Russian History through the Senses

Russian History through the Senses PDF Author: Matthew P. Romaniello
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1474263151
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Book Description
Bringing together an impressive cast of well-respected scholars in the field of modern Russian studies, Russian History through the Senses investigates life in Russia from 1700 to the present day via the senses. It examines past experiences of taste, touch, smell, sight and sound to capture a vivid impression of what it was to have lived in the Russian world, so uniquely placed as it is between East and West, during the last three hundred years. The book discusses the significance of sensory history in relation to modern Russia and covers a range of exciting case studies, rich with primary source material, that provide a stimulating way of understanding modern Russia at a visceral level. Russian History through the Senses is a novel text that is of great value to scholars and students interested in modern Russian studies.

Socialist Senses

Socialist Senses PDF Author: Emma Widdis
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253027071
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 428

Book Description
“Widdis’s rich and fascinating book has opened a new perspective from which to think about the Soviet cinema.” —Kritika This major reimagining of the history of Soviet film and its cultural impact explores the fundamental transformations in how film, through the senses, remade the Soviet self in the 1920s and 1930s. Following the Russian Revolution, there was a shared ambition for a ‘sensory revolution’ to accompany political and social change: Soviet men and women were to be reborn into a revitalized relationship with the material world. Cinema was seen as a privileged site for the creation of this sensory revolution: Film could both discover the world anew, and model a way of inhabiting it. Drawing upon an extraordinary array of films, noted scholar Emma Widdis shows how Soviet cinema, as it evolved from the revolutionary avant-garde to Socialist Realism, gradually shifted its materialist agenda from emphasizing the external senses to instilling the appropriate internal senses (consciousness, emotions) in the new Soviet subject.

A History of Russian Cinema

A History of Russian Cinema PDF Author: Birgit Beumers
Publisher: Berg Publishers
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 344

Book Description
Film emerged in pre-Revolutionary Russia to become the 'most important of all arts' for the new Bolshevik regime and its propaganda machine. This text is a complete history from the beginning of film onwards and presents an engaging narrative of both the industry and its key films in the context of Russia's social and political history.

Russia and the Russians

Russia and the Russians PDF Author: Geoffrey A. Hosking
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674004733
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 776

Book Description
Chronicles the history of the Russian Empire from the Mongol Invasion, through the Bolshevik Revolution, to the aftereffects of the Cold War.

Smoking under the Tsars

Smoking under the Tsars PDF Author: Tricia Starks
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501722077
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 419

Book Description
Approaching tobacco from the perspective of users, producers, and objectors, Smoking under the Tsars provides an unparalleled view of Russia’s early adoption of smoking. Tricia Starks introduces us to the addictive, nicotine-soaked Russian version of the cigarette—the papirosa—and the sensory, medical, social, cultural, and gendered consequences of this unique style of tobacco use. Starting with the papirosa’s introduction in the nineteenth century and its foundation as a cultural and imperial construct, Starks situates the cigarette’s emergence as a mass-use product of revolutionary potential. She discusses the papirosa as a moral and medical problem, tracks the ways in which it was marketed as a liberating object, and concludes that it has become a point of increasing conflict for users, reformers, and purveyors. The heavily illustrated Smoking under the Tsars taps into bountiful material in newspapers, industry publications, etiquette manuals, propaganda posters, popular literature, memoirs, cartoons, poetry, and advertising. Starks frames her history within the latest scholarship in imperial and early Soviet history and public health, anthropology and addiction studies. The result is an ambitious social and cultural exploration of the interaction of institutions, ideas, practice, policy, consumption, identity, and the body. Starks has reconstructed how Russian smokers experienced, understood, and presented their habit in all its biological, psychological, social, and sensory inflections, providing the reader with incredible images and a unique application of anthropology and sensory analysis to the experience of tobacco dependency.

The Life Cycle of Russian Things

The Life Cycle of Russian Things PDF Author: Matthew P. Romaniello
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 135018604X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 411

Book Description
The Life Cycle of Russian Things re-orients commodity studies using interdisciplinary and comparative methods to foreground unique Russian and Soviet materials as varied as apothecary wares, isinglass, limestone and tanks. It also transforms modernist and Western interpretations of the material by emphasizing the commonalities of the Russian experience. Expert contributors from across the United States, Canada, Britain, and Germany come together to situate Russian material culture studies at an interdisciplinary crossroads. Drawing upon theory from anthropology, history, and literary and museum studies, the volume presents a complex narrative, not only in terms of material consumption but also in terms of production and the secondary life of inheritance, preservation, or even destruction. In doing so, the book reconceptualises material culture as a lived experience of sensory interaction. The Life Cycle of Russian Things sheds new light on economic history and consumption studies by reflecting the diversity of Russia's experiences over the last 400 years.

