Over the past decade the Department of Slavonic Studies has hosted a regular听lecture series exploring a selected听theme听in Russian and East European Studies: Consumer Culture, National Identity, Display,听Resistance. On Thursday 15 October we initiate our newest thematic lecture series: 'A Sense of Place'.听
鈥楢 Sense of Place鈥櫶齟xplores the lived environment of East Europe, Russia and Eurasia through sensory awareness and human emotion. It examines the sounds and textures, scents and sights that produce a 鈥榮ense of place鈥欌�攖hat is, the practices, perceptions and emotions that shape the deeply felt character of a site.听The talks in this series will consider how setting, language, imagery, perceptions and emotions interact to shape and condition a sense of place across the ages, from the medieval to the contemporary period.
Lilya Kaganovsky (University of Illinois) will give the inaugural talk of the series, entitled 鈥淭he Arctic in the Russian Imagination鈥�, on Thursday 15 October, at the Umney Theatre in Robinson College at 5:30pm. All welcome!
Abstract: This talk will focus on the ways the Russian 鈥淣orth鈥� 鈥� the Arctic and Siberia 鈥� have been imagined through different historical/political moments of the early Soviet period to the present day. The talk will be divided roughly into five sections: 1)听defining the 鈥淣orth鈥� 2) the early Soviet period of expansion 3) Stalinist Polar exploration 4) the GULAG Archipelago, Siberia as the place of internment/incarceration; 5) and 鈥渆rasure鈥�: post-1992, the camps as lost sites of memory; oil and听mineral extraction; the impact on indigenous populations. In examining these shifts in representation, the goal is to showcase how the Arctic in the Russian/Soviet imaginary is not static, but has been consistently reconfigured through听various historical and ideological paradigms, each set to in some way erase or reconceive the historical imaginary that came before.
Bio: Lilya Kaganovsky is Associate Professor of Slavic, Comparative Literature, and Media & Cinema听Studies, and the Director of the Program in Comparative & World Literature at the University of听Illinois,听Urbana-Champaign. Her publications include听How the Soviet Man was Unmade听(Pittsburgh,听2008); the edited volumes听Mad Men, Mad World: Sex, Politics, Style and the听1960s听(Lauren M. E. Goodlad, Lilya Kaganovsky and Robert A. Rushing, Duke, 2013) and听Sound, Speech, Music in Soviet and Post-Soviet Cinema听(Lilya Kaganovsky and听Masha Salazkina,听Indiana, 2014); and听articles on听Soviet and post-Soviet cinema. She is a听member of the editorial board of the journal听Studies in Russian and Soviet Cinema听and regularly听contributes film reviews to the on-line cinema journal听KinoKultura. She is currently completing a book on Soviet cinema鈥檚 transition to sound (The Voice of Technology: Soviet Cinema鈥檚 Transition to Sound, 1928-1935;听under contract with Indiana UP), and starting new work on early Soviet documentaries.
