Graffiti is an effective tool for expressing political discontent and circumventing censorship, especially in autocratic and censored states. Dr. Alexis Lerner spent a decade walking the alleyways and underpasses of the post-Soviet region and post communist Europe, from Berlin and Minsk to Tbilisi and Vladivostok. During that time, she immersed herself in daily life, first in Moscow and then with a community of graffiti artists across the region, mapping out the graffiti districts of dozens of cities, cataloguing tens of thousands of images, and conducting longitudinal and multi-sited observations of symbols and discourse. In this talk, Dr. Lerner explains some of the trends in political and social discourse that she has observed over both space and time, with a focus on the graffiti that has appeared since February 24th, in response to the Kremlin's war in Ukraine.
Alexis Lerner is an assistant professor of Political Science at the US Naval Academy, and a Visiting Scholar at the Jordan Center. Her research is on the intersection of authoritarianism and dissent, with a focus on the post-Soviet region. She is an award-winning teacher in comparative politics, international relations, and statistics. Previously, she was a Presidential Data Postdoctoral Fellow at Western University (2020-2021), Visiting Scholar at Columbia University's Harriman Institute (2017-2019), a Visiting Research Fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2016-2017), and the Director of Research for the Stanford University US-Russia Forum. Her work appears in Comparative Political Studies, Holocaust Studies, the Routledge Handbook of Religion and Genocide, The Arctic Review on Law and Politics, and The Journal of Jewish Thought. Her book, Post-Soviet Graffiti: Free Speech in the Streets, is under contract with the University of Toronto Press.
This event will be held in person for NYU affiliates only. Others will be able to join on Zoom.
Photo: Magdalena Patalong, Kyiv 2014.
