How would Raskolnikov use Twitter?
Continue reading...Now You See It, Now You Don’t: Perceptions of Income Inequality in Russia and the US
How do Russians view wealth and income inequality as compared to their US counterparts? More importantly, how often are they asked?
Continue reading...The Day of Family, Love and Fidelity: “Traditional Values” and Church-State Relations in Russia
On Tweeting Part One of Crime and Punishment
Some Themes from Michael Holquist (1935-2016)
In the difficult, vacant days following Michael Holquist’s death, his thought serves as one source of consolation.
Continue reading...Teaching The Master and Margarita: A Pedagogical Field Note
If I had to choose a book to bring on a desert island, I wouldn’t choose this one.
Continue reading...No Netflix, No Chill: Russia’s Culture Minister Would Rather Purge than Binge
In the West, we’ve long been familiar with the clear and present danger of Netflix.
Continue reading...ZERO Die In Russian Gay Night Club Shooting. You’ll Never Guess the Reason Why.
The Post-Soviet Future of FX’s The Americans: A Modest Proposal
Barriers to Entry: AIDS, Condoms and Rank Stupidity in Russia
Throw out your condoms and pick up your Bibles (but try not to confuse the two, or you’ll run afoul of Russian laws protecting the delicate feelings of religious believers): HIV is a medical problem whose only solution is spiritual.
Continue reading...Vegans vs. Sausage-Wielding Nationalists; or, How I Miffed Your Motherland
Vegans: occasionally self-righteous but well-meaning advocates of good health and animal welfare, or traitors to the Motherland? And why would post-Soviet nationalists see seitan as a path to Satan?
Continue reading...Catriona Kelly approaches “period zapoya” through cinema
On May 13, 2016, the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia and the Tisch School of the Arts welcomed Catriona Kelly for the last colloquium of the Spring 2016 semester, entitled “Period zapoya: Alcohol and Cinema during the Brezhnev Era.” Kelly, who is a Professor of Russian at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of the British Academy, was introduced by Eliot Borenstein, Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies at New York University. The former president of Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) and a prolific writer, Kelly spoke briefly about her ongoing project – a book on the Soviet cine underground, a history of film in Leningrad during the post-Stalin era.
Continue reading...Panel on Russian-Ukrainian conflict urges constructive dialogue and a global perspective
On May 4, 2016, the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia and the NYU Russian Club held a panel discussion entitled “Beyond Political Games,” dedicated to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict from the historic and cultural point of view. Panelists included Yanni Kotsonis, Director of the Jordan Center, Lucan Way, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto, and Peter Zalmayev, Director of the Eurasia Democracy Initiative. The panel was introduced by Rossen Djagalov, Assistant Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies at NYU. “In my experience, [this is a topic] that doesn’t really encourage meaningful dialogue for the most part, which is precisely why it’s important,” Djagalov said.
Continue reading...Evgeny Finkel applies Tocqueville to the 1861 and 1905 Russian reforms
On May 6, 2016, the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia welcomed Evgeny Finkel, Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University, for a lecture titled “Tocqueville Warning: Reform and Rebellion in Imperial Russia.” During the event Finkel presented the findings of a joint project with Scott Gehlbach, Professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, devoted to the seeming contradiction between reforms as a preservation mechanism for autocracies and the unrest that such reforms create in weak states.
Continue reading...Slavic literary scholar Michael Holquist negotiates the many “Bakhtins”
On May 2, 2016, the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia welcomed Slavic literary scholar Michael Holquist for a lecture entitled “On a Footnote in Bakhtin.” Holquist, Professor Emeritus of Comparative and Slavic Literature at Yale and a Senior Fellow at Columbia University, was introduced by Ilya Kliger, Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies at NYU. “You are all to a greater or smaller extent familiar with Professor Holquist’s incredibly broad ranging work, scholarly, pedagogical and – on behalf of a profession which I hope he will permit me to designate with its frequently forgotten, but proper name – philology,” Kliger said.
Continue reading...Sergey Sokolov traces the history of republicanism in Russia’s political thought
On April 29, 2016, the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia welcomed Sergey Sokolov for a lecture on “The Emergence of Republicanism in Russia (18th – early 19th c.): from Historical Writings and Literature to Politics.” Sokolov, an Associate Professor at Ural Federal University, was introduced by Ilya Kliger, Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies at NYU.
Continue reading...Russian Women and the Myth of the “Right Man”
As in the West, the Russian nuclear family includes two adults raising the children; the difference is that, in the Russian case, those adults are often a mother and a grandmother.
Continue reading...Philippa Hetherington explores anti-trafficking rhetoric in a Soviet and global context
On April 22, 2016, the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia welcomed Philippa Hetherington from the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London for a session of the Spring 2016 Colloquium Series. The event, titled “Between Moscow, Geneva and Shanghai: the Traffic in Women of Russian Origin and the League of Nations’ Global Governmentalities, 1920-1937,” gave Hetherington the opportunity to discuss a paper devoted to the interaction between the League of Nations and the lives of Russian and Soviet female migrants in the interwar period. In many cases, this relationship led to anti-trafficking campaigns in order to rescue women of Russian origin engaged in prostitution in China.
Continue reading...Evgeny Dobrenko examines the “Cold War” through socialist realist ideology
On April 15, 2016, the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia welcomed Evgeny Dobrenko for a lecture entitled “Soviet Cold War Imagination.” Dobrenko, head of the department of Russian and Slavonic Studies at the University of Sheffield and an April Fellow at the Jordan Center, was introduced by Rossen Djagalov, Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies at NYU. His presentation focused on the Stalinist years of the Cold War, as a unique period charting the transformation of the Soviet Union from outcast to superpower in the postwar bipolar world.
Continue reading...Anindita Banerjee speaks on Aelita, Queen of Mars in Radiant Futures keynote speech
On April 8, 2016, the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia hosted a conference entitled “Radiant Futures: Russian Fantasy and Science Fiction.” After the first panel, NYU Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies Eliot Borenstein introduced keynote speaker Anindita Banerjee. “If we think of our conference and our field in terms of science fiction, then she is Queen of Mars, our Aelita,” Borenstein said. Banerjee, a professor of comparative literature at Cornell University, centered her talk on Aelita, Queen of Mars, a 1924 Soviet silent film directed by Yakov Protazanov based on Alexei Tolstoy’s eponymous novel.
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