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Plots against Russia
In this original and timely assessment of cultural expressions of paranoia in contemporary Russia, Eliot Borenstein samples popular fiction, movies, television shows, public political pronouncements, internet discussions, blogs, and religious tracts to build a sense of the deep historical and cultural roots of konspirologiia that run through Russian life. Plots against Russia reveals through dramatic and exciting storytelling that conspiracy and melodrama are entirely equal-opportunity in modern Russia, manifesting themselves among both pro-Putin elites and his political opposition. As Borenstein shows, this paranoid fantasy until recently characterized only the marginal and the irrelevant. Now, through its embodiment in pop culture, the expressions of a conspiratorial worldview are seen everywhere. Plots against Russia is an important contribution to the fields of Russian literary and cultural studies from one of its preeminent voices.
Men Without Women
An analysis of the construction of masculinity in early Soviet culture that finds in the novels of Babel and others an utopian society composed exclusively of men.
Overkill
Borenstein argues that the popular cultural products consumed in the post-perestroika era were more than just diversions; they allowed Russians to indulge their despair over economic woes and everyday threats.
Men Out of Focus
"Men Out of Focus charts conversations and polemics about masculinity in Soviet cinema and popular media during the liberal period--often described as "The Thaw"--between the death of Stalin in 1953 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. The book shows how the filmmakers of the long 1960s built stories around male protagonists who felt disoriented by a world that was becoming increasingly suburbanized, rebellious, consumerist, household-oriented, and scientifically complex. The dramatic tension of 1960s cinema revolved around the male protagonists' inability to navigate the challenges of postwar life. Selling over three billion tickets annually, the Soviet film industry became a fault line of postwar cultural contestation. By examining both the discussions surrounding the period's most controversial movies as well as the cultural context in which these debates happened, the book captures the official and popular reactions to the dizzying transformations of Soviet society after Stalin."--
Pussy Riot
Both more and less than a band, Pussy Riot is continually misunderstood by the Western media. This book sets the record straight. After their scandalous performance of an anti-Putin protest song in Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior and the imprisonment of two of its members, the punk feminist art collective known as Pussy Riot became an international phenomenon. But, what, exactly, is Pussy Riot, and what are they trying to achieve? The award-winning author Eliot Borenstein explores the movement's explosive history and takes you beyond the hype.
Meanwhile, in Russia...
The Russian internet is a hotbed for memes and viral videos: the political, satirical and simply absurd compete for attention in Russia while the West turns to it for an endless reserve of humorous content. But how did this powerful cyber community grow out of the repressive media environment of the Soviet Union? What does this viral content reveal about the country, its politics and its culture? And why are the memes and videos of today's Russia so popular, spreading so rapidly across the globe? Award-winning author Eliot Borenstein explores the explosive online movement and unpicks, for the first time, the role of mimetic content and digital activism in modern Russian history up to the present day.
Russian Postmodernist Fiction
Critically surveys 20th-century Russian literature to develop a specific understanding of Russian postmodernism, looking at work by Aksyonov, Bitov, Erofeev, Pietsukh, Popov, Sokolov, and Tolstaya. Also grapples with some central issues of the critical debate and draws on both Bakhtinian and chaos theory to describe postmodern poetics as a dialogue with chaos. The appendix provides biographical sketches and primary and secondary bibliographies. Paper edition (unseen) $25.95. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Flesh to Metal
"That science-fiction future in which technology would make everything very good—or very bad—has not yet arrived. From our vantage point at least, no age appears to have had a deeper faith in the inevitability and imminence of such a total technological transformation than the early twentieth century. Russia was no exception."—from the introduction In the Soviet Union, it seems, armoring oneself against the world did not suffice—it was best to become metal itself. In his engaging and accessible book, Rolf Hellebust explores the aesthetic and ideological function of the metallization of the revolutionary body as revealed in Soviet literature, art, and politics. His book shows how the ...
Consuming Russia
A timely study of the "new Russia" at the end of the twentieth century.
Soviet Self-Hatred
"As Borenstein shows in his readings of a range of popular culture texts, the imaginary identities Russians have been trying on since the Soviet collapse reflect an aggressive, often outward-facing self-hatred that allows some Russians to come to terms with their country's standing in the world, the social and economic misery, and the dominance of oligarchism and Putinsim"-
