Cheryl Juettan 2022
Welcome!
I'm a freelance journalist and writer based in Portland, OR. My academic training is in the history of Eastern Europe—I’ve completed doctoral work in European History at the University of California, Berkeley—but for over a decade, I worked as a critic and a science journalist. I write about art, books, movies, ancient history, anthropology, and - occasionally - food. I especially like to work on stories about the intersection of science and the humanities, photography, and people who are helplessly obsessed with whatever they're doing.
For the past few years, I’ve been working on single project which combines all my interests: Goodbye, Eastern Europe: An Intimate History of a Divided Land - a book-length history of Eastern Europe, covering culture, politics, religion and ideology (essentially, everything which made Eastern Europe, Eastern Europe over the past 2000 years).
In the past, my writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Aeon, Cabinet, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Guardian, The New York Times, newyorker.com, The Point, The Awl, Atlas Obscura, Slate and the Los Angeles Review of Books, among others..
Some of my pieces have been named to best of the year lists by Longform.org and The Atlantic, and I've had work translated into nine languages, including Chinese, Farsi and Latvian. I've also shared my work on radio, for WNPR and the BBC.
I travel, mostly on foot. I tweet, but not too much (@JMikanowski). And I cook, but not too well. I also do a fair amount of writing for the drawer.
I’m represented by Sam Stoloff at the Francis Goldin Literary Agency.
If you'd like to get in touch, email me at jacob DOT mikanowski@gmail DOT com. I'd love to hear from you!
APPEARANCES
Times Radio: Russian’s Horrors in Ukraine Could Make Eastern Europe Extinct - May 2023
Gone Medieval: Medieval Eastern Europe - July 6, 2023
CBC Sunday Magazine: Goodbye Eastern Europe - July 15, 2023. Scroll down the page for the segment
BBC History Extra Podcast: Eastern Europe: a personal journey through the region’s past - July 16, 2023
Meduza: Goodbye Eastern Europe with Jacob Mikanowski - August 11, 2023
Conversations with Tyler (Cowen): Jacob Mikanowski on Eastern Europe - Oct 18, 2023
Travel wit Rick Steves Radio Program - 3 segments about vampires, folklore and the Post Cold War modernization of Eastern Europe
Orphan Memory: Between Disappearance and Forgetting in Eastern Europe, Invited Keynote Lecture as part of the Exercising Modernity Conference at the Pilecki Institute, Berlin, September 19, 2024.