Insights

Writing. Convening. Teaching. Training. Modeling. Experimenting. Engaging. Across time zones and international boundaries, members of our community are at work. Our “Insights” gallery is a multimedia guide to intellectual life at the Davis Center.

The new Scholar-Entrepreneur Initiative strives to foster innovative scholarship and learning while bringing regional studies closer to practice.

The so-called emancipation of Central Asia’s women, whom Vladimir Lenin saw as the “most enslaved of the enslaved,” became a central pillar of the Soviet effort in the region.

"And all of a sudden the door is kicked open in the classroom; this student runs in and he basically says in Ukrainian, 'University has been taken over, classes are suspended, revolution is coming.'"

"There was a Soviet famine...but within that broader story there is something specific about what happens in Ukraine and it seems to be because of Stalin's particular phobia of what's going on there."

To think as he did, that he could democratize the Soviet Union...to believe that he might be able to create a market economy...to believe all of these things required a tremendous amount of optimism.

"So it's these old ladies doing folk music over a techno beat. It’s exactly what it sounds like."

“A big part of post-Soviet life is...caution. By giving it images, I wanted to allow it to come forth out of the darkness...to give a sense of it being somewhat kept at bay.”

How do we make sense of the concepts of “diaspora” and “homeland” in a globalized world?

How has the iconic image of standing in line shaped Russian identity?