Please join us for the launch of the new volume Rethinking the Gulag: Identities, Sources, Legacies (Indiana University Press, March 2022). Editors Alan Barenberg and Emily Johnson will be joined by contributors Gavin Slade (Nazarbayev University), Mikhail Nakonechnyi (University of Helsinki), and Sarah Young (University College London), discussant Dan Healey (University of Oxford), and moderator Mark Lipovetsky (Columbia University). The Soviet Gulag was one of the largest, most complex, and deadliest systems of incarceration in the…

On February 26, join us for a Nordic Literature in Translation event with this year’s American-Scandinavian Foundation Translation Prizewinner, Randi Ward, and the author of the work in translation, Kim Simonsen! Now in its 43rd year, ASF’s Annual Translation Competition awards prizes for outstanding translations of poetry, fiction, drama, or literary prose written by a 20th- or 21st-century Nordic author. In…

In this talk, Professor Scott Kenworthy will discuss his new book (co-authored with Alexander Agadjanian), Understanding World Christianity: Russia (Fortress Press, 2021), with NYU Professor Yanni Kotsonis.  The Russian Orthodox Church is currently playing a very prominent role in Russian society and politics, and it is not possible to fully understand Russia today without it. The current role of Russian Orthodoxy is…

Please join us for a presentation by author and literary historian Maya Kucherskaya, a Visiting Scholar at the Harriman Institute, moderated by Mark Lipovetksy (Slavic Department). Literary historian Maya Kucherskaya presents her work on the creative assignments Joseph Brodsky gave to his students at Mount Holyoke College as a part of his poetry course. Drawing on archival documents from Yale University’s Beinecke Library,…

Please join the East Central European Center at the Harriman Institute for a presentation by cultural studies scholar Ludmiła Janion (University of Warsaw), moderated by Małgorzata Mazurek, Associate Professor of Polish Studies, Columbia University. In this talk, Ludmiła Janion will investigate scientific and journalistic discourses around differences in gender ratio among trans persons. The disparity between Poland and several Western countries, first noted in…

Please join the Harriman Institute and East Central European Center for a book talk with Ksenya Gurshtein and Sonja Simonyi, co-editors of the new volume Experimental Cinemas in State-Socialist Eastern Europe, and series editor Greg de Cuir Jr. Moderated by Aleksandar Bošković and Christopher Caes, co-directors of the East Central European Center. Was there experimental cinema behind the Iron Curtain? What forms did experiments with film take in state socialist…

The Russian Film Club at the Harriman Institute presents a screening of Deeper! (2020), followed by a discussion with Mark Lipovetsky (Slavic Department) and Daria Ezerova (Harriman Institute). This event is part of our Contemporary Culture Series. The adult film industry meets high theater in Mikhail Segal’s quirky new comedy. Running time: 104 minutes.

Professor Cadiot will present findings from her book, in which she explores the construction of socialist property as a juridical category, the economic landscape and practices in the Soviet Union, especially after the Second World War, and the work of law enforcement agencies. The book is based on archives from the Soviet State, Communist Party, Procuracy and Supreme court in…