Online Projects
Blogs, Online Lectures, Book Clubs, and Social Media Groups
Unstuck in Time: On the Post-Soviet Uncanny
Unstuck in Time is the second volume of the three-book series with the unofficial title Russia’s Alien Nations.
In this book, which I am serializing on the blog as I write it, I explore fictional and ideological reconfigurations of time in the aftermath of the Soviet collapse. Soviet nostalgia is a familiar part of the post-Soviet landscape, as is the tendency for contemporary Russian literary fiction to focus on the past rather than the present. Unstuck in Time argues that the way time is framed in contemporary Russian cultural productions is connected to a generalized dysphoria regrading the present day, which ends up feeling “off,” if not downright uncanny.
Russian Television Commercials: The Short Course
A series of short, on-line lectures hosted by the Jordan Center, starting May 21, 2021. Recordings are archived on the Jordan Center’s YouTube page. No knowledge of Russian is required, and the lectures can be viewed in any order.
Marvel Comics in the 1970s: The World Inside Your Head
This blog serializes the first draft of a book in progress, Marvel in the 1970s: The World Inside Your Head (Cornell University Press, forthcoming). A study of writers’ attempts to convey interiority in a commercial medium presumed to be aimed at children, Marvel in the 1970s pays particular attention to the work of Steve Gerber (Howard the Duck), Steve Englehart (Doctor Strange; The Avengers), Doug Moench (Shang-Chi: Master of Kung Fu), Marv Wolfman, (Tomb of Dracula), and Don McGregor (Killraven and The Black Panther).
Russian Internet Memes: The Short Course
A series of 17 short, on-line lectures about Memes and Viral Video in Russia, which ran weekly from March though July 2020. Recordings are archived on the Jordan Center’s YouTube page. No knowledge of Russian is required, and the lectures can be viewed in any order.
Soviet Self-Hatred
Soviet Self-Hatred: The Secret Identities of Postsocialism is the first volume of the three-book series with the unofficial title Russia’s Alien Nations. It looks at the negotiation of identity in the aftermath of the Soviet collapse. Serialization of the book was completed in 2019, and is followed by the draft blog Unstuck in Time: On the Post-Soviet Uncanny. At some time in the future, the project will be completed in a volume entitled Unidentified Russian Objects: On Soviet Melancholy.
Rereading Akunin
A chapter-by-chapter exploration of several historical novels by Boris Akunin, one of Russia’s most popular living authors.
Plots against Russia
The first draft of Plots against Russia: Conspiracy andFantasy after Socialism (Cornell University Press, 2019), serialized as a blog from November 2015 to July 2017.
The Watchmen Watch
An examination of the transmedia afterlife of Alan Moore’s and Dave Gibbons classic graphic novel, including an episode-by-episode analysis of the HGBO series.
Recently ported to this site from thewatchmenwatch.org
Online Teaching Tips for the Plague-Averse
Facebook group for teachers and instructors coping with the challenges of remote instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Plague-Averse Online Book Club
Asynchronous book club on Discord. We started with Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain. Read and comment at your own pace.
All the Russias
I launched the Jordan Center’s blog, All the Russias, on September 13, 2012. For several years, I was the editor and primary contributor, before handing the reins over to May Vinokour. I still post occasionally.