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 109-121 New Russia and Postmodernity

Credit Points

12.5

HECS Band

1

Coordinator

Dr Millicent Vladiv-Glover

Prerequisites

Students are recommended to have completed 109-120 Post-perestroika Russia: Transformations but it is not essential.

Semester

2 (view timetable)

Contact

A 2.5-hour seminar per week

Subject Description

Taught in English, this subject is an introduction to contemporary Russian culture, through films and literary texts, examined against the backdrop of the post-perestroika changes in the society of the New Russia and in a comparative (western) perspective. Students should become familiar with topics such as the contemporary Russian popular culture, 'new sentimentality', pop art, gay subcultures, pornography and violence, Russian women, forms of social dominance, the destruction of the Russian 'tradition' (as in Vladimir Sorokin's deconstruction of the Russian 19th century idyll). Discussion of these topics will draw on the theoretical discourses of psychoanalysis, feminism, and poststructuralism.

Assessment

Written work totalling 4000 words comprising a 1500 word classpaper and a 2500 word essay.

Prescribed Texts
  • O Chukhontsev (ed), Dissonant Voices: The New Russian Fiction. Harvill/Harper Collins 1991.
  • V Erofeeev, Moscow to the End of the Line (Moskva-Petushki). Writers and Readers Pub Cooperative 1981.
  • V Sorokin, A Month in Dachau. in Grand Street, 48, Vol.12, no.4, pp.233-253, J Gambrell (trans).
  • L Petrushevskaya, Immortal Love. S Laird (trans), Pantheon Books 1995.
  • M Epstein, A Genis & Vladiv-Glover, Russian Postmodernism: New Perspectives on Post-Soviet Culture. Berghahn Books 1999.
Search : Index : Faculty of Arts : Russian and Slavic Studies (Monash)
Prev 109-120 Post-perestroika Russia: Transformations
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