Sean Gillen, 9 Sep 2016

The Russian History Seminar will hold its first meeting of the 2016-2017 academic year on Friday, September 9, 5:00pm-6:15pm in ICC 662 on the Georgetown University campus. Sean Gillen will present his paper, "The Service Myth of the Petrine Reforms".

Sean Gillen received a Ph. D. in Russian history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in May 2012. His dissertation described the early intellectual development of Vladimir Solov'ev in several contexts in order to complicate the myth of Solov'ev as the product and medium of mystical visions and show him as a discussant in Europe-wide debates about ethics, religion, nationalism, and the state, suggesting likely continuities with his later L'Idée russe. He is the author of an article on the way Russian emigres who claimed the mantle of Solov'ev contributed to U. S. Cold War ideology, which is in press with Modern Intellectual History, and an article on Russian theism that appeared in Thinking Orthodox in Modern Russia (Madison, 2014). Additionally, he has published book reviews in Ab Imperio and Canadian Slavonic Papers as well as opinion journalism in The National Interest.