107 episodes
The Slavic Literature Pod The Slavic Literature Pod
-
- Education
-
-
5.0 • 32 Ratings
-
The Slavic Literature Pod is your guide to one of the most important—yet understudied—literary traditions. Every episode, Russian literature PhD Candidate Matt Gerasimovich and Personable Audio Expert Cameron Lallana dive deep into big books, short stories, film, and everything in between. You’ll get an approachable introduction to the scholarship and big ideas surrounding this canon three Fridays per month.
-
The Master and Margarita (chs. 10-18) by Bulgakov
Show Notes:
This week, Matt and Cameron track the (alleged) Devil’s progress through Moscow through his debut at the Variety Theatre and beyond in Chapters 10-18 of Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita. Grab your hidden speculative currency and turn in to follow the aftermath of Woland’s arrival, his magic tricks, and — finally — the arrival of The Master into the plot.
Major themes: Referential mania, a theoretical Margarita, Is the Soviet Man actually new?
13:45 - Nathan for you clip
Ending - Bojack and Daniel
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.
Buy this book with our affiliate links on Bookshop or Amazon!
Our links: Website | Discord
Socials: Instagram | Twitter | Facebook
Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com or call our voicemail at 209.800.3944 -
Signs and Symbols by Nabokov (w/ Drs. Sara Karpukhin and José Vergara)
Pick up a copy of Drs. Karpukhin and Vergara’s edited collection of pedagogical essays, Reimagining Nabokov: Pedagogies for the 21st Century here!
Show Notes:
This week, Matt and Cameron tackle “Signs and Symbols” by Vladimir Nabokov and are joined in this effort by Drs. José Vergara and Sara Karpukhin. Dr. Vergara is both a returning podcast guest and an Assistant Professor of Russian on the Myra T. Cooley Lectureship at Bryn Mawr College, and Dr. Karpukhin is a Lecturer in Russian at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Both of them, who co-edited a new collection on Nabokov which you can get here, shared a lot of insights on reading not just this piece, but on approaching Nabokov as a whole.
Note: This podcast contains some discussions of suicide. Skip sections 5:10 - 5:21 and 34:40 - 34:52 if you would rather not listen to that.
Major themes: Reparative epistemology, The ol' New Yorker switcheroo, Open access scholarship
8:08 - “Symbols and Signs” in The New Yorker
47:14 - Dr. Vergara’s student website
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: Website | Discord
Socials: Instagram | Twitter | Facebook
Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com or call our voicemail at 209.800.3944 -
Office Hours - "Literary" fiction, bookstagram, and questionable takes
Show Notes:
This week, Matt and Cameron debut the first episode of a new series we’re calling “Office Hours.” Sit down with us as we catch up about our lives, talk about Matt’s thoughts on Reddit and bookstagram, and stray into Cameron’s fascination with a particular alternate history author. We recorded this episode while sipping on Espresso Martinis, per the request of our supporter Kaitlin.
Major themes: What is fiction anyway?, Rodion “Richard” Raskolnikov, Suspicious Civil War literature
2:59 - First mis-speak of the episode and I wasn’t even drunk yet. “IBM” not “IGM.”
3:08 - A fun little tale of Hobby Lobby, stolen artifacts, and tangentially ISIS
30:55 - Politely and Calmly Discussing 1984
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.
Check out the work of Shae McMullin, who did our wonderful podcast art.
Our links: Website | Discord
Socials: Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Threads
Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com or call our voicemail at 209.800.3944 -
The Master and Margarita (chs. 1-9) by Bulgakov
Show Notes:
This week, Matt and Cameron kick off their next big read, The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, covering chapters one through nine. Join us as we talk about how the devil definitely doesn’t exist according to the USSR, how the devil definitely does exist according to the Devil, and the true story of the Gospels (at least, if you believe the Devil). Oh, also there’s a lot to say about Soviet life. And, somehow, all these features come together much more neatly than you’d expect. But you’ll have to tune in to learn how.
Major themes: Speculating on currency, writing in the USSR, The Devil as chance
02:31 - Our episode on Mikhail Bulgakov’s “Morphine”
02:33 - Our episode on “Heart of a Dog” by Bulgakov
11:08 - A quick background on the Komsomol
39:58 - Check out our episode on Leviathan here
42:38 - “Satan in Moscow: An Approach to Master and Margarita“ by A. C. Wright
43:52 - “Neither God nor Devil: A New Theological Approach to Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita” by Hannah Schneider
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.
Check out the work of Shae McMullin, who did our wonderful podcast art.
Our links: Website | Discord
Socials: Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Threads
Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com or call our voicemail at 209.800.3944 -
The Kreutzer Sonata by Tolstoy (w/ Dr. Tatyana Gershkovich)
Show Notes:
This week, Matt and Cameron dive into a work that’s been on the sidelines for far too long: The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy, along with the extremely helpful Dr. Tatyana Gershkovich. She is the author of Art in Doubt: Tolstoy, Nabokov, and the Problem of Other Minds (Northwestern UP, 2022), and essays published in PMLA, The Slavic and Eastern European Journal, the Journal of the History of Ideas, the Paris Review, and more. Come along with us to understand the unreliability of the narrator.
Major themes: Moral Tracts, suspicious reading, bad marriages
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.
Buy this book with our affiliate links on Bookshop or Amazon!
Our links: Website | Discord
Socials: Instagram | Twitter | Facebook
Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com or call our voicemail at 209.800.3944 -
The Performance by Dovlatov
Show Notes:
This week, Matt and Cameron dive into the short story “The Performance,” from Sergei Dovlatov’s book The Zone. Get ready to dive into the most underrepresented point-of-view in the Soviet camp system: the guards. Well, kind of. Get ready to get stagnant and talk a bit about the state of the Soviet Union in the 1970s, but mostly about a play in a prison camp where all the old Bolsheviks are played by prisoners. Ideological confusion abounds.
Major themes: The real no-termers, dirty reality & brilliant falsehood, theater of absurdity
06:29 - The Russians by Hedgewick Smith
06:39 - Antiheroes in a Post-Heroic Age: Sergei Dovlatov, Vladimir Makanin, and Cold War Malaise by Angela Brintlinger
08:12 - Part 1 of our two-part series on Zuleikha by Guzel Yakhina (I won’t link the second part here, because Part 2 has more listens than Part 1. Who are you people listening to just Part 2? Show yourselves. Explain.)
8:15 - Our episode on Varlam Shalamov’s Kolyma Tales.
27:43 - Unfortunately it’s only available in Russian, but check out the Prep Guide for the episode on our website for a relevant except
32:50 - Philosophy experts please don’t come for my neck. Also, for laypeople: you should be aware that this idea was not specifically applied to the progression of history, but was rather applied to gaining knowledge. The idea, however, later came to be applied more broadly by others.
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.
Check out the work of Shae McMullin, who did our wonderful podcast art.
Our links: Website | Discord
Socials: Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Threads
Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com or call our voicemail at 209.800.3944
Customer Reviews
Great Discussion
This is a surprisingly good podcast. I know it’s called Tipsy Tolstoy, but I could do without the identification of drinks and awkward banter. Start at minute 5 for full enjoyment.
Russian literature for the uninitiated
Top shelf discussion of a cool selection of Russian literature.
Clever with a twist of humor ;)
Contemporary literary discourse offered by two well educated lads. Feels like a nerdy college party that any self proclaimed book worm would pay his meager stipend to attend.