New Books Network
Russian and Eurasian Studies
Asian Review of Books January 20, 2022

On the Edge

Life Along the Russia-China Border

Franck Billé and Caroline Humphrey

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
The border between Russia and China is one of the world’s longest, spanning thousands of miles. It’s one of the few extended land borders between two great powers, subject to …

Russian and Eurasian Studies

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Interviews with scholars of Russia and Eurasia about their new books.

Middle Eastern Studies January 18, 2022

Embattled Dreamlands

The Politics of Contesting Armenian, Kurdish and Turkish Memory

David Leupold

Hosted by Ronay Bakan
Embattled Dreamlands: The Politics of Contesting Armenian, Kurdish and Turkish Memory (Routledge, 2020) explores the complex relationship between competing national myths, imagined boundaries and local memories in the threefold-contested geography …
Literary Studies January 13, 2022

Küchlya, Decembrist Poet

Translated by Anna Kurkina Rush, Peter France, and Christopher Rush

Yuri Tynianov

Hosted by Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed
Küchlya (1925), the first novel of the great Russian formalist Yury Tynyanov gives us a vividly written and moving recreation of the childhood, youth, beliefs and adventures of an eccentric …
Russian and Eurasian Studies January 10, 2022

The Life Cycle of Russian Things

From Fish Guts to Fabergé, 1600 - Present

Matthew Romaniello, Alison Smith, and Tricia Starks

Hosted by Daniel Peris
This collection of articles, edited by Matthew Romaniello, Alison Smith, and Tricia Starks, takes up the history of material culture over the past several centuries of Russian history. Widely diverse objects such as …
Burned by Books December 31, 2021

I Will Die in a Foreign Land

Kalani Pickhart

Hosted by Chris Holmes
An interview with Kalani Pickhart, I Will Die in a Foreign Land (2021), a New York Public Library Best Book of 2021. Russia is again amassing troops on the Ukrainian …
Russian and Eurasian Studies December 30, 2021

Putin's Attempt to Hide the Crimes of Stalinism

A Talk with Benjamin Nathans about the Suppression of "Memorial"

Benjamin Nathans

Hosted by Marshall Poe
For the past 30 years, a group of Russian scholars have dedicated themselves to uncovering the crimes of Stalinism. Their organization, Memorial, has in that time made great strides in …
Eastern European Studies December 29, 2021

Eastern Europe!

Everything You Need to Know about the History (and More!) of a Region that Shaped Our World and Still Does

Tomek Jankowski

Hosted by Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed
When the legendary Romulus killed his brother Remus and founded the city of Rome in 753 BCE, Plovdiv―today the second-largest city in Bulgaria―was thousands of years old. Indeed, London, Paris …
Nordic Asia Podcast December 27, 2021

East Asian Cold War History with a Maritime Twist

Kuan-Jen Chen

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
When did the Cold War in East Asia really begin? According to ADI-NIAS researcher Kuan-Jen Chen, the answer is 1945 – if we view the Cold War through a maritime …
Critical Theory December 17, 2021

De-Centering Queer Theory

Communist Sexuality in the Flow During and After the Cold War

Bogdan Popa

Hosted by Louisa Hann
Bogdan Popa’s De-Centering Queer Theory: Communist Sexuality in the Flow During and After the Cold War (Manchester University Press, 2021) seeks to reorient queer theory to a different conception of …
General History December 16, 2021

The Long Vacation

A Memoir

Alex Panasenko

Hosted by Krzysztof Odyniec
NB: This interview contains material about wartime experiences that may be upsetting to some listeners.  When Alex Panasenko was born in 1933, his native Ukraine was devastated by Stalin’s program …
General History December 16, 2021

Nikolai Chernyshevskii and Ayn Rand

Russian Nihilism Travels to America

Aaron Weinacht

Hosted by Mark Klobas
Nikolai Chernyshevskii and Ayn Rand: Russian Nihilism Travels to America (Lexington, 2021) argues that the core commitments of the nihilist movement of the 1860's made their way to 20th century America …
Eastern European Studies December 15, 2021

Civility in Uncivil Times

Kazimierz Moczarski's Quiet Battle for Truth, from the Polish Underground to Stalinist Prison

Anna Machcewicz

Hosted by Piotr Kosicki
In Civility in Uncivil Times: Kazimierz Moczarski’s Quiet Battle for Truth, from the Polish Underground to Stalinist Prison (Peter Lang, 2020), Anna Machcewicz offers a powerful case study in the …
Russian and Eurasian Studies December 8, 2021

Place and Nature

Essays in Russian Environmental History

David Moon, Nicholas Breyfogle, and Alexandra Bekasova

Hosted by Samantha Lomb
Place and Nature: Essays in Russian Environmental History (White Horse Press, 2021) is a collection of essays on environmental history spanning primarily the 19th and 20th centuries. Covering a wide …
Japanese Studies January 3, 2022

Kenkoku University and the Experience of Pan-Asianism

Education in the Japanese Empire

Yuka Hiruma Kishida

Hosted by Shatrunjay Mall
Kenkoku University and the Experience of Pan-Asianism: Education in the Japanese Empire (Bloomsbury, 2019) by Yuka Hiruma Kishida makes a fresh contribution to the recent effort to re-examine the Japanese …
Russian and Eurasian Studies December 29, 2021

Avant-Garde as Method

Vkhutemas and the Pedagogy of Space, 1920-1930

Anna Bokov

Hosted by Iva Glisic
In Avant-Garde as Method: Vkhutemas and the Pedagogy of Space, 1920-1930 (Park Books, 2020), Anna Bokov examines the history of the Higher Art and Technical Studios (Vysshie khudozhestvenno-tekhnicheskie masterskie) in …
Russian and Eurasian Studies December 28, 2021

Succession to the Throne in Early Modern Russia

The Transfer of Power 1450-1725

Paul Bushkovitch

Hosted by Erika Monahan
The transfer of power is something every must state attend to (and preferably by peaceful means). Remarkably, this fundamental aspect of statecraft was governed by custom rather than law into the …
Eastern European Studies December 24, 2021

Queer Roma

LUCIE. FREMLOVA

Hosted by Steven Seegel
Lucie Fremlova's book Queer Roma (Routledge, 2021) offers in-depth insight into the lives of queer Roma, thus providing rich evidence of the heterogeneity of Roma. The lived experiences of queer Roma …
Russian and Eurasian Studies December 22, 2021

The Firebird and the Fox

Russian Culture under Tsars and Bolsheviks

Jeffrey Brooks

Hosted by Daniel Peris
Firebird and the Fox: Russian Culture under Tsars and Bolsheviks (Cambridge UP, 2019) by Jeffrey Brooks, Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University, is a summa of his lifetime study of Russian culture.  In doing so …
Russian and Eurasian Studies December 16, 2021

Esperanto and Languages of Internationalism in Revolutionary Russia

Brigid O'Keeffe

Hosted by Steven Seegel
Hoping to unite all of humankind and revolutionize the world, Ludwik Zamenhof launched a new international language called Esperanto from late imperial Russia in 1887. Ordinary men and women in …
Biography December 9, 2021

There Is Nothing for You Here

Opportunity in an Age of Decline

Fiona Hill

Hosted by Marshall Poe
Today I talked to the remarkable Fiona Hill about her new memoir There Is Nothing for You Here: Opportunity in an Age of Decline (Mariner Books, 2021). We talked about the …