James Meador takes the page 99 test
My dissertation Making Chinese Orthodox explored the Chinese Orthodox Church as a site of interaction between Russian and Chinese states. Page 99 comes at the end of the…
Tag: Russia
Chris Hann: Humiliation, Hubris and Hamartia: the emotional history of the Ukraine war
Introduction Soon after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in an earlier post on this blog (Hann 2022), I emphasized the geopolitical and economic interests of the west, especially…
Jewish Odesa – review
In Jewish Odesa, Marina Sapritsky-Nahum explores Jewish identity in Odesa over the course of Soviet history, Ukrainian nation-building and global Jewish revivals. Combining oral histories, anthropolo…
Anti-Putin does not mean anti-imperial. Why the romanticisation of Russian dissidents is misleading
In the German debate on the Russian anti-Putin camp, the problematic aspects of this milieu are often ignored. The Russian perspective continues to be given more weight than…
Crossing the uncrossable
By Ekaterina Thor – The Russian border. Since most countries decided to close their borders and most airlines chose to pull out their offers, going to Russia and…
“The Personal is Political” or Why Gender Studies in Russia is More Than Just Academic
On February 27, 2024, near the Russian Embassy in Berlin, passersby could view a group of young people holding posters displaying the question “Where is Seda Suleimanova?”. Seda…
Kin Majorities: Identity and Citizenship in Crimea and Moldova
In Kin Majorities: Identity and Citizenship in Crimea and Moldova, Eleanor Knott presents a comparative study of how people living in Crimea and Moldova identified with Russia and Romania, respectivel…
Who tells your story? The politics of recounting Ukraine
by Anastasiia Omelianiuk – There is a striking contrast between significant attention to Ukraine after the 2022 re-invasion and the pre-February abstinence of Ukraine in the global cultural…
Maria Gunko: Violent faces of the Russian state
“Our whole state manifested itself in [Verkhniy] Lars, in a concentrated form: violence, mess, corruption, and indifference” – told me Vadim, who left Russia through Georgia shortly after…
Why did the Left Fail the Covid Test So Badly?
Note: Contrary to this site’s policy of not republishing work from other sites, which has been in effect for several years, this exception is a must. It is…
Tomas Matza on his book, Shock Therapy
Interview by Natalja Czarnecki https://www.dukeupress.edu/shock-therapy Tomas Matza on his book, Natalja Czarnecki: In your ethnography of the popular “psychotherapeutic turn” in po…
Melissa Caldwell on her book, Living Faithfully in an Unjust World
Interview by Natalja Czarnecki https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520285842/living-faithfully-in-an-unjust-world Natalja Czarnecki: You write that inter-faith food aid organizations occupy a …
Volodymyr Artiukh: The political logic of Russia’s imperialism
The debate around the Russian invasion of Ukraine, including the previous contributions in FocaalBlog, has shifted from the ‘either NATO or Russia’ dichotomy to a more nuanced exchange…
Don Kalb: War: New Times
It is now becoming overly clear that this cruel and unjustifiable war in and on Ukraine is not going to last ten days – as the strategists in…
Antonio De Lauri: The idea of a clean and efficient war is a dangerous lie
The war in Ukraine resuscitated a certain dangerous fascination for war. Notions such as patriotism, democratic values, the right side of history, or a new fight for freedom…
Martin Fotta: Towards Anti-War Anthropology: On EASA, CEE and NATO
One of the casualties of Putin’s war on Ukraine will be European critical social science. While the war has instigated important discussions about ‘US-plaining’, ‘Westplaining’ and about Russian…
Natalia Knoblock on her book, Language of Conflict
Interview by Sofiya Asher https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/language-of-conflict-9781350098626/ Sofiya Asher: What inspired this particular book? Natalia Knoblock: What inspired this book? T…
Marc Edelman: Encirclement: Historical Roots of Putin’s Paranoia
“What’s going on inside Putin’s head?” “He’s insane.” Questions and declarations like these pepper discussions of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. While insanity appears an obvious — albeit broad…
Chris Hann: The Agony of Ukraine
After nearly two weeks of violent conflict in Ukraine, it is increasingly difficult to stand back and see the bigger picture. The West has lined up behind the…
Elizabeth Cullen Dunn: When Western Anti-Imperialism Supports Imperialism
The invasion of Ukraine has been a shock not just to Eastern Europe, but to the post World War II international order. While the fundamental tenets of postwar…
A Strange Past Returns Strangely
The last time I heard anyone utter the name, Przemysl, I must have been ten or eleven years old. In his thickly Yiddishized English, my maternal grandfather must…
Don Kalb: “Fuck Off” versus “Humiliation”: The Perverse Logic towards War in Europe’s East
Image 1: Czar Vladimir, by BakeNecko. I like the tone and the global historical perspective of David Harvey’s FocaalBlog article. Harvey’s socialist internationalism versus competitive nation-…
Derek Hall: Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine: A Response to David Harvey
David Harvey’s February 25 FocaalBlog post is presented as “An Interim Report” on “Recent Events in the Ukraine”. Harvey’s essay effectively covers some of the core forces that…
David Harvey: Remarks on Recent Events in the Ukraine: An Interim Statement
Image 1: Young girl protesting the war in Ukraine, photo by Matti. David Harvey prepared this text for the 2022 American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting. We publish…