Two-Day Conference, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands
11-12 June 2015
Questions regarding time and temporality have occupied a central position in relation to both lived experiences and academic explorations of Soviet and post-Soviet spaces – indeed, the very addition of the prefix, the “post-” suggests the indispensability of the temporal when seeking to illuminate the sociocultural/sociopolitical. Scholars from diverse disciplinary locations (including Epstein, Yurchak, Boym, and Oushakine, inter alia) have shown the myriad ways that, for example, memory, nostalgia, and/or desire have been implicated in creations of a pre-Revolutionary past or a utopian Soviet future, such constructions being instrumental in the formations of identities, cultural narratives, or localities. In regards to this last, moreover, some (Clowes; Dobrenko and Naiman) have called for attention to dynamics of spatiality, in addition to those of temporality, in relation to the enterprise of “mapping” the cultural terrain of the [post-] Soviet.
And yet the cultural-spatiotemporal location which engendered the “post-” has altered radically over the past two-plus decades, the ensuing landscape often marked by an array of disparate events and phenomena related to the changes in media and popular culture: Tweets circulating among and emanating from the protesters at Euromaidan or in Moscow; Pussy Riot’s various actions posted to YouTube, and the “media tour” of Tolokonnikova and Alekhina upon release from prison; Russian legislation banning advertising on pay-television channels, and its effect on non-state-owned entities such as Telekanal Dozhd; US/EU popular musics/videos/films ubiquitous on radio stations, television, and the internet, and now widely available via numerous download sites or torrents; the broad popularity of Russian detektivy by authors such as Akunin and Marinina, and their wide availability, as with other media, online; Russia’s anti-“gay propaganda” law, and the appearance of internet-based support group for LGBT children/teens, Deti 404; and numerous others. Our intent in this conference, however, is not to analyze such phenomena in a cultural context, but to foreground the cultural context itself – the post-post – via the phenomena. Understanding, of course, the need for historicizing cultural practice and product, our guiding question is: how can we, via media and popular culture, theorize geopolitical and geocultural locations that can no longer be adequately defined by recourse to a predecessor? What is the successor to the “post-Soviet”?
Call for Papers
We seek submissions from scholars working in diverse fields (media studies, anthropology, sociology, musicology, film/television studies, political science, literary studies/comparative literature, cultural studies, among others), as our intent is to facilitate a dialogue that is as interdisciplinary as possible. Proposals for individual papers (20 minutes) or panels are welcome. Please send abstracts of 350-400 words (450-550 words for panels), with name(s), title(s), and academic affiliation(s) (if applicable) and a very brief biographical summary.
Please send abstracts to poposocon@gmail.com by no later than 1 February 2015. You may address any inquiries to the same email address.