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James Andrews on how the Moscow metro tells the story of socialism
There were no fortresses, which the Bolsheviks could not overcome.
Interrogating the Declining Significance of Pushkin’s Blackness: Henry James, Ivan Turgenev, and Literary Nationalism (with Korey Garibaldi and Emily Wang)
On October 14th, Professors Korey Garibaldi and Emily Wang, both of Notre Dame, joined the Jordan Center to speak about their collaborative work on race and literature in talk entitled...
Victoria's Open Secret (or Russia Embraces Granny Panties)
If there is one topic that is all over the Russiasphere news right now, it is underpants. Ladies' underpants.
Gender Trouble in The Double: Masculinity in Dostoevsky’s Novella and Ayoade’s Film
Right from the outset, Ayoade’s film establishes the presence of a masculine hierarchy.
Universal Pictures: Zvyagintsev, Dostoevsky and the Politics of the Particular
By the end of Andrei Zvyagintsev’s Leviathan, I wanted to scream.
Inferiority Complex: Why the New Film Adaptation of Lady Macbeth is Too Subtle for its Own Good
Oh great, I thought, as she suffocated the little boy, now we’re getting to my favorite bit.
Open Letter on the Termination of Russian Studies Faculty at Ohio University
Like you, we are wholeheartedly invested in the survival and recovery of higher education in the United States amid the COVID-19 pandemic. That recovery depends on the will of universities...
Matt Taibbi's Not-So-Secret Russian Past
Like the clueless expats they loathed, the editors treated Moscow and its residents as their playground.
Baltic Orthodox Monasticism
On 26 August 2018, an icon procession left the red-brick gates of the Pühtitsa convent, eastern Estonia: nuns in jet-black habits, priests in aqua vestments, and choristers in crimson velvet...
Snowden in Moscow: The Interview
"I’ve been recognized every now and then. It’s always in computer stores. It’s something like brain associations, because I’ll be in the grocery store and nobody will recognize me. Even...
Getting One Thing Straight: “Postmodernists” Are Not the Problem
Discussions of Trump and Putin as “Postmodern politicians” come in many different forms and degrees of sophistication. My own modest contribution is intended only to dispel a bit of confusion...
Putin’s Not-so-Modest Proposal
Deeply concerned about anti-Semitism in Europe, Putin issued a formal invitation for Jews who are feeling unsafe in Europe to move to Russia.
Minds and Bodies in the World, or: Learning to Love Dostoevsky
I'm not one of those American Slavists who came to the study of Russian literature by way of Dostoevsky. For a long time, I wasn’t even particularly interested—I’m afraid that...
Russian Meddling and Fake News, Part One: Sell Me More Diapers and Napkins, Please
“Russian affairs” have became a hot topic taken up by writers who lack the proper expertise or necessary restraint
Love (Not Death): A Postmodern Tolstoy in Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina
Despite flaws of both execution and interpretation, this most recent adaptation displays a genuinely intelligent understanding Tolstoy’s novel.
The Red Balloon of Russian History: How American Media Misunderstood The Sochi Olympics Opening
Letting go of Communism and the Socialist dream was not the interpretation Russian audiences reached for. And that makes sense—ending a theatrical segment entitled “Dreams about Russia” with the fall...
Why the international community shouldn’t ignore the Crimean Tatars
Early in 2014 the Russian annexation of Crimea caused international uproar. Subsequently, things went quiet. Today, the media are paying attention again, as they reveal how local Russian authorities are...
Shaving Eisenstein in Manhattan
An old-fashioned shave, with a razor that in Russian they call “dangerous”; an uncannily private scene performed under an open sky, 800 feet over the sidewalks of the greatest city...
Cold Snap (Part I): Russian Film after Leviathan
This essay provides context for roughly thirty-five current and upcoming Russian films, loosely clustered around four topics: directors; debuts; economic health; and dominant industry trends.
Caught in a Bad Romance: What America Means to Russia
Russia has become the latest focus for the naive question we never get tired of asking: “Why do they hate us so much?”