The Post-Soviet Uncanny (Unstuck in Time)
The uncanny, c’est nous!
Continue reading...Eliot Borenstein is a Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies and Collegiate Professer at New York University. Educated at Oberlin College (B.A., 1988) and the University of Wisconsin, Madison (M.A., 1989, Ph.D., 1993), Mr. Borenstein was an Assistant Professor at the University of Virginia (1993-95) before taking an appointment at NYU in 1995.
His early publications dealt largely with issues of sexuality and masculinity in Slavic literature. Men Without Women: Masculinity and Revolution in Russian Fiction, 1917-1929 (Duke UP, 2000), which was an outgrowth of his dissertation, won the 2001 award for best book in literature or cultural scholarship from the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages.
Mr. Borenstein’s current research on popular culture is a natural outgrowth of his earlier studies, and his publications are often a melding of the two. Overkill: Sex and Violence in Contemporary Russian Popular Culture (Cornell UP, 2008), which won the award for best book in women’s studies or gender studies from the Association of Women in Slavic Studies, and “Iteration through Innovation: Russian Popular Culture Today,” which he edited with Mark Lipovetsy and Elena Baraban and published in Slavic and East European Journal (48, No. 1 [2004]), are but two examples. He is currently at work on two projects: Russia’s Alien Nations: Imagining the Other after Socialism, and Catastrophe of the Week: Apocalyptic Entertainment in Post-Soviet Russia.
Among his many honors are a Mellon Fellowship (1988-90), IREX grants (1997, 2000), NYU’s Goddard Fellowship (1999) and Golden Dozen Teaching Awards (1999, 2005), a Fulbright Fellowship (1999) for study in Moscow, an SSRC Eurasia Fellowship (2002), and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2009).
eb7@nyu.eduThe uncanny, c’est nous!
Continue reading...I’m making up the introduction as I’m going along
Continue reading...The medieval future, far from being always dystopian, might not even be that bad.
Continue reading...The Soviet conditional subjunctive is the result of a collective act of will
Continue reading...No one is at all bothered by the idea of paradoxes resulting from the deaths of butterflies, grandfathers, or Hitlers
Continue reading...Voting Putin back into the presidency made the equation between past and future more literal
Continue reading...The manipulation of Russian historical precedent for present-day political gain is rather clear-cut
Continue reading...The outcome of a Time of Troubles is a foregone conclusion
Continue reading...On or about December 1991, the normal course of time in Russia stopped.
Continue reading...Unstuck in Time: On the Post-Soviet Uncanny, will begin serialization on Thursday
Continue reading...This is not an antisemitic dogwhistle, it’s an antisemitic cowbell.
Continue reading...There is no scenario in which a sentence containing the name “Putin” and the words “Navalny’s underwear” does the president any good.
Continue reading...Russia always equals “communism,” even when that equation makes no sense whatsoever
Continue reading...Limonov was most famous for gay sex and supporting Bosnian genocide, neither of which the NYT saw fit to mention
Continue reading...Fandorin is just not a joiner. And specifically, if there’s one principle to which he’s committed above all others, it’s this notion of “personal human dignity” and the individual’s prerogative to sequester themselves in their own preferences. Fandorin doesn’t want to work for the Okhranka or for any other part of the Imperial government, which he sees becoming increasingly brutal and unreasonable. He doesn’t want to be with the progressives, either; he just wants to be on his own. And what’s interesting is that, for him, the only path to true independence is to be insanely wealthy. It’s one big libertarian dream.
Continue reading...The rule of law is boring, but necessary
Continue reading...Pelagia impersonates herself
Continue reading...If we say (and show) enough times that there are no more questions that need to be asked about the nature and future of Russia, it will become true
Continue reading...Danila is a dangerous mixed metaphor: an empty vessel and a hired gun.
Continue reading...For a “tasteful” novel about a nun, Pelagia and the White Bulldog has a surprising predilection for dismemberment
Continue reading...