REEEC New Directions Lecture: James T. Andrews, "Narrating the Soviet Metropolis: The Moscow Metro and the Story of Socialism”

Dr. Andrews’s talk will look at the building, and history, of the Moscow Metro in Soviet Russia as a portal to understanding the changing nature of Soviet political/historical periods. Using public space, and artistic and architectural structures, as a case study to understand how the built environment can be a narratological medium, the presentation will move from the 1930s to the post-Soviet era.

The presentation is part of a larger archival-based book monograph in progress entitled Iconic Metropolitan: Mass Mobility, Architectural Visions, and the Politics of Urban Space in Modern Russia. James T.

Andrews is Distinguished University Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Modern Russian and Comparative European History at Iowa State University. Educated at Tufts University and its Fletcher School of International Studies (B.S.

& M.I.A.), and Columbia University’s Harriman Institute for Russian & East European Studies, he holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Since 1995, he has been affiliated as a Senior Research Associate with the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute for the History of the Natural Sciences and Technology in Moscow and St. Petersburg.