Book Talk: Soviet Adventures in the Land of the Capitalists

About the Author

Lisa Kirschenbaum is an award-winning author whose research explores how individuals navigated the traumas of the twentieth century. Professor Kirschenbaum has long combined a serious commitment to research with enthusiasm for teaching. While completing her PhD at University of California, Berkeley (1993), she taught middle and high school students at Oakwood School, an independent school in southern California. Since coming to West Chester in 1996, she has developed classes in Soviet and Russian history as well as thematic courses that transcend national boundaries. Professor Kirschenbaum's research explores how people come to represent and understand their life stories as part of history, focusing on the linkages between individual, private lives and the momentous, often traumatic events of Russia's twentieth century. She has published three books: Small Comrades: Revolutionizing Childhood in Soviet Russia, 1917-1932 (RoutledgeFalmer, 2000); The Legacy of the Siege of Leningrad, 1941-1995: Myth, Memories, and Monuments (Cambridge University Press, 2006); and International Communism and the Spanish Civil War: Solidarity and Suspicion (Cambridge University Press 2015). Professor Kirschenbaum's research has been supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies, the International Research and Exchanges Board, and the Penn Humanities Forum. In 2009, Professor Kirschenbaum was awarded the West Chester University Trustees' Achievement Award.

About the Discussant

Vadim Shneyder is Assistant Professor of Russian in the Department of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Languages and Cultures, which he joined in 2015 after receiving his PhD from Yale University. He studies Russian literature of the age of realism—a period spanning roughly the second half of the nineteenth century—in its relation to its intellectual, social, and ideological contexts, both in the Russian Empire and Europe. Beyond the study of nineteenth-century prose, his research extends to a number of topics, including nineteenth- and twentieth-century European and Russian philosophy and aesthetic theory, Soviet literature and film, and national and cultural identity in Eastern Europe. His first book, Russia’s Capitalist Realism: Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Chekhov (Northwestern University Press, 2020) investigates how the Russian realist prose tradition confronted the representational challenges posed by nascent capitalism. In a situation of threatening and unprecedented change, literature did not passively reflect existing economic conditions so much as it helped to define what Russian capitalism could mean.

In 1935, two Soviet satirists, Ilia Ilf and Evgeny Petrov, undertook a 10,000 mile American road trip from New York to Hollywood and back accompanied only by their guide and chauffeur, a gregarious Russian Jewish immigrant and his American-born, Russian-speaking wife. They immortalized their journey in a popular travelogue that condemned American inequality and racism even as it marvelled at American modernity and efficiency. Lisa Kirschenbaum reconstructs the epic journey of the two Soviet funnymen and their encounters with a vast cast of characters, ranging from famous authors, artists, poets and filmmakers to unemployed hitchhikers and revolutionaries. Using the authors' notes, US and Russian archives, and even FBI files, she reveals the role of ordinary individuals in shaping foreign relations as Ilf, Petrov and the immigrants, communists, and fellow travelers who served as their hosts, guides, and translators became creative actors in cultural exchange between the two countries.

Venue

Bunche Hall 10383
(10th floor of Bunche Hall)
315 Portola Plaza
Los Angeles, CA 90095

Parking

You can find nearby parking at Parking Structure 4 or Parking Structure 5. Parking Structure 5 has an hourly rate of $8 per hour and Parking Structure 4 has an hourly rate of $4 per hour for visitors. Visit UCLA Visitor Parking for more information. Ride-share drop off is closest at the turnaround at the front of Royce Hall located at: 10745 Dickson Court, Los Angeles, CA 90095. Accessible Parking: If you have accessibility needs, you may park in the Pay-By-Space/Visitor Parking area on the rooftop (level 5) of Parking Structure 5 and proceed to the Self-Service Pay Station machine to pay by credit card.