It has been awhile since I’ve posted, here. Just a quick update, and perhaps I’ll make some of these items into larger posts:
- My first publication based on the 44 Lenin Avenue project came out in January: Wilson T. Bell, “Tomsk regional identity and the legacy of the Gulag and Stalinist repression,” in Edith Clowes, Gisela Erbsloh, and Ani Kokobobo, eds., Russia’s Regional Identities: The Power of the Provinces. Routledge Contemporary Russia and Eastern Europe. London: Routledge, 2018. I’m particularly excited about this publication because it combines my new research (“44 Lenin Avenue”) with my older research on the Gulag in Western Siberia, and
it is also my first publication dealing with contemporary Russia.
- Speaking of my older research, my book, Stalin’s Gulag at War: Forced Labour, Mass Death, and Soviet Victory in the Second World War, is scheduled to come out this fall with the University of Toronto Press. All that is left is basically the indexing and the double/triple-checking of the proofs. If you pre-order the book, you can recei
ve a large discount: the paperback version is only $19.95 at the moment! UTP has been a pleasure to work with, so far. I already have one speaking engagement lined up to discuss my book: a talk at Wilfred Laurier University’s Centre for Military, Strategic and Disarmament Studies on Jan. 9, 2019. Details to follow, but you can also check their website for updates.
- I’ve also joined “The Conversation Canada,” a media project devoted to bringing academic research to a public audience. My first article, “The dreadful history of children in concentration camps” (inspired, unfortunately, by the forced separation of children from their parents at the U.S. southern border), has already been read by over 5700 people.