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Dr. Andrey Sushentsov, Program Director of the Valdai Club and international relations scholar at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), will visit MIIS this week as part of the Visiting Experts program of the Graduate Initiative of Russian Studies. Dr. Sushentsov, whose field-based research pays special attention to the collision of US and Russian interests in the post-soviet space, particularly in Ukraine and in the South Caucasus, will present a series of three lectures.

The first lecture, titled, “Scenarios of US-Russia Relations,” will take place on Tuesday, February 14, and will be given in Russian. The second, titled, “Foundation of US-Russia Disagreements,” will take place on Wednesday, February 15, and will be given in English. The third, titled, “Analyzing Strategic Documents in Russian Foreign Policy,” which will take place on Thursday, February 16, will be given in Russian. These lectures will all take place in the VC room at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS).

In addition to his work with the Valdai Club and MGIMO, Dr. Sushentsov is a managing partner with the Moscow-based consulting agency Foreign Policy Advisory Group. He holds a diploma in history from Lomonosov Moscow State University and a PhD in international relations from MGIMO-University. His publications include books on U.S. politics and the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, “America’s Small Wars,” and “Essays on U.S. Politics and Regional Conflicts,” both published in Russian in 2014, as well as articles and reports on U.S.-Russian relations and Russian policies toward Georgia and Ukraine. In 2015, he edited a volume of Russian perspectives on international security issues looking ahead to 2020 titled “Contours of disturbing future. Russia and the World in 2020.” Dr. Sushentsov is participating in a Working Group on the Future of U.S.-Russia Relations established by Higher School of Economics (Moscow) and Harvard University.

Lev Gudkov, Russian sociologist, professor and Director of the Levada Center, an independent, non-governmental polling and sociological research organization based in Moscow, will visit MIIS as part of the Visiting Experts program of the Graduate Initiative of Russian Studies. Mr. Gudkov will present three lectures this week as part of a series. The first of these lectures, titled, “Historical Consciousness of Russian Society,” will take place on Tuesday, November 15, at 10:00AM-11:50AM in the VC room at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS), and will be given in Russian. The second is titled, “How the Russians Perceive the World and Why,” and will take place on Wednesday, November 16, at 12:15PM-2:00PM in the VC room at CNS. This lecture will be given in Russian, with interpretation into English available, and will be open to the public. The third, titled, “Russian Political Crisis and Anti-Western Mobilization of 2012-2016,” will take place on Thursday, November 17, at 10:00AM-11:50AM in MG-100, and will be given in Russian.

Prior to his Directorship at the Levada Center, a position which he has held since 2006, Mr. Gudkov was the head of the Levada Center’s Department of Sociopolitical Research. He has also taught in the Department of Sociology at the National Research University–Higher School of Economics since 2009. He was the leading research associate in the Russian Public Opinion Research Center from 1988 to 1991, was head of the center’s Department of Theory, and later head of the Department of Sociopolitical Research. In addition to research, Gudkov is the Editor in chief of the Russian Public Opinion Herald, a joint publication of Levada Center and the Interdisciplinary Academic Center. He has authored more than 70 books and articles on the problems of post-Communist society, transition, sociology of culture, and literature.

Yuri Saprykin will present a series of lectures this week at MIIS focusing on modern Russian youth culture, as part of the Visiting Experts program of the Graduate Initiative of Russian Studies. The first of these lectures, titled, “Emerging from the Underground: Counter-Culture After the Fall of the USSR,” will take place on Monday, November 7, from 12:15pm – 1:50om in the VC room at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS); the second, titled, “Craving Justice: Post-Imperial Injuries in 90s Youth Culture,” will take place on Tuesday, November 8, from 10:00am – 11:50am in MG-100; and the third, titled, “Despair Against Hope: What’s Happening with Russian Youth in 2016,” will take place on Thursday, November 10, from 10:00am-11:50am in the VC room at CNS. The following week, Mr. Saprykin will give the final lecture of his series, titled, “Protest vs. Patriotism: Youth Culture in Putin’s Russia,” on Monday, November 14, from 12:15PM – 1:50PM, in the VC room at CNS. All four of these lectures will be given in Russian.
 

Mr. Saprykin is a graduate of MGU’s Department of Philosophy. In the 2000s he was editor in chief of the journal Afisha, a publication largely responsible for forming the tastes and values of the new educated urban class, the generation of “Russian Europeans.” Mr. Saprykin took part in the relaunch of analytical website Slon.ru and Russia’s oldest English-language publication, The Moscow Times. He is the author of Observation Points (2015) and courses on urban and youth culture for Russia’s leading educational institutions and online resources. 

Yuri Saprykin is the eighth of ten lecturers who will visit the MIIS campus this semester through the GIRS program.

Dr. Adam Stulberg, Professor and Co-Director of the Center for International Strategy, Technology, and Policy at the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, is visiting MIIS this week as part of the Visiting Experts program of the Graduate Initiative of Russian Studies.

Dr. Stulberg teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on international security, Eurasian politics and security affairs, nuclear (non)proliferation, and energy and international security, as well as inter-disciplinary courses on science, technology, and international security policy. His current research focuses on energy security dilemmas and statecraft in Eurasia, new approaches to strategic stability and denuclearization of military arsenals, internationalization of the nuclear fuel cycle, counter-network warfare, and the implications of emerging technologies for strategic stability and international security.

Dr. Stulberg earned his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), holds an M.A. in International Affairs from Columbia University, an M.A. in Political Science from UCLA, and a B.A. in History from the University of Michigan. He served as a Political Consultant at RAND from 1987-1997, and as a Senior Research Associate at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the, then, Monterey Institute of International Studies (1997-1998). He has worked closely with former Senator Sam Nunn drafting policy recommendations and background studies on future directions for the U.S. Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, building regional and energy security regimes in Central Asia and the South Caucasus, and engaging Russia’s regional power centers. Dr. Stulberg was a post-doctoral fellow at CNS (2000-2001); policy scholar at the EastWest Institute; and has been a consultant to Carnegie Corporation of New York (2000-2010) and the Office of Net Assessment, Office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense (2000-present). In addition, he served on the Executive Committee of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Technical Group, American Nuclear Society (2012-14), and currently serves on the Faculty Advisory Board of the Strategic Energy Institute (Georgia Tech).

Adam Stulberg is the ninth of ten lecturers who will visit the MIIS campus this semester through the GIRS Visiting Experts program.