In an 1881 letter to his Russian translator of the poetry collection Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman wrote that, while the United States and Russia were “so distant, so unlike at first glance,” they nevertheless “so [resemble] each other” in their “historic and divine mission.” Whitman’s words would astonish many Americans and Russians today, since the living memory of relations between the two nations is one of conflict and animosity rather than concord and similitude.
Distant Friends and Intimate Enemies seeks to examine US-Russian relations in the context of concurrent historical developments from their beginnings in the early 19th century. This series is designed to provide a set of alternative narratives to the tendency of academics, policymakers, journalists, and the general public to only view US-Russian relations through a Cold War lens. The goal of the series is for these audiences to become more historically cognizant of the commonalities, just as much as the differences, between the two nations.
Thursday, August 27, 2020
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm EST
Bonded in Human Bondage: Serfdom and Slavery
A Live Interview with Amanda Brickell Bellows, New School and Alessandro Stanziani, School of Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, France
Wednesday, September 9, 2020
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm EST
Manifest Destinies: Russian and American Empire
A Live Interview with Willard Sunderland, University of Cincinnati and Daniel Immerwahr, Northwestern University
Thursday, September 24, 2020
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm EST
From Aliaska to Alaska: Russian and American Colonialism
A Live Interview with Bathsheba Demuth, Brown University and Ilya Vinkovetsky, Simon Fraser University
Thursday, October 8, 2020
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm EST
Pogroms and Race Riots: Racial Violence in Russia and America
A Live Interview with Steven Zipperstein, Stanford University and Michael Pfeifer, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY
Thursday, October 22, 2020
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm EST
Black and Red: African Americans and the USSR
A Live Interview with Meredith Roman, CUNY Brockport and Minkah Makalani, University of Texas, Austin
Thursday, November 5, 2020
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm EST
The Wired Cold War
A Live Interview with Slava Gerovitch, MIT and Ekaterina Babintseva, Harvey Mudd College
Monday November 9, 2020
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm EST.
America through Russian Eyes, Russia through American Eyes
A Live Interview with Dina Fainberg, City University of London and Victoria Zhuravleva, Russian State University for the Humanities