This Friday, January 30, our very own Dr. Julia Mickenberg will share her work with the Modern Studies group at UT Austin in a talk titled, "Missions to Moscow: Vision and Veracity in Margaret Bourke-White and Lillian Hellman's Wartime Portraits of Soviet Russia."Dr. Mickenberg had the following to say about her talk:

 My talk will discuss photojournalism, memoirs, radio documentaries, unpublished writings, and screenplays by Margaret Bourke White and Lillian Hellman concerning the Russian front during World War II, particularly Hellman’s screenplay for  North Star (the highest-grossing wartime film about Russia) and Bourke White’s photo-memoir,  Shooting the Russian War. Both women were core actors in the Popular Front, and both have attracted intense interest as historical figures. Both were criticized by prominent members of the anti-Stalinist Left for their politics and for their apparent dishonesty, lack of integrity, and/or opportunism. Through archival and textual analysis I'll use World War II as a framework and Bourke-White and Hellman as  lenses for considering the way in which World War II temporarily revived and also predicted the un-sustainability of a Soviet-influenced left-feminism in the United States.

The event will take place in Battle Hall 1.101 at 1:30pm. Hope to see y'all there!