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Podcast: New Books in Sociology
Episode: Oksana Sarkisova and Olga Shevchenko "In Visible Presence: Soviet Afterlives in Family Photos" (MIT Press, 2023)
Description: In Visible Presence: Soviet Afterlives in Family Photos (MIT Press, 2023) is an absorbing exploration of Soviet-era family photographs that demonstrates the singular power of the photographic image to command attention, resist closure, and complicate the meaning of the past.
A faded image of a family gathered at a festively served dinner table, raising their glasses in unison. A group of small children, sitting in orderly rows, with stuffed toys at their feet and a portrait of Lenin looming over their heads. A pensive older woman against a snowy landscape, her gaze directed lovingly at a tombstone. These a...