Eliot Borenstein, Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies at NYU, came to Miami on April 7, 2014 and spoke about his ongoing research in post-Soviet cultural studies. His lecture focused on the popularity of catastrophe narratives in the 1990s and 2000s in Russia, and he argued that these narratives about impending apocalypse established a dominant narrative about the 1990s in Russia and continue to be reference points for Vladimir Putin. You can listen to the lecture here:
http://www.academic.miamioh.edu/HavighurstCenter/2014-04-07.mp3