I would like to invite you to Prof. Fabrizio Fenghi’s talk, titled “The Revolution Will Be Fictionalized: Postmodern Politics and Radical Literature in Putin’s Russia,” hosted by the University of Toronto Slavic Department, on Tuesday, November 2, 2021, from 4-6pm EST on Zoom.
Prof. Fenghi’s describes his talk in the following way:
In sharp contrast with an otherwise widespread and pervasive political passivity, the early 2000s in Russia witnessed a fundamental “politicization of literature.” Radical ideologies, both left- and right-wing, became the subject matter of novels, poems, and literary debates. Alexander Prokhanov’s reactionary phantasmagoria Gospodin Geksogen (Mr. Hexogen) was celebrated as a form of “contemporary art,” major highbrow publishers came out with entire series about theories and practices of anarchism, terrorism, and revolution, critics debated political correctness, called each other fascists, came out as “black-hundredists.” Based on ongoing research for my current book project, my talk focuses on this politicization of literature, using as a case study the work of Saint Petersburg writer Pavel Krusanov and the public performances of the group he led, the “Petersburg Fundamentalists.” My main argument is that this radicalization of the cultural field in post-Soviet Russia reflects a more or less conscious desire to reevaluate ideology and cling onto the possibility of political imagination in the aftermath of the neoliberal disaster of the 1990s.
Zoom information for the talk:
Tuesday, Nov. 2, 4pm:
Join Zoom Meeting
https://utoronto.zoom.us/j/85286536429
Meeting ID: 852 8653 6429
Passcode: 281457
Best regards,
Zdenko Mandušić
Assistant Professor
Slavic Languages & Literatures
University of Toronto