Samantha
Co-Host of The Slavic Connexion
Samantha is from San Antonio and is particularly proud of being a Central Texas local. She attended the University of Texas as an undergraduate, earning BAs in History and Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, with minors in Comparative Literature and Women’s and Gender Studies. Currently, she is pursuing a master’s degree in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies as well as a portfolio in LGBTQ+ Studies. For the purposes of her master’s degree, she is interested in Serbia-Croatian language, literary translation, literature from the Balkans and Central/Eastern Europe, and comparative feminist/queer issues. Outside of class, she reads whatever she has time for, goes to see old movies at the Austin Film Society, bikes, forgets about her pickling and preserving projects, and picks up random handicrafts.
Samantha has hosted seven Episodes.
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"American Girls in Red Russia" with Julia Mickenberg
March 17th, 2021 | Season 3 | 51 mins 55 secs
american stories, communism, history, social movements, soviet union, women's history
In honor of Women's History Month, we have a special episode featuring American Studies professor Dr. Julia Mickenberg who joins us to talk about her spectacular book "American Girls in Red Russia" which explores the intimate lives of American women who traveled to the USSR chasing the "Soviet Dream." We hope you enjoy!
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Russia's Mercurial Role in Southeast Europe (with Dimitar Bechev)
January 11th, 2021 | Season 3 | 28 mins 4 secs
balkans, covid, regional politics, russia, turkey
On this episode, Samantha chats with Dr. Dimitar Bechev on the geopolitics of the Balkans and the stratagems of Russia in the region. Dr. Bechev also discusses Russia's relationship with Turkey and Turkey's ties with the US and how these affect the countries nested in the Balkans which have fallen out of US foreign policy priority since the George W. Bush administration.
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"Hunger and Fury: The Crisis of Democracy in the Balkans" with Jasmin Mujanovic
October 25th, 2020 | Season 3 | 51 mins 58 secs
balkans, china, democratization, elections, european union, regional politics
Dr. Jasmin Muajnovic, a political scientist focused on democratization and social movements in the Western Balkans and a host of podcast "Sarajevo Calling", joins Samantha and Cullan for an in-depth discussion on the state of democracy in the region in 2020. This is a great walkthrough of the elite maneuvering and politics in the Western Balkans and which nuclear powers hold sway and influence in the region. We hope you enjoy!
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The Quintessential S. Ansky // The Sprit of Sakha (ASEEES)
January 25th, 2020 | Season 2 | 1 hr 6 mins
emigre authors, languages, s. ansky, sakha, yakut, yiddish
At the 2019 ASEEES Conference, PhD student Raya Shapiro shares with SlavX host Samantha about their research on the Jewish émigré playwright and author S. Ansky. And then, anthropoligist Jenanne Ferguson from the University of Nevada talks about the language of Sakha (Yakut) and the intrinsic spirit of all languages.
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Winnie the Pooh... and Brezhnev Too // Balkan Blackness (ASEEES)
January 17th, 2020 | Season 2 | 30 mins 59 secs
balkans, blackness, disney, soviet animation, winnie the pooh, yugoslavia
Dr. Amanbayeva of Kazakhstan takes us into the magical world of Winnie the Pooh... but in the Soviet Union, and in the second segment, Dr. Rucker-Chang discusses the surprising ways in which people see themselves in the Balkans.
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Urban Czech Walk // MTV & Yugoslav Rock (ASEEES 2019 Conference)
December 20th, 2019 | Season 2 | 31 mins 6 secs
czech cultures, live aid concert, mtv, prague, soviet rock, soviet youth, yugoslavia
From the ASEEES Conference in San Francisco, Professor Chad Bryant of UNC Chapel Hill speaks with us about Czech cultures and in the second half of the episode, Professor Laura Todd of the University of Nottingham lets us in on her research on early 1980s MTV and the Yugoslavian rock scene.
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Turbofolk 2: Revenge of the Balkan Divas
July 6th, 2019 | Season 1 | 40 mins 4 secs
arkan, balkan pop culture, ceca raznatovic, lepa brena, reggaeton, sasa kovacevic, severina, turbofolk, turboton, yugo nostalgia
Turbofolk is back with a vengeance! Dr. Vladislav Beronja joins Milena in the studio again but with reinforcements: students from his Spring 2019 class on popular music in the Balkans. These undergraduate scholars discuss the turbofolk artists, history, and songs that grabbed them!