Podcast summary

Draitser, Professor of Russian at Hunter College (CUNY), resurrects-with great humor-the world of his Jewish childhood in the Soviet Union.

Participant(s) Bio

Emil Draitser was born in Odessa, Ukraine, in 1937. He began his writing career first as a freelancer, contributing satirical articles for Soviet newspapers and magazines. His work appeared in leading Soviet Russian journals under a pen name, though he was eventually blacklisted for writing an article critical of an important Soviet official, which prompted him to leave for the United States. He immigrated to Los Angeles in 1974, where he earned a Ph.D. in Russian literature from UCLA. His first book published in the United States, Forbidden Laughter: Soviet Underground Humor (1980) garnered national attention. His essays and short stories have since been published in the Los Angeles Times, Partisan Review, North American Review, and many other American and Canadian periodicals.

www.emildraitser.com

Suzi Weissman is Professor and Chair of Politics at Saint Mary's College of California and sits on the editorial boards of Critique and Against the Current. She is the author of Victor Serge: The Course is Set on Hope; and edited Victor Serge: Russia Twenty Years After, and The Ideas of Victor Serge, as well as many articles on the Soviet Union and Russia. As host of several drive-time public affairs programs on KPFK, Weissman produced many special programs and live broadcasts during the years of turmoil and disintegration in the Soviet Union. Her radio programs from 1986 to 2001 are a featured archive at the Hoover Institution for War and Peace at Stanford University. In recent years, Weissman has broadened her focus to labor and community struggles in the US.

http://suziweissman.com

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