Keynote by Journalist, Author and Activist Masha Gessen

With The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia, which traces the lives of intellectuals following the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of Vladimir Putin, journalist and author Masha Gessen won the National Book Award for Nonfiction. As the keynote speaker for a symposium hosted by Russia Studies and the Dean Rusk Program, Gessen offers insights into what she has called Russia’s “all-out war” on LGBT people in the country. Gessen’s family moved to the United States in 1981 - she holds U.S and Russian citizenship.