Mikhail Lossel is a Professor of English and Creative Writing, Concordia University, Canada. Prof. Lossel was born in Leningrad, USSR (now St. Petersburg, Russia). He first worked as an electromagnetic engineer before immigrated to the United States of America in 1986. He has authored many books of fiction and historical essays. His most recent book is Love Like Water, Love Like Fire, a collection of stories; the other one is Notes from Cyber ground: Trumpland and My Old Soviet Feeling. He has a collection collection of fiction stories entitled "Every Hunter Wants to Know.

In this presentation Prof. Iossel, drawing upon in his various essays, will be speaking on the Making of Modernity in the city of St. Petersburg linking to tales from Nairobi, governance and Soviet 'expropriation' of the contested spaces in the US border arenas.

The Moderator and Discussant of this session will be Mr. Tony Mochama of the Nation Media Group, who is also the Secretary-General of PEN International (Kenya).