Rhyming Chaos
Rhyming Chaos
The horrors of European history and today's America
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The horrors of European history and today's America

Marci Shore is a scholar and author of books about Central and Eastern European history—and not the fun parts. She has much to say about the current American moment.
Zola, Insulted (1898) by Belgian painter Henry de Groux depicts the French writer Émile Zola facing a hostile mob, capturing a pivotal moment during the Dreyfus Affair when Zola courageously defended Captain Alfred Dreyfus against antisemitic persecution.

From Sarah Palin to the Dreyfus Affair to Stalinist torture rooms, from World War II to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, this conversation with Marci Shore covers a lot of ground.

Marci is a Professor and Chair of intellectual history at the University of Toronto. She is the translator of Michał Głowiński’s The Black Seasons, and the author of Caviar and Ashes: A Warsaw Generation’s Life and Death in Marxism, The Taste of Ashes: The Afterlife of Totalitarianism in Eastern Europe, and The Ukrainian Night: An Intimate History of Revolution.

Towards the end of the podcast, she mentions the website Small Acts of Democratic Resistance. This site is meant to be a platform for solidarity and moral support, but also a resource for journalists, especially those outside of the U.S.

If you’re in the U.S. and are taking part in any acts of democratic resistance, large or small, you can write to democracyseminar@newschool.edu to get in touch with the website.


The Rhyming Chaos podcast is produced by Jeremy Goldkorn and Maria Repnikova, and edited by Cadre Scripts. The theme music is Paper Boy, composed and performed on the guzheng by Wu Fei. Our closing music is Erik Satie’s Gymnopédie No. 1, arranged and performed by Wu Fei. Our cover art is by Li Yunfei.

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