WHAT I WRITE ABOUT

Broadly speaking I am interested in the politics and culture of modern science and technology, with a focus on the history of astronautics, technical and carceral infrastructures, and global histories. A large part of my early writing focused on the social and cultural history of Soviet/Russian science in the twentieth century, particularly on Soviet efforts to imagine and explore space.

I have also been interested in the history of the Stalinist Gulag. I have finished a book on the role of scientific and technical experts in the making and expansion of the Gulag forced labor system from 1930 to 1953. See forthcoming book from Oxford University Press.

More recently, my work has gravitated into global histories — including, in particular, to South Asia and Africa — with an interest in histories of technoscientific infrastructures in the postcolonial world. Some of this new work focuses on the ways in which the ground infrastructure of the space program has disenfranchised, disturbed, or dislocated communities across the globe in the guise of Cold War scientific internationalism. See forthcoming book from MIT Press.

I have also written extensively on cultures of secrecy in Soviet society. See my recent article on Soviet secrecy published by the American Historical Review.

My scholarship draws from a diverse and interdisciplinary range of knowledge systems, including the history and theory of technology, science and technology studies (STS), postcolonial studies, and Slavic studies.