Immortalism and Transhumanism in Russia
Guest: Anya Bernstein on The Future of Immortality: Remaking Life and Death in Contemporary Russia published by Princeton University Press.
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Socialism: Past, Present, and Future
Nuclear Fallout: Science and Society in Eurasia
Spying, Archiving, Reporting: Information in Eastern Europe
“We Shall Refashion Life on Earth!” Youth in Eurasia
Central Asia
Russian Revolution
Stalinism
US-Russia Relations
Previous Episodes
The Politics of Immigration in Russia
September 7, 2019
Guest: Caress Schenk on Why Control Immigration? Strategic Uses of Migration Management in Russia published by University of Toronto Press.
Central Asian Migrants in the USSR
September 2, 2019
Guest: Jeff Sahadeo on Voices from the Soviet Edge: Southern Migrants in Leningrad and Moscow published by Cornell University Press.
Domestic Service in the USSR
August 24, 2019
Alissa Klots on domestic service and aging in the USSR.
A Russian Voyage of Empires
August 17, 2019
Guest: Edyta Bojanowska on A World of Empires: The Russian Voyage of the Frigate Pallada published by Harvard University Press.
Russian Socialists in the Struggle for Democracy
August 10, 2019
For the past few weeks, protests for fair elections in upcoming municipal polls have become weekly in Moscow and St. Petersburg as thousands have defied authorities to attend unsanctioned rallies. The police crackdown has been particularly harsh in Moscow. Protests on July 27 and August 3 resulted in over 2000 detentions. Images of police in riot gear wrestling citizens to the ground and beating peaceful protesters were reminiscent of the mass protests against election fraud in 2011-2012.
Members of the Russian Socialist Movement, a small Marxist, anti-Stalinist organization active in the Russian left, have been participants in local electoral campaigns and in the protests. Two RSM activists, Valeria Kovelishina and Ilya Budraitskis talk about the Russian Socialist Movement, their electoral work, the protests for democracy in Russia and what they might mean for the future.
Witnessing the Collapse of Communism
August 2, 2019
Roundtable discussion marking the 30th anniversary of the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. Participants include Timothy Garton Ash, Bridget Kendall, and Jens Reich.
Rasputin, the Man and the Myth (Rebroadcast)
July 27, 2019
Guest: Doug Smith on Rasputin: Faith, Power, and the Twilight of the Romanovs.
The Evictors
July 19, 2019
Around Moscow, there’s a whole industry of so-called “black creditors” — microfinance institutions (or MFOs) that swindle and seize debtors’ homes. Ivan Golunov’s investigation for Meduza has discovered that almost 500 apartments have been seized from their owners over the past five years without so much as a court order. In fact, this scheme involves more than simply “squeezing” people from their homes. It is possibly part of a wider, international money-laundering system. Here’s Meduza special correspondent Ivan Golunov on the ins and outs of this industry.
Russians on Trump (Rebroadcast)
July 13, 2019
Guest: Laurence Bogoslaw on Russians on Trump: Press Coverage and Commentary published by Eastview.
Gender and Electoral Self-Polishing in Mongolia
July 5, 2019
Manduhai Buyandelger’s keynote address “Self-Polishing and Electoral Selves: Elections and the New Economies of Democratization in Postsocialist Mongolia” given at the 2019 Annual Soyuz Symposium.
