Lera
Co-Host of The Slavic Connexion
Lera, while born in Tiraspol, Moldova, was happily raised in the suburbs of South-Eastern Pennsylvania and the land of Wawa. After getting her B.A. in Japanese from Penn State, she spent the next 6 years bouncing around between Japan, the DMV area, and Pittsburgh before finally landing in Texas to start her dual-degree Master's program in Global Policy Studies and Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies at UT. Her research interests include U.S.-Russia relations, foreign diplomacy, grassroots exchange, and protest/dissent in Russia. Her limited free time interests include showing everyone pictures of her two cats, engaging in the Fast and the Furious franchise discourse, and never finishing any of her knitting projects.
B.A. in Japanese, minor in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, Penn State University
INTERESTS
Post-Soviet Russia, Putinism, grassroots cultural exchange programs, U.S.-Russia relations, foreign diplomacy, national security, relationship between Russia's government and its citizens, Russian political protests
Lera has hosted 46 Episodes.
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NATO and the "Bear in the Woods" with Sergey Radchenko
January 26th, 2022 | Season 4 | 51 mins 9 secs
china, cold war, conflict, history, nato, russia, ukraine
On this episode, Lera and Cullan have the chance to talk with Sakhalin-born historian Dr. Sergey Radchenko, who reflects on his first introduction to the United States via East Texas, Sino-Soviet and Sino-Russian relations, and the current Russian-Ukraine conflict and how the West's response is affecting the situation. We hope you enjoy!
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"Long Hair Goes a Long Way": Exploring the Soviet Hippie Movement with Juliane Fürst
December 23rd, 2021 | Season 4 | 58 mins 33 secs
counterculture, hippies, history, soviet culture, youth movements
Happy Holidays, y'all! On this episode, Lera gets to sit down and chat with Dr. Juliane Fürst who unpacks 10 years worth of research and personal explorations in the Soviet Hippie movement as published in her latest book from Oxford University Press. Her stories will thrill, so gather 'round and take a listen. We hope you enjoy!
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"From Odessa With Love" with Vladislav Davidzon
December 8th, 2021 | Season 4 | 39 mins 6 secs
america, belarus, china, current events, geopolitics, russia, ukraine
Lera and Zach talk with Atlantic Council fellow and prolific American journalist Vladislav Davidzon. Davidzon has extensively covered the Belarussian protests from within Minsk, Ukrainian political and cultural developments since 2014, and Russian elections and Navalny's impact on Moscow politics and policies. We hope you enjoy!
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Nord Stream 2 and You: More Than A European Problem
November 22nd, 2021 | Season 4 | 27 mins 27 secs
Mark Temnycky, a Ukrainiain-American journalist, breaks down the Nord Stream 2 issue, timeline, and its relation to the energy situation in Europe. He expounds on the Biden administration's reversal on its position concerning the pipeline, and explains the security concerns that a working Nord Stream 2 that bypasses Belarus and Ukraine creates for America, NATO, and Europe in general. Thanks for listening!
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Sports (History) Illustrated: Cold War Edition with Johanna Mellis
November 13th, 2021 | Season 4 | 53 mins 15 secs
eastern europe, history, hungary, olympics, sports
Dr. Johanna Mellis, a former D1 swimmer and current history professor at Ursinus College, joins Lera for a lively conversation on the history of sports in Hungary during the Cold War. They also touch on the Olympics (past and present), sport diplomacy, and the development of competitive sports on an international plane. We hope you enjoy!
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"And Still We Rise": Uncovering the Story of the Bosnian Genocide
November 5th, 2021 | Season 4 | 38 mins 16 secs
bosnia, education, ethnic conflict, genocide, post-communist, serbia, yugoslavia
Author Jordan Steven Sher joins Lera and Cullan to talk about his new historical fiction novel which authentically and carefully explores the grossly overlooked Bosnian Genocide of Muslims and Catholic Croats during the Bosnian War of 1992-95, as carried out by Slobodan Milošević of Serbia. This was a great foundational and human-centric understanding of the conflict in the region for anyone who might be interested in Yugoslav history. Thank you for listening!
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Mountains without Borders: Discovering the Carpathians with Patrice Dabrowski
October 21st, 2021 | Season 4 | 38 mins 26 secs
environmental history, forest, geographic history, mountain ranges, poland, ukraine
In this episode, Patrice Dabrowski takes us on a historical journey through the highly understudied Carpathian Mountains of Poland, Slovakia, and Ukraine. Her brand new book details the many forces at play in the mountainous region over the years from 1860 to 1980 and shows how this area gradually went from terra incongita to tourist attraction. We hope you enjoy!
