Ilaria Parogni

ilaria.parogni@nyu.edu
Articles by Ilaria Parogni

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.

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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.

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“Radiant Futures” conference brings Soviet science fiction and fantasy out of the periphery

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.” The conference was convened by Eliot Borenstein, Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies and Collegiate Professor at New York University, and it featured a varied lineup of speakers from the literary field. In his introduction, Borenstein said that the idea behind the conference was to gather a group of people who have been thinking about nauchnaya fantastika (scientific fantasy) from a scholarly and non-scholarly perspective, particularly given the peripheral role this genre usually plays in the academic context.

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Ilya Matveev reflects on the Russian economic crisis

On April 4, 2016, the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia welcomed Ilya Matveev from the European University in St. Petersburg for a lecture titled “Austerity and nationalist mobilization: reflections on the Russian crisis.” Rossen Djagalov, Assistant Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies at NYU, introduced Matveev by highlighting his multiple contributions to Russia’s intellectual and social life. Matveev is the editor of OpenLeft.Ru, a member of the PS Lab research group, a lecturer in political theory at the North-West Institute of Management (Petersburg), and an activist in the University Solidarity trade union.

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No Pussy, No Riot

Nadya Tolokonnikova has occupied yet another church. The building in question, in New York’s uber-gentrified neighborhood of Williamsburg, has been repurposed for private use and is the Pussy Riot member’s abode of choice during her visit to the city. This time, no one will ask her to leave or accuse her of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.”

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Robert Crews revisits Afghan history in a global context

On Wednesday, March 9, 2016, the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia welcomed Robert Crews, Associate Professor of History and Director of the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies at Stanford University for a book talk devoted to his recent book, Afghan Modern: The History of a Global Nation. The event focused on Afghan encounters with Russia, the USSR, and Central Asia and explored Afghanistan’s engagement with the global circulation of modern politics.

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American Committee for East-West Accord urges debate on U.S.-Russian relations

On November 23, 2015, the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia, in collaboration with the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, hosted a panel discussion organized by the recently established the American Committee for East-West Accord. The event, titled “U.S.-Russian Conflict From Ukraine to Syria: Did U.S. Policy Contribute to It?” featured presentations by five of the committee’s founding members: Bill Bradley, a 1964 Olympic Gold Medalist in basketball and former U.S. senator; Stephen F. Cohen, Professor Emeritus of Russian Studies, History and Politics at New York University; Jack F. Matlock, Jr., U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987 to 1991; John Pepper, former Chairman and CEO of Procter & Gamble; and William J. vanden Heuvel, American ambassador to the United Nations under U.S. President Jimmy Carter.

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Oksana Mykhed discusses the role of the plague in the making of the Ukrainian border

On November 6, 2015, the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia welcomed historian Oksana Mykhed to present a lecture titled “A Plague on your Borders: Public Health and the Making of Russian Imperial Boundaries in Ukraine, 1762-95.” The lecture was based on a chapter from her upcoming book on the history of incorporation of Right-Bank and Central Ukraine into the Russian Empire between 1762 and 1860. As explained by NYU Professor Anne O’Donnell in her introduction, Mykhed defended her PhD dissertation at Harvard University in 2014 and was previously affiliated with the Harriman Institute at Columbia University and the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute.

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Maxim Suchkov discusses perspectives and scenarios in U.S.-Russia relations

On October 27, 2015, the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia welcomed Maxim A. Suchkov, a Fellow at the Institute for Strategic Studies and an Associate Professor at Pyatigorsk State Linguistic University’s School of International Relations, for a session of its Fall 2015 Colloquium Series. Suchkov delivered a talk titled “After Ukraine: Scenarios for US-Russia Relations in the post-Soviet space.”

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Experts debate The Global History of Sport in the Cold War – Day 1

On October 23, 2015, the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia opened the New York session of “The Global History of Sport in the Cold War,” a two-day conference devoted to exploring the role of sport during the Cold War. The event was organized by Professor Robert Edelman from the University of California, San Diego, and Christopher Young from the University of Cambridge. It was supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the NYU Department of History, the NYU Center for the United States and the Cold War, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the University of Cambridge, the University of California, San Diego and the NYU SPS Tisch Institute for Sports Management, Media, and Business.

