Dr. Robert Saunders Going to Russia to Talk Beer, Twitter
April 9, 2018
Dr. Robert Saunders
Dr. Robert Saunders, Department of History, Politics, and Geography, is going to St. Petersburg, Russia later this month as part of SUNY’s Russia Programs Network Spring 2018 Travel Award.
The visit will include lectures and other activities at St. Petersburg State University
and several other St. Petersburg institutions. Dr. Saunders will speak on “Is Beer Political?” and “#Geopolitics: Diplomacy in the Age of Twitter.”
In the former, Dr. Saunders asks the question: “Beer is the world’s favorite beverage, but is it political?” He examines the impact of transnational craft beer on global affairs, focusing on the ongoing contestation of dominant discourses around the world’s two most powerful people: Vladimir Putin and Donald J. Trump. This is done through an interrogation of two explicitly and intentionally political beers: Norwegian brewery 7 Fjell’s “The Donald Ignorant IPA” and Scottish BrewDog’s “Hello, My Name is Vladimir.”
Twitter diplomacy focuses on the wide-ranging, if misunderstood and sometimes exaggerated, impact of social networking in international relations. Topics will include the purported use of such technologies to influence elections, remake geopolitical realities, and burnish the national images of countries beyond their borders.
Dr. Saunders’ latest book is Popular Geopolitics and Nation Branding in the Post-Soviet Realm.
