"Bad Romance": Sex, Spies, and Lies from the Cold War

The Slavic Connexion

On this episode, Josh Sanborn joins Lera and Sergio to talk about his latest cultural research on spies and spy fiction from the Cold War, and the fascinating interplay between the Intelligence Community and the fiction world. In his forthcoming book project Bad Romance, Josh unpacks famed novels such as From Russia with Love and Soviet films and how the portrayal of espionage and covert action differs between the West and the USSR. Thanks for listening!

About the Guest

Joshua Sanborn is professor of history at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania. He is the author of Imperial Apocalypse: The Great War and the Destruction of the Russian Empire (Oxford University Press, 2014), Drafting the Russian Nation: Military Conscription, Total War, and Mass Politics, 1905-1925 (Northern Illinois University Press, 2003), and the co-author of Gender, Sex, and the Shaping of Modern Europe, 3rd revised and expanded edition (Bloomsbury, 2022). He is currently working on a new project on scientists, spies, and the narratives created about them in the Cold War. He teaches a variety of courses on the history of Russia and Eastern Europe, including surveys of Russian history and seminars on the global history of 1968, the Cold War, and on human rights. PRODUCER'S NOTE: This episode was recorded in Chicago at the 2022 ASEEES Convention.

PRODUCTION CREDITS

Hosts: Lera Toropin, Sergio Glajar

Assistant Producer: Katherine Birch

Assistant Producer: Basil Fedun

Assistant EP: Misha Simanovskyy (@MSimanovskyy)

Associate Producer: Cullan Bendig (@cullanwithana)

Associate Producer: Sergio Glajar

Production Assistant: Faith VanVleet

Supervising Producer: Nicholas Pierce

SlavX Editorial Director: Sam Parrish

Main Closing Theme by Charlie Harper and additional background music by Alex Productions, Audiorezout); sound bites from "Dr. No" and "From Russia with Love"

Executive Producer & Creator: Michelle Daniel (@M_S_Daniel) www.msdaniel.com | https://connexions.ai