RUSSIA ON EDGE: RECLAIMING THE PERIPHERY IN CONTEMPORARY RUSSIAN
CULTURE
Friday, 11 to Saturday, 12 December 2009
CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane, University of Cambridge
Conveners: Dr Ellen Rutten, Dr Muireann Maguire, Vanessa Rampton
Deadline for registration: *30 November 2009*
Deadline for accommodation booking (please reserve asap): *20 November
2009*
Website: http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/1090/
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Bringing together scholars from the US, the UK, Russia, the
Netherlands, Scandinavia, and Germany, the *Russia on Edge* workshop
will explore a range of contemporary developments in Russian culture
and society, with a particular focus on the dynamic between centre
and periphery in its various manifestations. That cultural production
cannot be isolated from geographical, political and economic
considerations is true for any place and time – but in post-Soviet
Russia, novels, films, art works, architectural projects and even
blogs have increasingly been functioning as agents that chip away at
the hegemony of the discourse, imagery and power of the centre. The
means, aims, and results of this new Russian project will be examined
in this two-day interdisciplinary workshop.
Panels will address the question to what extent the dynamic between
centre and periphery remains relevant for approaching Russian
culture, whether there is evidence for a shift in cultural focus from
Russia’s political centre to its geographical periphery, and the
ideas of centrifugal power sources and competing centres. Speakers
will explore the relationship between centre and periphery in
relation to fashion, contemporary art, new media, blogs, gay culture,
‘marginal’ social groups, cinema and political imagery.
Dr Sergei Oushakine, University of Princeton, will deliver the
keynote speech entitled: The Will to Connect: Plots and Fragments of
Postsocialist Capitalism in Provincial Russia.
Conference registration is free for postgraduate students/unwaged but
limited. Therefore we advise you to register as soon as possible. To
register, please follow the instructions at the following page:
http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/1090/.
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