Book Talk - Dassia Posner

Thursday, October 15

5:00 pm

Sproul 912

Join us as Dassia N. Posner, Professor of Theatre at Northwestern University, discusses her new book, The Actor’s Revolution: Art and Politics at the Moscow Kamerny Theatre. She presented early research for this project here at UC Davis seven years ago. Now she returns to celebrate the book’s release (on October 15, 2026) with our community.

The Actor’s Revolution reclaims the lost history of the Kamerny Theatre, cofounded in 1914 by Jewish-Ukrainian director Alexander Tairov and Alisa Koonen, a Moscow-born actress from an immigrant family. In the 1920s, the Kamerny became the most famous Soviet theater in the world; two decades later, it was forgotten after being liquidated in Stalin’s post–World War II antisemitic purge. Posner reclaims this lost history by reconstructing the theatre’s most illustrious premieres. Drawing on rich archival sources, this timely volume grapples with the entangled histories of art, politics, and erasure and celebrates the radical power of human creativity under—and in spite of—totalitarianism. 

 Posner will share her writing process, the challenges of doing Russian archival research today, and her approach to reconstructing historical productions, followed by a discussion of the book in conversation with Assistant Professor of Russian Valeria Mutc and a Q&A with the audience. 

The book can be preordered here. Use code NUP2026 for 25% off.

 Sponsored by UC Davis Russian and UC Davis Jewish Studies.