44 Lenin Avenue

A researcher's journey to Siberia

Research in the time of Covid-19

Filed under: Conferences & Presentations,Methodology — Wilson Bell at 1:41 pm on Friday, March 27, 2020  Tagged , , ,

It is a little strange being on sabbatical during this pandemic and the accompanying social distancing. The TRU community is figuring out how to work its shift to on-line instruction. Nova Scotia (where I’m located) has declared a state of emergency, and we’re supposed to go out only for neighbourhood walks (avoiding people) and essentials. […]

Year in Review: 2019

Filed under: Conferences & Presentations,Gulag,Knowledge mobilization — Wilson Bell at 11:21 pm on Tuesday, December 31, 2019  Tagged , ,

In terms of academic accomplishments and milestones, 2019 was an exciting year, including for the “44 Lenin Avenue” project. Here are some of the highlights: My book, Stalin’s Gulag at War, came out in December 2018, but has a 2019 imprint, and I think of it as my first, big career-related news of the year. […]

Does the murder method matter?

Filed under: Conferences & Presentations,Ignatii Dvernitskii — Wilson Bell at 3:17 pm on Wednesday, November 6, 2019  Tagged ,

When I presented at Dalhousie’s Stokes Seminar in September, one interesting question that came up in discussion related to the method of murder in the Ignatii case. Krista Kesselring, Chair of the history department and expert in the history of crime in early modern England, noted that in her research she found that only about […]

Stokes Seminar at Dalhousie University

Filed under: Conferences & Presentations,Ignatii Dvernitskii,Knowledge mobilization — Wilson Bell at 4:51 pm on Thursday, September 5, 2019  Tagged ,

As I begin the academic year of my sabbatical, I will be presenting on my research at Dalhousie University in Halifax, N.S. I completed my undergraduate degree in History and Russian Studies at Dalhousie in the year 2000, so it’s exciting to be presenting at the department (even if it has physically moved from some […]

Insight! “44 Lenin Avenue” receives its second SSHRC Grant

Filed under: Conferences & Presentations,Knowledge mobilization — Wilson Bell at 1:53 pm on Monday, July 22, 2019  Tagged , ,

Sometimes academic life can be a long slog, with little validation for our efforts except, perhaps, from those (rare) students who take the time and effort to let their professors know how much they enjoyed a particular course. Tenure and promotion, of course, are key times for reflection and assessment, and, if successful, reveal both […]

Resurrecting this Blog!

Filed under: Conferences & Presentations,Knowledge mobilization — Wilson Bell at 8:28 pm on Wednesday, May 15, 2019  Tagged , ,

So, it has been a while… I was very active on this blog for the first year or so of the 44 Lenin Avenue project, but as it came time to complete the finishing touches on my book, as well as getting bogged down by various other aspects of my job, I have not had […]

Research progress

Filed under: Conferences & Presentations,Gulag,Knowledge mobilization — Wilson Bell at 5:56 pm on Wednesday, July 4, 2018  Tagged , , ,

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, […]

On collaborative projects

Filed under: Conferences & Presentations,Methodology,NKVD — Wilson Bell at 6:24 pm on Tuesday, November 14, 2017  Tagged , ,

While not directly related to the “44 Lenin Avenue Project,” I thought I’d highlight a recent collaborative publication in which I participated with Alan Barenberg, Sean Kinnear, Steve Maddox, and Lynne Viola. At the May 2017 meeting of the Canadian Association of Slavists (Ryerson University, Toronto), we participated in a roundtable discussion on new directions […]

Tomsk as Imperial Project

Filed under: Conferences & Presentations,Ignatii Dvernitskii — Wilson Bell at 7:59 pm on Friday, November 3, 2017  Tagged , , ,

I’ve been thinking a bit about Tomsk as a project of empire. These thoughts arose partly out of my early modern European survey course at TRU, during which I recently lectured about Russia’s eastward expansion. Tomsk was founded in 1604 as one of a series of fur-trading outposts along Siberia’s vast river routes, and thus […]

CAS Conference, May 27-29

Filed under: Conferences & Presentations,Ignatii Dvernitskii,Methodology — Wilson Bell at 7:46 pm on Tuesday, May 9, 2017  Tagged , , , ,

I’m excited to be presenting, “The 1909 Murder of Ignatii Dvernitskii: A microhistorical approach,” as part of a panel on microhistory approaches to Russian and Soviet history at the annual convention of the Canadian Association of Slavists, part of the larger Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences that will take place at Ryerson University […]

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