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"Frozen by the Thaw": The Soviet Masculinity Crisis of the Long Sixties with Marko Dumančić
October 9th, 2021 | Season 4 | 42 mins 32 secs
culture, film, gender, history, soviet union
On this episode, Marko Dumančić joins Lera and Cullan to talk about his recently published monograph entitled Men Out of Focus: The Soviet Masculinity Crisis in the Long Sixties wherein he unpacks the changing conceptions of men in post-Stalinist society by taking a deeper look at Soviet films made at the time. This is a fun conversation, riddled with film talk. We hope you enjoy!
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Afghanistan: A Strategic Failure with Ret. Col. Robert Hamilton
August 30th, 2021 | Season 4 | 36 mins 50 secs
afghanistan, georgia, security, us military operations, war
For the first episode of Season 4, we asked Dr. Robert Hamilton of the U.S. Army War College to return to the show and speak about the current situation in Afghanistan and the fate of the region's security architecture. Currently on leave to serve as advisor to the Georgian Ministry of Defense, Dr. Hamilton discusses the role of the Georgian military in the Afghanistan War and what the U.S. withdrawal (and Taliban rule) means for Georgia's future as well.
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The Inside Scoop on "Cold War Correspondents" with Dina Fainberg
June 29th, 2021 | Season 3 | 43 mins 30 secs
america, history, journalism, media, soviet union
On this episode, Professor Dina Fainberg joins Zach and Lera to talk about her latest book, the highly readable "Cold War Correspondents" in which she highlights stories of Soviet and American journalists and draws parallels to the US-Russia media landscape today. We hope you enjoy!
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Steppe by Steppe: From America's Great Plains to Russia's Grasslands (and Back Again!) with David Moon
May 31st, 2021 | Season 3 | 34 mins 13 secs
agriculture, caucasus, environmental history, geography, russia, west texas
On this episode, Professor David Moon joins Tom and Lera from the UK to talk about the fascinating personal journey which led to the release of his latest book, The American Steppes: Unexpected Russian Roots of Great Plains Agriculture. He clearly delineates how the kernels of his transnational research all began during his tenure some years ago at The University of Texas at Austin. We hope you enjoy!
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The Pivoting Anthropologist: From Chernobyl to Social Activism to Kurt Vonnegut to... with Sarah Phillips
April 21st, 2021 | Season 3 | 37 mins 25 secs
anthropology, health, literature, social activism, soviet studies, ukraine
Our wonderful guest is Dr. Sarah Phillips, director of the Russian and East European Institute at Indiana University Bloomington. Dr. Phillips walks us through her remarkable anthropological career in the Slavic world from her beginnings in the 90s with studying the effects of Chernobyl to her many social activism projects in Ukraine, taking us to her present fascination with the culture that developed in the USSR around Kurt Vonnegut's writings and translated works. We hope you enjoy, and as always thanks for listening!
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The Ghana-Soviet Connexion with Nana Osei-Opare
April 12th, 2021 | Season 3 | 34 mins 30 secs
african history, history, nationalism, politics, racism, soviet history
On this episode, Professor Nana Osei-Opare from Fordham University joins us to talk about the history of Ghana's independence from Great Britain and the way in which this West African country looked to the Soviet Union to build itself as an "industrialized, socialist" post-colonialist state. This is a fascinating, important discussion, and we hope you enjoy!
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Russian Meme Culture, "Shirtless Putin," and Pussy Riot with Eliot Borenstein
November 16th, 2020 | Season 3 | 42 mins 14 secs
humor, masculinity, memes, pussy riot, putin, shrek
On this fun episode, Dr. Eliot Borenstein from NYU joins us to talk about his research on memes and meme culture in Russia as well as his freshly-released book on Pussy Riot (available from Bloomsbury). We hope you enjoy!
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"Dance of Compromise": Putin's Russia, Disinformation, and the Wily Man with Joshua Yaffa
October 19th, 2020 | Season 3 | 35 mins 9 secs
disinformation, journalism, pandemic, russia, us elections
The New Yorker's Moscow correspondent, Joshua Yaffa, joins us from Moscow in fact to talk about the conditions in Russia during the pandemic, his latest book "Between Two Fires", and the oft-debated Russian interference in US elections. This is a fascinating conversation, and we hope you enjoy!
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Living in a Post-Truth World: How Did We Get Here?
October 3rd, 2020 | Season 3 | 38 mins 6 secs
climate change, covid-19, disinformation, education, media literacy, philosophy, politics, science denial
Philosopher, professor, and writer Dr. Lee McIntyre joins us virtually from Boston to discuss his highly relevant book Post-Truth (MIT Press), the purpose of propaganda, science denial in English-speaking nations, and the ubiquitous problem of disinformation in today's world. We ask Dr. McIntyre how did we get here and what (if anything) can we do about it?