI HESP), Lviv, Ukraine.
  • 2003-2004: Research Fellow, Program for MA Courses Development, Center for Humanities, Lviv National University, Lviv, Ukraine.
  • 2004: Research participant in the project Swedish colonies in Ukraine; co-research in Southern Ukraine; working with the local community. Partner – Södertörns högskola (Södertörn University, Sweden). Ukraine, October.
  • 2001-2002: Fellowship program, Junior Faculty Development Program, George Washington University, Washington DC, USA.
  • 2024: Lecturer at the: Winter School on Digital Humanities, organized by the Center for Urban History and Ukrainian Catholic University, January 15-19 (offline).
  • 2024: Lecturer at the course Sound as Practice and Art, organized by Lviv Radio, January 17-31 (offline).
  • 2024: Developing, moderating, and disputing at the seminar: Vidrkyti Fondy (Open Funds), organized by the Cultural Strategy Institute, 17 May, Lviv (offline).
  • 2024: Developing, moderating and disputing at the summer school: Gaining Voice in Time of War: Debate Culture, Media, and Institutions in Post-February 2022 Ukraine and Beyond, (organized by Invisible University for Ukraine and Center for Urban History), 29 June – 07 July, Lviv (offline).
  • 2024: Lecturing at the course: Advocacy and Art, organized by YMCA, 20 September, Lviv, (offline).
  • 2024: Developing, moderating, and disputing at the workshop: War, Art, Anthropocene: Anticipating Uncertainty, 30 September, Center for Urban History, 3 September, Lviv (offline).
  • 2024: Participation and moderation at the seminar: Histories and Legacies of Digital: From Soviet Cybernetics to Local Histories of the Internet, Center for Urban History, 3-4 October, Lviv (offline).
  • 2024: Developing, moderating, and disputing at the public discussion: Structure Without Walls: Why Do Artists Need Temples?, Jam Factory Art Center, 20 October, Lviv (offline).
  • 2023: Participant of the workshop: Empire, Memory, and National Identity: Comparative Historical and Cultural Perspectives, (Nottingham, UK), November 6-8. (online).
  • 2023: Curated and facilitated the summer school: Cultural Representation, Decolonization, And Canon-Building: Ukraine Before and After 2022. Supported by the Invisible University for Ukraine and organized by the Central European University, 30 June – 7 July 2023  (offline).
  • 2023: Lecturer: 3rd Summer School Borderlands Studies in East Central Europe and the Black Sea Regions, organized by the Center for Interethnic Relations Research in Eastern Europe (Ukraine) and Center for Governance and Culture in Europe at the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland), Chișinău, Moldova, 25 June – 4 July 2023 (offline).
  • 2023: Curated and facilitated an international online workshop: Documenting Dreams of War, organized by the Center for Urban History, May 15 (online).
  • 2023: Curated and facilitated an international seminar: Documenting War Dreams in Ukraine, Sleepless Nights, Dreamy Nights: Working with Dreams and Other Nighttime Documents in Eastern Europe and Beyond. Organized by the Center for Urban History, CERCEC/EHESS (France), The Harriman Institute, Columbia University (USA). Columbia Global Center in Paris, October 20-21 (offline).
  • 2021: Co-curator: City, Trauma, and Art: Reflecting on Stanislaw Lem’s Anniversary, series of academic and public events dedicated to Stanislaw Lem, Center for Urban History, September-December.
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  • 2021: Curator: To Mountains from a City: Imagining Carpathians in Arts and Culture, international lecture series and the conference, organized by the Center for Urban History (Ukraine) and the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland), March-June.
  • 2021: Curator: Urban Scraps: City, Media and Visuality, Learning course produced by the Center for Urban History (Ukraine) and the Adam Mickiewicz Institute (Poland), Series of video recordings and educational content.
  • 2020: City and Art on the Edge (digital project), Lviv Interactive (online platform of the Center for Urban History).
  • 2019: Curator: Historicity of the Visuality and Image History: New Forms of Digital and Visual History/Humanities, Center for Urban History, L’viv, 14-15 November.
  • 2018: Curator: Digital Mapping and Historical Imagination, Digital History Seminar, Center for Urban History (Ukraine), University of St. Gallen (Switzerland). L’viv, 17-18 May. 
  • 2018: Curator: Digitizing and Maintaining [archival] Collections, Digital History Seminar, Center for Urban History (Ukraine), University of St. Gallen (Switzerland). L’viv, 23 November.

2024: Bohdan Shumylovych and Joshua First (eds.). From the City to the Mountains: Imagining the Carpathians in Culture and Art, Euxeinos 14 (36).  

2023: Soviet Media After 1968: Visuality, Corporeality and Identity. Luisa Passerini and Dieter Reinisch (eds.), Performing Memory: Corporeality, Visuality, and Mobility after 1968, Making Sense of History Series, Volume XYZ, P. 71-94, New York/Oxford: Berghahn Books, ISBN 978-1-80073-996-3.

2023: Solid Television: Ukrainian Art of the 1990s and its Media. Slavica TerGestina (Television in Eastern European Literature, Art, Film and Theatre), Vol. 30, Issue 1, P. 234-291, ISSN1592-0291. 

2023: Ukrainian Cinematic Culture During the War. IMAGES. The International Journal of European Film, Performing Arts and Audiovisual Communication, T.XXXIV, Nr. 43., P. 111-126. 

2022: Preserving the now! Mediating memories and archiving experiences in Ukraine (co-author), NECSUS_European Journal of Media Studies (published by NECS, European Network for Cinema and Media Studies), December (online).

2022: Vil’ Furhalo. Archive. Hunting for the bodies. Saliut: Ukrainian photography magazine, #2 (2022), P.92-96.

2022: Communist attitude to work, 1960s, Reesources. Rerhinking Eastern Europe, Center for Urban History, 04 November.

2023: Roman Himey and Yarema Malashchuk: New Jerusalem (Zarvanytsia, 2020), KinoKultura, Issue 81 (2023): Focus on Contemporary Ukrainian Documentary. 

2022: Hollywood on the Dnieper. Dreams from Atlantis, KinoKultura, Issue 77 (Focus on Ukraine), July.

2021: ‘I see myself seeing myself.’ Photographic experimentation in Soviet Ukraine, Eurozine, 18 January.

2021: Hypnosis and Lviv television [Гіпноз і львівське телебачення], Matrix, 11 May (in Ukrainian).

2021: Pobachyty sebe: deshcho pro sub’yektyvnistʹ kharkivsʹkoyi fotohrafiyi, Museum of Kharkiv Photography (in Ukrainian).

2021: Bringing Lem Back Home, Transitions Online Magazine, 15 December. 

2021: How Ukrainian television created Kashpirovsky [Як українське телебачення створило Кашпіровського], Zaxid.net, 29 December (in Ukrainian).

2020: Ukrainian Labor and Siberian Oil in the Late Soviet Empire (co-authored with Alexander Etkind and Evgeniy Poliakov). Journal of Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society, Vol. 6 Issue 2, P. 241-280. (ISSN: 1614-3515; 2364-5334).