What makes a happy city? That is, what makes a city livable and responsive to humans’ physical, emotional and cultural needs? Over the last century, city planners have turned to the maintenance of green spaces within urban jungles to address these issues. In this final event for Pitt REEES’ Eurasian Environments series, the Eurasian Knot paired Maria Taylor and Roberta Mendonca De Carvalho to discuss green cities from two different contexts. Taylor researches mid-20th century efforts to green Soviet cities in response to rapid urbanization. De Carvalho studies the relationship between urbanization and environment in the Brazilian Amazon. How did city planners in the USSR and Brazil use green spaces to make cities more livable? What obstacles did they encounter? And how do these disparate contexts help us understand the global problem that pits people, city, and ecology against each other? Maria Taylor and Roberta Mendonca De Carvalho give us a trough of mental cud to crew on.Guests:Maria C. Taylor is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture at Cornell University. Her research focuses on the history and theory of landscape, architecture, and urban planning, particularly in the Soviet Union. Roberta Mendonca De Carvalho is a Teaching Associate Professor in the Urban Studies Program at the University of Pittsburgh. Her current research interests embrace urbanization as a worldwide process and tries to understand how it unfolds at the local scale. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
--------
1:09:28
--------
1:09:28
Abortion (Bio)politics in Russia
In the waning decades of the Soviet Union, abortion was the main form of birth control. For example, official statistics from the late 1970s report that there were 250-270 abortions per 100 live births. It’s an astounding number. It points to a key paradox of state socialism and reproductive health: Abortion in the USSR was widely available, but mainly because the state couldn’t provide basic contraceptives. But the collapse of the Soviet system didn’t produce many remedies–Women now had access to contraception, but the economic ravages of the 1990s led many families to postpone childbearing. Abortion numbers remained high to begin lowering in the last two decades. How has the Russian government and civil society addressed abortion, contraception, family planning and women’s reproductive rights and health? What role has Western feminism and the debate over abortion played in Russia? And where do the increasing restrictions of abortion in Russia fit within the worldwide struggle for women’s reproductive freedom? The Eurasian Knot posed these questions and more to Michele Rivkin-Fish in this timely and crucial issue in her new book, Unmaking Russia’s Abortion Culture: Family Planning and the Struggle for a Liberal Biopolitics published by Vanderbilt University Press.Guest:Michele Rivkin-Fish is Associate Professor of Anthropology at UNC-Chapel Hill. Her research examines reproductive politics in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. She’s the author of Women’s Health in Post-Soviet Russia: The Politics of Intervention. Her most recent book is Unmaking Russia’s Abortion Culture: Family Planning and the Struggle for a Liberal Biopolitics is published by Vanderbilt University Press.Send us your sounds! PatreonKnotty News Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
--------
1:13:16
--------
1:13:16
Romanian Presidential Elections
On May 17, the centrist, pro-EU Nicusor Dan narrowly defeated George Simion, a far-right populist, in Romania’s Presidential Election. The bout was the latest in a string of contests that stoked fears for European liberal democracy, the rise of right-wing populism, and Russian meddling. Media inside and outside Romania leaned into the danger a Simion victory posed, and with Dan’s victory, how Romania can serve as the latest European democracy refusing to slide backward. But does this narrative really capture Romania’s political atmosphere? What were Simion’s and Dan’s base of support? And does Simion’s defeat signal the death knell of the far right in Romania or merely a brief setback? And where does Viktor Orban and Donald Trump figure in all this? To get some clarity, the Eurasian Knot turned to Stefano Bottoni and Tamás Kiss for their insight and analysis of the Romanian political field before and after this consequential vote.Special Co-Host:Zsuzsánna Magdó is Associate Director at the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies where she manages regional studies programs to support interdisciplinary scholarship and public education on the world regions of Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Eurasia.Guests:Stefano Bottoni is Associate Professor in the Department of History, Archaeology, Geography, and Performing Arts at the University of Florence. He is the author of several books. His most recent book, Orbán: A European Despot, is forthcoming in English and German.Tamás Kiss is Senior Researcher at the Romanian Institute for Research on National Minorities. He is the author of several books on ethnic relations in Romania and Hungary. He’s the editor of Unequal Accommodation of Minority Rights: Hungarians in Transylvania published by Palgrave.Send us your sounds! PatreonKnotty News Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
--------
55:30
--------
55:30
Remembering J. Arch Getty
Last week, our friend, mentor, teacher, and comrade, J. Arch Getty, died from his battle with lung cancer. As a way to remember him, here’s an interview I did with Arch in 2017 about his career and scholarship.Guest:J. Arch Getty was a Professor Emeritus of History at the University of California, Los Angeles. Books discussed in this interview:Origins of the Great Purges: The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered, 1933–1938, Cambridge University PressThe Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932-1939, Yale University Press.Yezhov: The Rise of Stalin's 'Iron Fist', Yale University Press.Practicing Stalinism: Boyars, Bolsheviks and the Persistence of Tradition, Yale University Press. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
--------
1:02:59
--------
1:02:59
Muslim Refugees in the Ottoman Empire
Between the 1850s and World War I, about one million North Caucasian Muslims fled to the Ottoman Empire. Some, like the Circassians, ran from a Russian perpetrated genocide. Others, like Chechens, Dagestanis, and others the violence of Russian colonization. Obligated by faith to take these refugees, the Ottoman Empire scattered them throughout the Ottoman Balkans, Anatolia, and the Levant, in many cases to balance against its Christian subjects. Most of these villages still exist today, including the capital of Jordan, Amman. What was this experience like for these refugees before the international legal regime of refugeedom? Why did they flee the Russian Empire and what was life like with the Ottomans? How did the Ottoman empire manage this influx of Muslim Others? And how did refugees contribute to the end of the Empire? Knowing nothing of this fascinating history, the Eurasian Knot spoke to Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky about his new book Empire of Refugees North Caucasian Muslims and the Late Ottoman State published by Stanford University Press.Guest:Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky is an Assistant Professor of Global Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research examines Muslim refugee migration and its role in shaping the modern world. He is the author of Empire of Refugees: North Caucasian Muslims and the Late Ottoman State published by Stanford University Press.Send us your sounds! PatreonKnotty News Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
To many, Russia, and the wider Eurasia, is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. But it doesn’t have to be. The Eurasian Knot dispels the stereotypes and myths about the region with lively and informative interviews on Eurasia’s complex past, present, and future. New episodes drop weekly with an eclectic mix of topics from punk rock to Putin, and everything in-between. Subscribe on your favorite podcasts app, grab your headphones, hit play, and tune in. Eurasia will never appear the same. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Österreich