Embodied Differences

Embodied Differences PDF Author: Henrietta Mondry
Publisher: Academic Studies PRess
ISBN: 1644694875
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 348

Book Description
This book analyzes the ways in which literary works and cultural discourses employ the construct of the Jew’s body in relation to the material world in order either to establish and reinforce, or to subvert and challenge, dominant cultural norms and stereotypes. It examines the use of physical characteristics, embodied practices, tacit knowledge and senses to define the body taxonomically as normative, different, abject or mimetically desired. Starting from the works of Gogol and Dostoevsky through to contemporary Russian-Jewish women’s writing, broadening the scope to examining the role of objects, museum displays and the politics of heritage food, the book argues that materiality can embody fictional constructions that should be approached on a culture-specific basis.

Sensory Anthropology

Sensory Anthropology PDF Author: Kelvin E. Y. Low
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009240811
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 225

Book Description
From constructions of rasa (taste) in pre-colonial India and Indonesia, children and sensory discipline within the monastic orders of the Edo period of Japan, to sound expressives among the Semai in Peninsular Malaysia, the sensory soteriology of Tibetan Buddhism, and sensory warscapes of WWII, this book analyses how sensory cultures in Asia frame social order and disorder. Illustrated with a wide range of fascinating examples, it explores key anthropological themes, such as culture and language, food and foodways, morality, transnationalism and violence, and provides granular analyses on sensory relations, sensory pairings, and intersensoriality. By offering rich ethnographic perspectives on inter- and intra-regional sense relations, the book engages with a variety of sensory models, and moves beyond narrower sensory regimes bounded by group, nation or temporality. A pioneering exploration of the senses in and out of Asia, it is essential reading for academic researchers and students in social and cultural anthropology.

Seasoned Socialism

Seasoned Socialism PDF Author: Anastasia Lakhtikova
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253040981
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 236

Book Description
This essay anthology explores the intersection of gender, food and culture in post-1960s Soviet life from personal cookbooks to gulag survival. Seasoned Socialism considers the relationship between gender and food in late Soviet daily life, specifically between 1964 and 1985. Political and economic conditions heavily influenced Soviet life and foodways during this period and an exploration of Soviet women’s central role in the daily sustenance for their families as well as the obstacles they faced on this quest offers new insights into intergenerational and inter-gender power dynamics of that time. Seasoned Socialism considers gender construction and performance across a wide array of primary sources, including poetry, fiction, film, women’s journals, oral histories, and interviews. This collection provides fresh insight into how the Soviet government sought to influence both what citizens ate and how they thought about food.

The Limits of Partnership

The Limits of Partnership PDF Author: Angela E. Stent
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691152977
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 377

Book Description
A gripping account of U.S.-Russian relations since the end of the Soviet Union The Limits of Partnership offers a riveting narrative on U.S.-Russian relations since the Soviet collapse and on the challenges ahead. It reflects the unique perspective of an insider who is also recognized as a leading expert on this troubled relationship. American presidents have repeatedly attempted to forge a strong and productive partnership only to be held hostage to the deep mistrust born of the Cold War. For the United States, Russia remains a priority because of its nuclear weapons arsenal, its strategic location bordering Europe and Asia, and its ability to support—or thwart—American interests. Why has it been so difficult to move the relationship forward? What are the prospects for doing so in the future? Is the effort doomed to fail again and again? Angela Stent served as an adviser on Russia under Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and maintains close ties with key policymakers in both countries. Here, she argues that the same contentious issues—terrorism, missile defense, Iran, nuclear proliferation, Afghanistan, the former Soviet space, the greater Middle East—have been in every president's inbox, Democrat and Republican alike, since the collapse of the USSR. Stent vividly describes how Clinton and Bush sought inroads with Russia and staked much on their personal ties to Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin—only to leave office with relations at a low point—and how Barack Obama managed to restore ties only to see them undermined by a Putin regime resentful of American dominance and determined to restore Russia's great power status. The Limits of Partnership calls for a fundamental reassessment of the principles and practices that drive U.S.-Russian relations, and offers a path forward to meet the urgent challenges facing both countries.