Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron return to the salt mines of Reddit to address some of the internet’s most asked questions, such as “Can atheists understand Dostoevsky?” and “Does Crime and Punishment ever get interesting?” Alongside that, they’ll also be talking about some novels and works they’d like to cover but don’t work with the normal format. Major themes: Pierre winky face, Dostoevsky and atheists, Laurus 29:08 - We all make mistakes in the heat of passion, Jimbo. The music used ...
Jun 07, 2024•49 min
Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron finish the encirclement of Paulus’ 6th Army in Stalingrad as they cover Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate from Part 2, Chapter 51 through Part 3, Chapter 18. After fighting from the back foot for months — exhausting all those still on the front line, civilian and soldier alike — it’s time for the USSR to swing two great hammers down into the fascist forces. Despite their victory, all is not well for the Red Army. Major themes: Madonna and babe, redemptive h...
May 31, 2024•1 hr 9 min
Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron get into Lyudmila Ulitskaya’s recently published collection of short stories “The Body of the Soul.” In particular, they’ll be covering “The Dragon and the Phoenix,” “A Man in a Mountainous Landscape,” and “Woof-woof.” They’ll be getting into the dynamics of building communities, death as a part of life, and the immaterial emotions we tie into our toys. Major themes: Death, dogs, the essential immortality of the soul The music used in this episode was “Ст...
May 10, 2024•1 hr
Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron take a trip into the stacks to review and -- more importantly -- rank their back catalogue. Everything from Gogol's "The Nose" to Life and Fate , they'll be putting it under the microscope and giving you their thoughts on where it falls from S-tier to F-tier (which, of course, stands for: 'What were we f'ing thinking?). Plus you'll get some insight into every time they almost ended the podcast. Major themes: reflection, tier lists, angry listener feedback...
May 03, 2024•1 hr 10 min
Covering thoughts shared by some of our listeners on our Discord and on social media about Part 2, Chapter 49 of Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate. You can read our post about the chapter here . If you haven't already signed up to get daily emails reflecting on each chapter of Life and Fate , you can do so on our website . Be sure to follow us on Instagram and join our Discord to participate in the discussion. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands...
Apr 30, 2024•18 min
Covering thoughts shared by some of our listeners on our Discord and on social media about Part 2, Chapter 48 of Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate. You can read our post about the chapter here . If you haven't already signed up to get daily emails reflecting on each chapter of Life and Fate , you can do so on our website . Be sure to follow us on Instagram and join our Discord to participate in the discussion. Thanks to Dominique for their thoughts in this episode. Advertising Inquiries: https://r...
Apr 29, 2024•14 min
Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron keep up the pace in Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate , covering Part 2, chapters 21 through 50. They’ll be covering everything from Klimov’s All Quiet on the Western Front moment in Battlefield Stalingrad to the death camps that take up much of the latter chapters for this part. Get ready to get sad, and tune in. Major themes: Why fight wars, no step on snake, not the purge exactly 01:02:19 - “Art and Politics” by William T. Vollman The music used in this ...
Apr 26, 2024•1 hr 13 min
You can pick up a copy of Dr. Maya Vinokour’s book Work Flows: Stalinist Liquids in Russian Labor Culture here. Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron sit down with Dr. Maya Vinokour to talk about her book Work Flows: Stalinist Liquids in Russian Labor Culture and touch on Daniil Kharms’ short story “How the Old Woman Tried to Buy Ink.” Dr. Vinokour is Assistant Professor in the Department of Russian & Slavic Studies at New York University and the author of Work Flows: Stalinist Liquids in...
Apr 12, 2024•1 hr 3 min
Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron decide to see what insights Book-Twitter has to offer by reading and reacting to some choice passages from Hit Reverse: New Ideas From Old Books by Jash Dholani. If you’ve ever read H.P. Lovecraft and decided, “yeah, I should get my views on governance from this guy,” boy is this the book for you. Head to visitmagnitogorsk.com to book your tour today! 10:37 - “How Julius Evola Became the Internet’s Favorite Fascist” by Morgan Jones 56:01 - E.B. White and ...
Apr 05, 2024•1 hr 10 min
Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron continue their quest through Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate , covering Part 1, chs.61-70 along with Part 2, chs. 1-20. They’ll be going into greater depth about the state of Grossman’s world, the nature of fascism, and will dive a little bit into the nature of science in the USSR. Major themes: Provocative moral questions, totalitarian ideology, World War 2 worship 01:57 - Find “Life and Fate - Chapter A Day Read Along” anywhere you get your podcasts, Ap...
