About Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon

Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon is a history professor.

NBN Episodes hosted by Kimberly:

Eren Tasar, "Soviet and Muslim: The Institutionalization of Islam in Central Asia" (Oxford UP, 2017)

December 30, 2023

Soviet and Muslim

Eren Tasar

How was the Soviet Union able to avoid issues of religious and national conflict with its large and diverse Islamic population? In his new book, Sovie…

Tricia Starks, "Smoking Under the Tsars: A History of Tobacco in Imperial Russia" (Cornell UP, 2018)

July 22, 2019

Smoking Under the Tsars

Tricia Starks

How and when did Russia become a country of smokers? Why did makhorka and papirosy become ubiquitous products of tobacco consumption? Tricia Starks ex…

Till Mostowlansky, "Azan on the Moon: Entangling Modernity Along Tajikistan’s Pamir Highway" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2017)

December 26, 2018

Azan on the Moon

Till Mostowlansky

In eastern Tajikistan, the Trans-Pamir Highway flows through the mountains creating a lunar-like landscape. In his latest work, Azan on the Moon: Enta…

Victoria Smolkin, "A Sacred Space Is Never Empty: A History of Soviet Atheism" (Princeton UP, 2018)

December 11, 2018

A Sacred Space Is Never Empty

Victoria Smolkin

The specter of the “Godless” Soviet Union haunted the United States and continental Western Europe throughout the Cold War, but what did atheism mean …

Claudia Sadowski-Smith, "The New Immigrant Whiteness: Race, Neoliberalism, and Post-Soviet Migration to the United States" (NYU Press, 2018)

October 30, 2018

The New Immigrant Whiteness

Claudia Sadowski-Smith

From Dancing with the Stars to the high-profile airport abandonment of seven-year-old Artyom Savelyev by his American adoptive parents in April 2010, …

Rebecca Reich, "State of Madness: Psychiatry, Literature and Dissent After Stalin" (Northern Illinois UP, 2018)

September 10, 2018

State of Madness

Rebecca Reich

In her new book, State of Madness: Psychiatry, Literature and Dissent After Stalin (Northern Illinois University Press, 2018), Rebecca Reich argues th…

Lynne Viola, "Stalinist Perpetrators on Trial: Scenes from the Great Terror in Soviet Ukraine" (Oxford UP, 2017)

July 16, 2018

Stalinist Perpetrators on Trial

Lynne Viola

What happened inside NKVD interrogation rooms during the Great Terror? How did the perpetrators feel when the Soviet state turned on them in 1938 duri…

Anna Muller, "If the Walls Could Speak: Inside a Women's Prison in Communist Poland (Oxford UP, 2017)

March 22, 2018

If the Walls Could Speak

Anna Muller

Today we talked to Dr. Anna Muller about her latest book, If the Walls Could Speak: Inside a Women's Prison in Communist Poland (Oxford University Pre…

Christopher J. Lee, "Soviet Journey: A Critical Annotated Edition" (Lexington Books, 2017)

February 22, 2018

Soviet Journey

Christopher J. Lee, ed.

Kimberly speaks with Dr. Christopher J. Lee about his newest book A Soviet Journey: A Critical Annotated Edition (Lexington Books, 2017). A Soviet Jou…