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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.
Overkill
Perestroika and the end of the Soviet Union transformed every aspect of life in Russia, and as hope began to give way to pessimism, popular culture came to reflect the anxiety and despair felt by more and more Russians. Free from censorship for the first time in Russia's history, the popular culture industry (publishing, film, and television) began to disseminate works that featured increasingly explicit images and descriptions of sex and violence. In Overkill, Eliot Borenstein explores this lurid and often-disturbing cultural landscape in close, imaginative readings of such works as You're Just a Slut, My Dear! (Ty prosto shliukha, dorogaia!), a novel about sexual slavery and illegal organ ...
Soviet Self-Hatred
Soviet Self-Hatred examines the imaginary Russian identities that emerged following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Eliot Borenstein shows how these identities are best understood as balanced on a simple axis between pride and shame, shifting in response to Russia's standing in the global community, its anxieties about internal dissension and foreign threats, and its stark socioeconomic inequalities. Through close readings of Russian fiction, films, jokes, songs, fan culture, and Internet memes, Borenstein identifies and analyzes four distinct types with which Russians identify or project onto others. They are the sovok (the Soviet yokel); the New Russian (the despised, ridiculous nouveau riche), the vatnik (the belligerent, jingoistic patriot), and the Orc (the ultraviolent savage derived from a deliberate misreading of Tolkien's epic). Through these contested identities, Soviet Self-Hatred shows how stories people tell about themselves can, tragically, become the stories that others are forced to live.
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.
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.
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."--
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
This text offers a critical study of postmodernism in Russian literature. It takes some of the central issues of the critical debate to develop a conception of postmodern poetics as a dialogue with chaos and places Russian literature in the context of an enriched postmodernism.
Harry Potter in Russia
Little did newly-elected Russian President Vladimir Putin know that, as soon as he came to power, he would be sharing the spotlight with an 11-year-old British wizard. In Harry Potter in Russia, Eliot Borenstein examines the Russian Pottermania explosion in 2000 and how Harry Potter has become politicized in ways both familiar and unfamiliar to J.K. Rowling's Western fans. Borenstein reflects on how the franchise led to soul-searching about the fate of children's literature, the legitimacy and even dangers of fantasy genres, and debates about intellectual property and Internet piracy. The book explores the ways in which Potter sparked moral panics about the occult, anxiety over the power of the Russian Orthodox Church, and even fears that the titular icon and his ilk were a Trojan Horse in a Western plot to corrupt Russian morals and destroy the country. Harry Potter in Russia also delves into the significance of fan fiction, parodies, cheap-knock offs, and repeated comparisons between the Boy Who Lived and the Man Who Ruled.
Marvel Comics in the 1970s
Marvel Comics in the 1970s explores a forgotten chapter in the story of the rise of comics as an art form. Bridging Marvel's dizzying innovations and the birth of the underground comics scene in the 1960s and the rise of the prestige graphic novel and postmodern superheroics in the 1980s, Eliot Borenstein reveals a generation of comic book writers whose work at Marvel in the 1970s established their own authorial voice within the strictures of corporate comics. Through a diverse cast of heroes (and the occasional antihero)—Black Panther, Shang-Chi, Deathlok, Dracula, Killraven, Man-Thing, and Howard the Duck—writers such as Steve Gerber, Doug Moench, and Don McGregor made unprecedented strides in exploring their characters' inner lives. Visually, dynamic action was still essential, but the real excitement was taking place inside their heroes' heads. Marvel Comics in the 1970s highlights the brilliant and sometimes gloriously imperfect creations that laid the groundwork for the medium's later artistic achievements and the broader acceptance of comic books in the cultural landscape today.
