After the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia largely faded from the American mind. But in the wake of Donald Trump’s election, it has returned to the forefront, reprising its old role as the dark Other, hacking and hijacking all the way to the White House itself.
The whirlwind of attacks, leaks, and lies can be hard to keep track of, let alone parse. What did Russia really do during last year’s election? Does the Kremlin pose a threat to Western democracies? What can we learn about our own society from the “Russia story”?
Join journalist and writer Noah Sneider for answers to these questions and more. What We Talk About When We Talk About Russia is a lecture that will explore Russia’s place in the American imagination and offer a brief history of Russian meddling abroad, from the KGB’s aktivniye meropriyatiya (“active measures”) to present-day “fake news”.
Noah Sneider is a Moscow-based writer. He is the Moscow Correspondent for The Economist, covering Russia, Ukraine, and the post-Soviet space. His work also appears in The Atlantic, The New York Times, The New Republic, Slate, The Believer, The Big Roundtable, The Calvert Journal, and elsewhere.