Mar 29, 2024•1 hr 5 min
Note: This episode contains light discussion of sexual assault throughout. Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron dig into Ivan Bunin’s popular short story “Light Breathing” to talk about narrative chronology, whether Bunin really is the emigree Gorky, and why exactly every Slavic literature class makes its students read this piece at least once. Major themes: Philosopher ships, respecting tomes, the emigree Gorky The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / ...
Mar 15, 2024•44 min
Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron take some time to recap the syllabus to students in Office Hours. They’ll be recapping the Life and Fate Read Along so far, talk about Dostoevsky on Instagram, and then spend far too much time talking about the one, the only novel of its kind: Empress Theresa . Major themes: Read Along recap, Dosteovsky-gram, Empress Theresa The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandca...
Mar 08, 2024•47 min
Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron stay on the Life and Fate grind, covering Part 1’s chapters 32 through 60. Time to talk hospital tours, tank corp organization, and front-line commissars oh my! Get your canteen full of carefully boiled water and tune in! They’ll be briefly recapping the events covered in these chapters, but for a complete play-by-play, check out our daily read along episodes: the current’s month’s chapters will be in our main feed, and all previous month’s chapters can b...
Mar 01, 2024•1 hr 14 min
Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron are joined by Professor David Cooper to talk about his new book The Czech Manuscripts: Forgery, Translation, and National Myth. In the book, Dr. Cooper takes a new look at the so-called Czech Manuscripts — several forged literary works that played a large role in 19th Century Czech national identity-building — using several approaches to tackle what trends shaped them and how they were treated in turn. Pick up a copy of The Czech Manuscripts here . David ...
Feb 09, 2024•57 min
This week, Matt and Cameron take a break from their daily Grossman grind™ to talk about what they’ve been getting up to for fun this month, about Cameron’s deep fear and love for the sea and its creatures, as well as a ChatGPT’s take on how you should be reading Dostoevsky. Major themes: Dissertations, fears of sea monsters, DostoevskyGPT The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube . Our links:...
Feb 02, 2024•37 min
Show Notes : You can sign up for our email list here , where we are currently sending daily analysis emails as part of our Life and Fate read along This week, Matt and Cameron — after numerous daily episodes — start outlining some of the main themes covered in Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate , chapters 1-31, and talk a little (read: a lot) more about his life. Grab your flak vest and get ready for some front-line reporting, it’s time for the Gross-cast. Major themes: A wolfish era, memorializati...
Jan 26, 2024•1 hr 1 min
Show Notes : Pick up a copy of Ochre & Rust from Green Linden Press’ website. This week, Matt and Cameron tackle some of the work of Sergey Gandlevsky, translated by Philip J. Metres and collected in Ochre & Rust. Tune in to hear more about one of Russia’s most celebrated modern poets, self-described outsider who drifted around the edges of the USSR (and, later, the Russian Federation) and cataloged his thoughts and experiences in his poems. Philip Metres is a poet, scholar, translator, ...
Jan 12, 2024•1 hr 4 min
Wondering where the other episodes in this series are? We've moved them to a secondary RSS feed (under the title Life and Fate - Chapter A Day Read Along) to avoid clutter. Find it on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Amazon Music , or wherever else you get your podcasts. Covering thoughts shared by some of our listeners on our Discord and on social media about Part 1, Chapter 5 of Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate. You can read our post about the chapter here . If you haven't already signed up to get da...
Jan 06, 2024•8 min
Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron cover the short story “The Sulphur Spring” by the author Nadezhda Durova, and investigate its depiction of indigenous peoples, its ambiguous relationships, and sulphur as a health benefit for ungrateful children. Yep, it's a wide-ranging one. Grab your spring water and tune in! Major themes: Improvised speaking, sulpher water, ambiguous relationships 07:54 - The (Un)making of a Man: Aleksandr Aleksandrov/Nadezhda Durova by Ruth Averbach 32:08 - It’s 1 ver...
Jan 06, 2024•50 min
Wondering where the other episodes in this series are? We've moved them to a secondary RSS feed (under the title Life and Fate - Chapter A Day Read Along) to avoid clutter. Find it on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Amazon Music , or wherever else you get your podcasts. Covering thoughts shared by some of our listeners on our Discord and on social media about Part 1, Chapter 4 of Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate. You can read our post about the chapter here . If you haven't already signed up to get da...
