Conversations from the Cullman Center: Stephen Kotkin and Slavoj Žižek

Slavoj Žižek and Stephen Kotkin discuss Kotkin’s monumental new biography of Joseph Stalin. Stalin: Volume I: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928 covers the Soviet dictator’s youth, from his humble origins in Georgia as the son of a shoemaker to his days as a revolutionary organizer in Lenin’s inner circle.

This event is co-presented with LIVE from the NYPL

Stephen Kotkin is the John P. Birkelund ’52 Professor in History and International Affairs at Princeton University. He is currently the acting director of Princeton’s Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies department. His previous books include Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization, Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse, 1970-2000, and Uncivil Society: 1989 and the Implosion of the Communist Establishment. He was a fellow at the Cullman Center in 2004-2005.

A Slovenian Marxist philosopher, Slavoj Žižek writes about political theory, film, cultural studies, psychoanalysis, and theology. He is the Global Distinguished Professor of German at New York University and a member of the faculty of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities in London. He has directed a number of films, and his many books include The Fragile Absolute, or Why is the Christian Legacy Worth Fighting For?, Trouble in Paradise: From the End of History to the End of Capitalism, and Zizek’s Jokes: Did You Hear the One About Hegel and Negation?

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