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Experts from China, Russia and the U.S. discuss the triangular game in foreign policy

On October 21, 2015, the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia welcomed a panel of distinguished speakers for a discussion titled “The Great Triangular Game: Russia, China, and the USA, Past and Present.” The event, devoted to mutual relations between Russia, China and the United States, featured Li Xing, Director of the Center for Eurasian Studies, Professor of International Relations at Beijing Normal University; Dmitry Savkin, Director for Internationalization and Associate Professor at the School of Public Policy at RANEPA; and Tim Naftali, Associate Clinical Professor of History and Public Service at NYU and Co-Director of NYU’s Center for the United States and the Cold War. The panel was moderated by Jordan Center Director Yanni Kotsonis.

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Alexei Yurchak explains the importance of Lenin’s body, between form and bio-matter

On October 9, 2015, the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia welcomed Professor Alexei Yurchak from University of California Berkeley for a session of its Fall 2015 Colloquium Series. Yurchak, who was introduced by Jordan Center Director Yanni Kotsonis as “one of the few people who gave us an idiom to talk about the late Soviet and post-Soviet order,” presented a chapter from his current book project on the body of Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin, titled “Where Did Lenin Go? Naked life of the leader and Soviet collapse.”

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Nancy Condee discusses the politics of seizure in Russian culture today

On September 25, 2015, the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia welcomed Professor Nancy Condee for its 2015 Distinguished Lecture. Condee, who teaches Slavic and film studies and serves as director of the Global Studies Center at the University of Pittsburgh, delivered a talk titled “Property Rites: Russian Culture Today and the Politics of Seizure.”

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Mark Konecny shares unexpected history of Russian art in America

On Sept. 18, 2015, the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia welcomed Mark Konecny, Associate Director and Curator of the archives and library of the Institute of Modern Russian Culture, for the first installment of its Colloquium Series. During the event, titled “The Creation of a Market for Russian Art in America,” Konecny talked about his most recent endeavors: an exhibition of Russian artists who participated in the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair and the establishment of a related digital humanities project.

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Michael Kunichika speaks on modernist world culture, Khlebnikov and Mandelstam

On May 15, 2015, the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia welcomed Michael Kunichika, an Assistant Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies at New York University, for a lecture on modernist world culture as elaborated in the works of the Russian poets Velimir Khlebnikov and Osip Mandelstam.

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By Misunderstanding Crimea, the West Is Pushing Russia Further Away

On the recent anniversary of the Russian annexation of Crimea, residents of the peninsula came out on the streets to celebrate waving flags, cheering and clapping. There was music and dancing. The Night Wolves, a biker gang known for having close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, joined all the way from Moscow.

Crimea escaped civil war, but for some it remains a battleground.

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Thomas Graham: US-Russia relations need new framework

On April 1, 2015, the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia welcomed Thomas Graham, managing director at Kissinger Associates, for a lecture titled “Rethinking US-Russian Relations.” During a brief introduction, Jordan Center Director Yanni Kotsonis described Graham, who has previously served as a Special Assistant to the President during the administration of George W. Bush, as “one of the sounder minds when it comes to Russian issues.”

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Professor Lounsbery is among the keynote speakers at University of Virginia

On March 26, Professor Anne Lounsbery, chair of the Department of Russian and Slavic Studies at New York University, will be addressing the audience of “Centrifugal Forces: Reading Russia’s Regional Identities and Initiatives,” a three-day conference held at the University of Virginia. Lounsbery will speak on the perceived “symbolic geography” of Russia’s provinces.

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Day 1 – Two-day workshop starts new conversations on Russia`s Races

On February 26, 2015, the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia hosted a two-day workshop on the topic of racial categorizations in Russia. The event, titled Russia’s Races: Meanings and Practices of Race in Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union and convened by David Rainbow, a postdoctoral research fellow at Columbia University’s Harriman Institute for Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies, was co-sponsored by NYU Department of History, Global Research Initiatives (NYU Provost), the Harriman Institute and the Humanities Initiative (NYU).

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Darra Goldstein brings back to life Yuri Lotman’s High Society Dinners

On Nov. 13, 2014, the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health at NYU hosted “Yuri Lotman Does High Society,” a seminar featuring Darra Goldstein, Professor of Russian at Williams College and Founding Editor of Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture. The event, part of the Feast and Famine series, was co-sponsored by the Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia and the Steinhardt Food Studies Program.

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