We invited our postgraduate student, Anastassia Melnikov, to this episode for a refreshing perspective on the university, society, and the world.

Anastassia has a unique family history. A child of Soviet parents who fought against authoritarianism, she grew up in several countries and experienced a variety of cultures and lifestyles. Having gained her first degree in the United States, Anastassia decided to come to the University of East Anglia because of the diversity of its curricula and the interdisciplinary focus of the programme she is currently in. We discussed the importance of facing the past, especially some of its unedifying chapters, in gaining a better understanding of the current world and preparing for the future.

In the future, we hope to invite our students more regularly to the podcast.

What lessons can we draw from the Soviet Union's Cold War bid to Run the World, which is the title of the latest book by the historian Sergey Radchenko? What does Russia's sense of historic destiny tell us about its relations with the West and China? Hosts Ra and Sherzod discussed these and some other questions with Prof. Radchenko in this episode of the podcast.Brief bio: Sergey Radchenko is the Wilson E. Schmidt Distinguished Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He is a renowned historian and commentator who has published numerous books and academic articles, along with a prodigious number of commentary and media articles on the international history of the Cold War, Sino-Soviet relations, Soviet and Russian foreign policy, and many other topics. His latest book, which we discussed in the podcast, is To Run the World: The Kremlin's Cold War Bid for Global Power, published last year by Cambridge University Press.Link to the book: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/...Link to the Foreign Affairs article by Sergey Radchenko: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/...

In this episode Ra and Sherzod welcomed Ran Zwigenberg, a scholar of Japanese and world history and associate professor at Penn State. A prize-winning historian, Ran is one of the most eclectic and interesting scholars currently writing on Japan, war memory, castles, history of psychiatry and other topics. We discussed the aftermath of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Ran's opinion on why Japan still matters, a history of human remains (Ran's current research) and, of course, football!

Recorded as Marco Rubio prepared to meet with a Russian delegation in Saudi Arabia and European leaders gathered in Paris, this episode has the hosts disagreeing on Trump's approach to the Ukraine War. They also talked about philosopher kings and the evolution of Kaoru Mitoma as the most "un-Japanese" Japanese player in world football.

With Ra in sunnier places than the cold and grey England, the hosts recorded the January episode online, discussing such diverse topics as the state of Okinawa and Japan, latest edition of culture wars in Britain and long-running exploitation in Japan, as well as social issues. Moving on to lighter subjects, Sherzod shared his excitement about the first ever Uzbek player to play int he Premier League - the defender Abdukodir Khusanov, who just joined Manchester City.

In this final episode of 2024 the hosts Ra Mason and Sherzod Muminov discussed the major events of the outgoing year. They also talked about Christmas in Japan (and the Soviet Union), questioned whether Japan can be optimistic going forward, and asked why baseball is more popular in Japan than football (or soccer, if you're in America).

Paul O'Shea is a specialist in the international relations of East Asia and a senior lecturer at Lund University in Sweden. We asked him about the implications of Trump's upcoming second term for Japan and East Asia, the political crises in the leading democracies, the cost of living crisis, immigration, populism and, as always, football.

We invited the writer Nick Bradley to this episode of the podcast to discuss novels, Japan, AI and other things.

Nick Bradley is a graduate of the UEA Creative Writing MA. He also completed his PhD at the UEA, where he researched the figure of the cat in Japanese literature. Nick's first book, The Cat and the City, was published in 2021, and his second novel, Four Seasons in Japan, came out in the summer of 2024.

In this brief episode, Ra and Sherzod discuss the challenges faced by Japan's new prime minister and assess the legacy of the now former PM Kishida.

This episode is recorded in collaboration with the East Centre - University of East Anglia's Centre for the Study of East-Central Europe and the former Soviet Space.

Ra and Sherzod are joined by Dr Francis King and Dr Olga Sovenko to discuss the war in Ukraine from historical, sociological, and international political perspectives. Dr King is a Lecturer in European History in the School of History, UEA, where he teaches modules on Soviet and Eastern European History. Dr Sovenko is a Ukrainian sociologist who is currently Honorary Lecturer at the UEA and holds a British Academy research fellowship.