Media & Lectures
Below you will find a collection of my public lectures and scholarly presentations.
How to have hope in the impossible times: Thinking through pain, memory and desire during the rise of authoritarianism and fascism in the U.S.
A National Communication Association Public Program Hosted by Marina Levina
The program suggests that the epistemology of hopeless hope is necessary if we are to effectively address the crisis of violence and oppression.
Understanding Authoritarianism: Lessons from Ukraine and Europe
Featured in Spectra
The National Communication Association's Digital Magazine
Rethinking the Impossible Times:
Lessons from a Life in the Soviet Union.
Dr. Levina reflects on growing up in Soviet Ukraine, where everyday life was marked by both normal childhood experiences and the harsh realities of authoritarianism—state propaganda, censorship, antisemitism, and a culture that glorified sacrifice for the regime. These early lessons shaped their understanding of authoritarianism as a mechanism of power, not ideology, warning that it can emerge anywhere, including in the U.S. They urge academics not to retreat into fear or nostalgia but to embrace risk, public scholarship, and visionary thinking rooted in abundance, not scarcity. True resistance, they argue, requires imagining a future beyond the confines of the past.