Susanne Wengle on "Black Earth, White Bread: A Techno-Political History of Russian Agriculture and Food"

About the Lecture

Like all facets of daily life, the food that Russian farms produced and citizens ate—or, in some years, didn’t eat—underwent radical shifts in the century between the Bolshevik Revolution and Vladimir Putin’s presidency. The modernization of agriculture during this time is usually understood in terms of advances in farming methods. In this talk, Prof. Wengle will tell a far more complex story of the interactions between political projects, technological improvements, and cultural practices. She will also address how Russia’s war on Ukraine affects Eurasian grain production and what this might mean for food security across Eurasia and beyond. 

This lunchtime event is part of the Nanovic Institute Faculty Fellows lecture series. The event is free and open to the public. 

About the Speaker

Susanne Wengle is the Nancy R. Dreux Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and concurrent faculty in the Keough School for Global Affairs. Her main research interests concern the politics of markets regulations, and her work examines how particular regulations function and how they evolve: what “politics” make them possible, and how their effects change the political conditions in which they were formulated. Wengle's book Post-Soviet Power: State-led Development and Russia’s Marketization (Cambridge University Press, 2015) examines the political economy of newly created electricity markets in Russia, and more generally engages with questions about the study of markets in the post-Soviet context and beyond. Her current project focuses on agriculture and food production in Russia and the U.S.

Originally published at nanovic.nd.edu.