Cecil the Lion Had to Die by Olena Stiazhkina (w/ translator Dominique Hoffman)
Cameron is joined by Dominique Hoffman to discuss Olena Stiazhkina's Cecil the Lion Had to Die. They'll get into her work translating the novel, the material culture of the post-Soviet world, and Ukrainian identify formation.
The Talnikov Family by Avdotya Panaeva (w/ translator Fiona Bell)
Cameron sits down with Fiona Bell to talk about her translation of Avdotya Panaeva's The Talnikov Family, covering its deployment of defamiliarization, the Russian racial imaginary, and purported universality.
Office Hours - Is Tolstoy still relevant?
Major themes: Raskolnikov the rap god, The future of art, Tricking PBS
The UnSimple by Taras Prokhasko
Major themes: We can never escape Benedict Anderson, Bai-narrative, Quasi-history
Office Hours - Why don't straight men read novels?
Major themes: A.I. bait, straight men and novels, TikTok killed the author-star
Strike! (1925) by Sergei Eisenstein
Major themes: Cow slaughter, Influencing the audience, Everything is montage