Alexander McConnell produced the episode for the U-M History Department's Reverb Effect podcast. The episode is about underground peace activism in the Soviet Union and features clips from an interview McConnell conducted with Olga Medvedkova, a former Soviet dissident: "Peace to the World": Lessons from the Soviet Antiwar Underground (Reverb Effect, Season 5, Episode 3)
Alexander McConnell received his Ph.D. in History from the University of Michigan in 2023. He is the 2023-2024 Postdoctoral Fellow at the Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies. McConnell’s research centers on the intersection of political language, cultural production, and moral values in modern Russia and the Soviet Union. His current project traces the evolution of “humanism” in Soviet ideology, culture, and philosophy, examining how contests over the scope and meaning of this key concept reshaped ideals of socialist personhood. His article "'Tragic Presentiments': Maksim Gor’kii and the Invention of Soviet Humanism" is forthcoming in the Summer 2024 issue of Slavic Review. McConnell’s research has been supported by grants from the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES), American Councils for International Education, the Donia Human Rights Center, and the Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia. McConnell was a 2022 Robert J. Donia Graduate Student Fellow.
