Is this a joke?

A book cover with a poster at center showing a woman in a purple skirt, orange top, and black boots waving to a distant crowd, opposite a taller looming woman in white. At bottom is the book title, Circulating Subjects, in black and at top is the author's name, Philippa Hetherington, in orange type.

An incredible cover has landed for an incredible book - Philippa Hetherington's "Circulating Subjects: Sex Work and Migration in Russia, 1885–1935."

More on how to pre-order a copy of her "riveting" and "radical" @cornellupress.bsky.social book here: www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...

My sense is that hockey tends to skew right in the US because of the perception among parents that it’s more white than football and basketball and thus safer, and because of cost. This isn’t everyone, of course, or even a majority. But it’s long been a noticeable feature of youth hockey.

Earlier today I saw a pickup truck flying a red and black flag, the colors of Nazism and Bandera. But on closer look, I realized that it was the flag of the United Farm Workers, with a black Aztec eagle symbolizing the long Mexican presence in California. We all need more moments like this.

Jeremy Morris addressed a similar scenario in a recent forum in Kritika about the ethics of research and scholarship in the context of war. To what extent do we endanger our correspondents?

Fingers crossed.

Владельца интернет-радио «Эхо» и американское научное общество признали «нежелательными» в России | ОВД-Инфо Генпрокуратура признала «нежелательными» еще две организации. Информация об этом опубликована на сайте Минюста.В перечень внесли американскую «Ассоциацию славянских, восточноевропейских и евразийских ...

Russia has declared ASEEES @aseees.bsky.social an "undesirable organization." ASEEES is the largest Western academic association for Slavic studies. This ruling puts Russian scholars at risk of prosecution for being members or participating in the annual conference.

ovd.info/express-news...

I knew Arch much better by email correspondence than in-person encounters. Yet he always treated me like we were the oldest of friends. We’re all poorer in the absence of his uncanny sense how things really worked in Russia.

The Preparation of Hockey Players, or Why the Detroit Red Wings Won Four Stanley Cups in 12 Years.

Lenin discovering Alexander Kerensky has accidentally added him to the Provisional Government group chat.

Since the 1950s, Summer Language Workshops at Indiana University have provided training in Russian, East European, and Central Asian languages. Generations have come to Bloomington to study Romanian, Polish, Kazakh, etc.

Rubio just cancelled all of them
languageworkshop.indiana.edu/summer-langu...

Kritika is co-hosting a conference in Paris in December 2025 on Eurasian borderlands in times of war and postwar. Please click below for the CFP!

www.facebook.com/share/p/1AFL...

Holy hair, Batman!

David Lodge, British novelist who satirized campus life, dies at 89 Despite tackling weighty themes like death and faith, his novels were often warm and playful. Twice shortlisted for the Booker, he was also a formidable critic.

www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2...

I do. And that remains true! Defining characteristic of the mid-career scholar: the realization that the field is at its worst when persons try to settle scores that stem from their own insecurities. Err on the side of generosity!

BTW: I think we’re now “late career,” which awaits its definition.

I know everyone in your account, but I didn’t know that. Hearing about it for the first time is perhaps proof that old friends who are no longer with us are never really far away. They have not lost the ability to surprise us.

Jeffrey Hardy’s ‘Finding God in the Gulag’ came out last week, adding another book to the run of new innovative work on the Gulag.

The new issue of Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian is out featuring articles by Lewis Siegelbaum, Ann Komaromi; @faithhillis.bsky.social and @vhtroyansky.bsky.social; reviews by @bryangigantino.bsky.social and others. muse.jhu.edu/issue/53729

Friends and colleagues heading to #ASEEES24 in Boston, join us on Sat, Nov 23, at 12:00 pm, for the book discussion — EMPIRE OF REFUGEES (Stanford, 2024). Themes: migration, the Caucasus, Russia, the Middle East, Islam.

convention2.allacademic.com/one/aseees/a...

Steven Solnick’s Stealing the State?

Mark Mazower, a historian at Columbia University, on the end of the American illusion. And why Europe, with its painful history of fascism, is different.

I hadn’t seen anyone else do it, so I’m working on a starter pack of Russia/USSR/Eurasia historians. Check it out!

go.bsky.app/CagBxPQ

Clearly the author failed to anticipate your specific expertise: familiar with the Marxist dialectic AND the writings of St. Luke.

Slavic vote? What’s that about? Putin’s brand of fascism?

Grgich, like Tchelistcheff, was an embodiment of the linkage between winemaking in California and winemaking in Eastern Europe / Russia. Upstart gave rise to upstart. www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news...

Thoughts on the JMH switch a few years back from no illustration to maps?

The latest History Ex Silo conversation is up on NBN! It features Ekaterina Pravilova and @rlspang.bsky.social talking about the history of money and monetary policy in post-Catherinian Russia and revolutionary France.

newbooksnetwork.com/writing-the-...

The latest History Ex Silo conversation, featuring @fabianbaumann.bsky.social and @laurenstokes.bsky.social is up on NBN!

newbooksnetwork.com/the-family-i...

I meant my first post on blue sky to be on something to do with my research, instead I am in horror how deep an esteemed colleague can fall. How can anyone justify going to Valdai these days (or really ever).