Sasha Talaver

Alexandra (Sasha) Talaver is a feminist scholar and activist working on gender politics, social reproduction, and contemporary imperialism. She recently completed her PhD in Comparative Gender Studies at Central European University. Her dissertation examined the role of the Soviet Women’s Committee in advocating for reproductive justice in the late USSR, focusing on how women working within Soviet institutions negotiated labor policy, care infrastructures, reproductive rights, and gendered forms of citizenship. Sasha’s current research develops a feminist political economy framework for understanding contemporary Russian imperialism through the lens of social reproduction. Her project, Biopolitical Imperialism and the Crisis of Social Reproduction, suggests that Russia’s war against Ukraine should be understood not only as geopolitical expansion, but also as an attempt to manage a deepening demographic and reproductive crisis. Bringing together Rosa Luxemburg’s theory of accumulation, feminist social reproduction theory, and recent debates on biopolitics and empire, the project examines how war reorganizes reproductive infrastructures, citizenship regimes, and gender relations under authoritarian conditions. Alongside her academic work, Sasha has been actively involved in left feminist activism. She has organized numerous events from festivals to self-defense workshops. She also developed a range of educational initiatives in gender studies and feminist theory, including courses, reading groups, and summer schools, in both formal and informal settings. Sasha regularly contributes political analysis and commentary to international and Russian media outlets, including Meduza, The Moscow Times, TV Rain, taz, Der Spiegel, and Jacobin.