The Slavic Literature Pod

Jan 03 2025 158 ep. 52 mins 74
The Slavic Literature Pod Podcast artwork

The Slavic Literature Pod is your guide to the literary traditions in and around the Slavic world. On each episode, Cameron Lallana sits down with scholars, translators and other experts to 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 these canons roughly two Fridays per month.

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The Talnikov Family by Avdotya Panaeva (w/ translator Fiona Bell)

Jan 03 2025 73 mins  
Pick up a copy of The Talnikov Family from Columbia University Press!Show Notes:This week, Cameron gets into Avdotya Panaeva’s The Talnikov Family with its translator Fiona Bell. The novel, set in 1820s St. Petersburg, follows Natasha Talnikova’s life in an abusive household, setting readers into some of the lesser-read side of Imperial Russian life. Bell is a writer and schola

A Hiatus, Kind of

Dec 20 2024 34 mins  
Show Notes: Our Christmas gift to you is a non-clickbait title. Unusual for December, huh?TL;DR:Matt is going to be stepping back from the podcast for the time being.Cameron will be continuing to produce episodes going forward, shifting the focus toward interviewing translators and authors about their work. Will the boys ride again? It's an open question. Listen to the podcast

December Break: The Performance by Sergei Dovlatov

Dec 06 2024 51 mins  
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 a

Office Hours - Is Tolstoy still relevant?

Nov 22 2024 55 mins  
Show Notes:This week, Matt and Cameron get into their last Office Hours of the year, tackling the future of literature, whether or not Tolstoy is still relevant, which Russian literature icon would win in a rap battle and — most importantly — the tale of John Moritsugu, a man who tricked PBS into funding filth. God bless public broadcasting. Major themes: Raskolnikov the rap go

The UnSimple by Taras Prokhasko

Nov 15 2024 62 mins  
Heads up: This episode will contain conversation about incest throughout. Take that into consideration as you head into it. Also sorry about the kitchen noises in the background of some portions.Show Notes:This week, Matt and Cameron learn about narrative-causes and narrative-effects in The UnSimple, a novella by Ukrainian writer Taras Prokhasko and translated by Uilliam Blacker. S

To Hell with Poets by Baqytgul Sarmekova

Nov 08 2024 62 mins  
Show Notes:This week, Matt and Cameron dig into the short story collection To Hell WIth Poets, authored by Kazakh writer Baqytgul Sarmekova and translated by Mirgul Kali. The collection, published in English by Tilted Axis Press in 2024, explores rural-urban divides (with a focus on the dissatisfaction life doles out on both sides), troubled people, sexual exploitation, and the ind

Office Hours - Why don't straight men read novels?

Oct 18 2024 79 mins  
Show Notes:This week, Matt and Cameron host Office Hours, speaking about the wider state of reading as well as some non-Slavic lit they’ve been getting in to. Tune in to find their opinions about Lament for Julia by Susan Taubes and Z by Vassilis Vassilikos, whether or not literary analysis has any meaning at all, and whether we’re too concerned with what straight men are readi

Strike! (1925) by Sergei Eisenstein

Oct 11 2024 61 mins  
Show Notes:This week, Matt and Cameron dive into Sergei Eisenstein’s landmark film Strike! (1925) to get a better look into his foundational ideas around montage and film composition amidst a tragic tale of a failed strike. Yes, they will be talking about the cow scene for most of the episode. Not sure what we’re talking about? You’ll have to tune in to find out. Major themes

The Tears & Smiles of Things by Sodomora (w/ translators Dr. Roman Ivashkiv and Sabrina Jaszi)

Oct 04 2024 78 mins  
Show Notes:This week, Matt and Cameron dive into Andriy Sodomora’s short story collection The Tears & Smiles of Things with the help of its translators Roman Ivashkiv and Sabrina Jaszi. The collection draws together Sodomora’s reflections on life, ancient texts, and the difficulties of translation. The book holds the subtitle “Stories, Sketches, Meditations.” It’s nev

Office Hours - Enrolling in Jordan Peterson Academy

Sep 20 2024 72 mins  
Show Notes:This week, Matt and Cameron talk Paul Lynch’s Prophet Song, dropping the nuclear bomb (a timely conversation), and torturing your roommates by cooking cabbage. They’ll also be getting into a topic that everyone has been dying to know more about: Jordan Peterson Academy. Well…maybe not, no one has asked us about it, but Cameron is dying to know how they got his emai