I got a note from Tom Luddy, who, among other things, runs the Telluride Film Festival, that Balabanov's "Cargo 200" has finally opened in the US (see the URL's below).

9/25/2008 (the letter will appear in the upcoming issue of Slavic Review)

Letter to the Editor of Slavic Review

August 11 (for more recent commentary, see below).

Two recent items dealing with contemporary Russia are well worth your attention. Both explore the emergence of Russian nationalism out of the post-communist (and even earlier, post-imperial) vacuum. Both present a complex and nuanced picture.

May 1. Vadim Vokov, Professor of Sociology, EUSP, speaks at UCB about the experience and the lessons of the EUSP closure and reopening. He has kindly allowed us to host his PowerPoint presentation.  Click here to view it.

I read with great interest Stanley Fish's latest column in the New York Times ("Will the Humanities Save Us?" NYT 1/6/2008). Fish makes a few valid points but they only obscure the essential poverty of his argument.