Research Bio
My book on the unexpected Soviet collapse, "Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: the Last Soviet Generation" (2006) has won several international awards. The book traces how the gradual transformation of the Soviet society in the 1960s-80s created conditions for its unexpected implosion in 1991. I am currently completing a book on the political and scientific history and present of the preserved body of Lenin.
In addition to being a professor in the Department of Anthropology I am also affiliated as a faculty member in Slavic Department and in Program in Critical Theory, both at UC Berkeley.
Research Expertise and Interest
social and political theory, communism and post-communism, language philosophy, the image, the body, avant-garde artistic experiments, science studies, ideology, soviet and post-soviet culture and society
In the News
Rescuing Dissent: Inside the Year-Long Mission to Bring Prominent Putin Critics to UC Berkeley
Featured in the Media
Teaching
Utopia: Art and Power in Modern Times [ANTHRO 150 - 1]
Undergraduate Seminar [ANTHRO 196 - 002]
Seminars in Social and Cultural Anthropology: Special Topics [ANTHRO 250X - 002]