Aaron Lake Smith of Harper's on the greatness of underread Russian writer Vasily Grossman (7/22/19)

07/22/19 • 55 min

Leonard Lopate at Large on WBAI Radio in New York

A celebrated Russian journalist and author during WWII, after Vasily Grossman completed his masterpiece “Life and Fate” which sharply criticized the Soviet system, the KGB confiscated his manuscript. The book was eventually smuggled out of Russia and published, but not until long after Grossman’s death in 1964. The prequel to that book, “Stalingrad,” has just been republished with a new English translation. In the July issue of Harper’s Magazine, Aaron Lake Smith reviews three of Grossman’s books currently in print in English and a new biography called “Vasily Grossman and the Soviet Century” by Alexandra Popoff. Aaron Lake Smith on Vasily Grossman, in this installment of “Leonard Lopate at Large” on WBAI.

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Romanian director Radu Jude discusses I Do Not Care If We Go Down In History As Barbarians (7/19/19)

“I do not care if we go down in history as barbarians!” These were the words spoken by Romania’s military dictator Marshal Ion Antonescu in the Council of Ministers in the summer of 1941 that started the ethnic cleansing on the Eastern Front. Taking these words for its title, director Radu Jude’s latest feature (Romania’s official selection for the 2019 Academy Awards) chronicles a young theatre director’s efforts to stage an accurate re-enactment of the Odessa Massacre in which Romanian soldiers slaughtered tens of thousands of Ukrainian Jews, despite the municipal government’s attempt to censor the director’s efforts. Join us for a discussion of “I Do Not Care If We Go Down In History As Barbarians” with Radu Jude in this installment of “Leonard Lopate at Large” on WBAI.

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Matthew Shaer of the New York Times Magazine on the latest in brain science (7/23/19)

“In recent years, some scientists have moved from the study of the organic tissue to the wholesale creation of artificial brain matter,” reports Matthew Shaer in his New York Times Magazine cover story on some of the latest in baffling new brain research. “Grown from human stem cells reprogrammed to act like neurons, brain organoids, or ‘mini brains,' can mimic some of the functions of their biological counterparts.” This is just one of many mind-bending neurologic findings on the cutting edge of science that are described in Matthew’s story. Join us for a glimpse from the front lines of brain research with Matthew Shaer of the New York Times Magazine in this installment of “Leonard Lopate at Large” on WBAI.