Jan 05, 2024•12 min
Wondering where the other episodes in this series are? We've moved them to a secondary RSS feed (under the title Life and Fate - Chapter A Day Read Along) to avoid clutter. Find it on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Amazon Music , or wherever else you get your podcasts. Covering thoughts shared by some of our listeners on our Discord and on social media about Part 1, Chapter 3 of Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate. You can read our post about the chapter here . If you haven't already signed up to get da...
Jan 04, 2024•13 min
Wondering where the other episodes in this series are? We've moved them to a secondary RSS feed (under the title Life and Fate - Chapter A Day Read Along) to avoid clutter. Find it on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Amazon Music , or wherever else you get your podcasts. Covering thoughts shared by some of our listeners on our Discord and on social media about Part 1, Chapter 2 of Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate. You can read our post about the chapter here . If you haven't already signed up to get da...
Jan 03, 2024•12 min
Wondering where the other episodes in this series are? We've moved them to a secondary RSS feed (under the title Life and Fate - Chapter A Day Read Along) to avoid clutter. Find it on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Amazon Music , or wherever else you get your podcasts. Covering thoughts shared by some of our listeners on our Discord and on social media about Part 1, Chapter 1 of Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate. You can read our post about the chapter here . If you haven't already signed up to get da...
Jan 02, 2024•8 min
Show Notes : Note: This is a re-run of Vasily Grossman's "The Sistine Madonna." Matt and Cameron have finished reading Stalingrad, but they aren’t yet done with Grossman. This week, they tackle his short story “The Sistine Madonna.” Written before the publication of Stalingrad and after he began to write Life and Fate , “The Sistine Madonna” is a piece about beauty, desperation, and hope for the future. Oh, and thermonuclear war. It covers a lot of ground. Grab your Bibles to track the religious...
Dec 29, 2023•39 min
This week, Matt and Cameron start up the December Supporter Drive 2023, aiming to raise their paying monthly supporters by 10 people. If you're interested in supporting us, you can do so here. So why are we asking for the money? To answer that, we recorded several short episodes covering our purpose (as we see it), how we plan to spend the money, and how we're looking to expand into the future. This week, we'll talking about what's coming next for us. Of course, we'll be touching on our upcoming...
Dec 15, 2023•6 min
This week, Matt and Cameron start up the December Supporter Drive 2023, aiming to raise their paying monthly supporters by 10 people. If you're interested in supporting us, you can do so here. So why are we asking for the money? To answer that, we recorded several short episodes covering our purpose (as we see it), how we plan to spend the money, and how we're looking to expand into the future. This week, we'll talking through what we intend to use your money for: for the tools we use, to help m...
Dec 08, 2023•7 min
This week, Matt and Cameron start up the December Supporter Drive 2023, aiming to raise their paying monthly supporters by 10 people. If you're interested in supporting us, you can do so here. So why are we asking for the money? To answer that, we recorded several short episodes covering our purpose (as we see it), how we plan to spend the money, and how we're looking to expand into the future. This week, we'll covering the first point: what is the point of the Slavic Literature Pod and why have...
Dec 01, 2023•8 min
Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron wrap up Mikhail Bulgakov’s Soviet-era masterpiece The Master and Margarita , covering chapters 26 to the epilogue. Come see the Devil and a representative of Yeshua Ha-Nozri hack out the fate of our eponymous characters, as the Moscow investigators finally try to put a pin into this whole “magic” thing. Major themes: Comedy in translation, Ivan as creative process, PG shootouts for Americans 01:35 - “Soviet-era” literature, I should say 04:03 - Covering “...
Nov 17, 2023•57 min
Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron finish the last three parts of Guzel Yakhina’s A Volga Tale , discuss fairytales as history, talk about best character Vaska, and think about billiards as a metaphor for World War II. Join us as we think about just what does the Volga mean. Major themes: Knowing The Big Lie, WWII as billiards, rivers as historical force 43:56 - Part 1 of our series on Fyodor Gladkov’s Cement. The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / ...
Nov 10, 2023•52 min
Sign up for emails related to our Life and Fate read along here! Show Notes : This week, it’s time for Office Hours, which Matt and Cameron are contractually obliged to hold at least once per quarter. This episode they’ll be revealing a little something-something that you should look forward to, talk about violence and discomfort in media, and spend a little time on Reddit. Just another day on campus. Major themes: The Home Depot-Lowe’s spectrum, violence in media, Crime and Punishment and CCTV ...
Nov 03, 2023•47 min
