Jan 13
Alvin K. Wong, "Unruly Comparison: Queerness, Hong Kong, and the Sinophone" (Duke UP, 2025)
How do we compare across languages, media, and histories, all without flattening differences? And what might Hong Kong teach us about doing comparison differently? Alvin K. Wong examines these and other questions in Unruly Comparison: Queerness, Hong Kong, and the Sinophone (Duke ... Show More
1h 9m
Jan 11
"Plenty for All: The Art of Rick Fröberg" (Akashic Books, Ltd., 2016)
Rick Fröberg was an accomplished artist and musician born in Southern California who spent most of his early creative years in San Diego before moving to New York, and then back to San Diego toward the end of his life. While juggling both of his creative outlets, he established a ... Show More
33m 40s
Jan 10
Graeme Brooker, "The Story of the Interior: How We Have Shaped Rooms and How They Shape Us" (Thames & Hudson, 2025)
From traditional nomadic dwellings to state-of-the-art airports, through monumental temples and Baroque palaces to high-rise apartments and high-fashion boutiques, The Story of the Interior: How We Have Shaped Rooms and How They Shape Us (Thames & Hudson, 2025) by Professor Graem ... Show More
50m 49s
Nov 2019
Roland Elliot Brown, "Godless Utopia: Soviet Anti-Religious Propaganda" (FUEL, 2019)
In the arc of Soviet history, few government programs were as tenacious as the anti-religious campaign, which systematically set out to debunk organized religion as "the opium of the people." This political storm of heaven lasted from the earliest days of Bolshevik power up until ... Show More
46m 54s
Jun 2019
Eleonor Gilburd, "To See Paris and Die: The Soviet Lives of Western Culture" (Harvard UP, 2018)
Josef Stalin’s death in 1953 marked a noticeable shift in Soviet attitudes towards the West. A nation weary of war and terror welcomed with relief the new regime of Nikita Khrushchev and its focus on peaceful cooperation with foreign powers. A year after Stalin’s death, author ... Show More
1h 27m
Mar 2020
Michael O’Sullivan, "Disruptive Power: Catholic Women, Miracles, and Politics in Modern Germany, 1918-1965" (U Toronto Press, 2018)
How did Catholic mysticism shape politics and religion in 20th-century Germany? What do seers, stigmatics, and Marian apparitions reveal about broader cultural trends? Michael O’Sullivan’s award winning new book examines how longing for the divine paradoxically drove secularism. ... Show More
1h 17m
Sep 2023
Antony Kalashnikov, "Monuments for Posterity: Self-Commemoration and the Stalinist Culture of Time" (Cornell UP, 2023)
Antony Kalashnikov's Monuments for Posterity: Self-Commemoration and the Stalinist Culture of Time (Cornell UP, 2023) analyzes Stalinist monument-building. From the 1930's through the Great Patriotic War, architectural monuments such as subway stations were designed to emphasize ... Show More
59m 16s
Jan 2024
Traditionalism - Russian Orthodox Converts
Traditionalism and Russian Orthodox Converts – Laurie Taylor talks to Mark Sedgwick, Professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at Aarhus University, about the radical project for restoring sacred order. Traditionalism is founded on ancient teachings that, its followers argue, have be ... Show More
28m 3s
Jul 2019
Betsy Perabo, "Russian Orthodoxy and the Russo-Japanese War" (Bloomsbury, 2017)
As Russian militarism becomes increasingly intertwined with Russian Orthodoxy theology in the 21st century, the history of the Church’s relationship to war and its justification becomes particularly relevant. Betsy Perabo’s book Russian Orthodoxy and the Russo-Japanese War (Bloom ... Show More
49m 4s
May 2023
Sarah Riccardi-Swartz, "Between Heaven and Russia: Religious Conversion and Political Apostasy in Appalachia" (Fordham UP, 2022)
How is religious conversion transforming American democracy? In one corner of Appalachia, a group of American citizens has embraced the Russian Orthodox Church and through it Putin’s New Russia. Historically a minority immigrant faith in the United States, Russian Orthodoxy is at ... Show More
57m 34s
Jan 2024
Art and the Russian Revolution | Revolution Festival '23
The October Revolution was not just an act of economic and political emancipation for the downtrodden masses, it also represented artistic and creative emancipation.Individual geniuses - such as Eisenstein, Meyerhold, Stanislavski, Tatlin, El Lizzitsky, and Shostakovich - rose to ... Show More
37m 35s
In the arc of Soviet history, few government programs were as tenacious as the anti-religious campaign, which systematically set out to debunk organized religion as "the opium of the people." This political storm of heaven lasted from the earliest days of Bolshevik power up until the early eighties, when it simply ran out of steam, as did the Soviet State. B ... Show More
