Evgeny Mitta powerfully narrates the rise and global evolution of Pussy Riot.
Continue reading...No Pussy, No Riot
Ilaria Parogni
Nadya Tolokonnikova has occupied yet another church. The building in question, in New York’s uber-gentrified neighborhood of Williamsburg, has been repurposed for private use and is the Pussy Riot member’s abode of choice during her visit to the city. This time, no one will ask her to leave or accuse her of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.”
Continue reading...Nancy Condee discusses the politics of seizure in Russian culture today
Ilaria Parogni
On September 25, 2015, the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia welcomed Professor Nancy Condee for its 2015 Distinguished Lecture. Condee, who teaches Slavic and film studies and serves as director of the Global Studies Center at the University of Pittsburgh, delivered a talk titled “Property Rites: Russian Culture Today and the Politics of Seizure.”
Fake Putin, Real Pussy Riot, Fake Obama, Real Diplomacy
Frank Verici
Watching Fake Putin go around being a charming bully is funny (as they say, because it’s true.) Watching the US President ignore gay rights protesters in the face of a diplomatic mission is funny for the same reason
Continue reading...Professor Lounsbery is among the keynote speakers at University of Virginia
Ilaria Parogni
On March 26, Professor Anne Lounsbery, chair of the Department of Russian and Slavic Studies at New York University, will be addressing the audience of “Centrifugal Forces: Reading Russia’s Regional Identities and Initiatives,” a three-day conference held at the University of Virginia. Lounsbery will speak on the perceived “symbolic geography” of Russia’s provinces.
Teaching Race in Russia: Dispatches from “The Harlem Renaissance: From New York to Tashkent”
Jennifer Wilson
Why do American race relations reappear over and over again in discussions of the minority experience in the former Soviet Union?
Continue reading...Black woman or Russian fashion accessory? Only her hairdresser knows for sure…
Eliot Borenstein
If you’re an art impresario, fashion designer, and related to two (count ‘em, two) Russian oligarchs by blood and by common-law marriage, it can’t be easy finding a new thrill. If you’re Dasha Zhukova, editor of the Garage fashion magazine, what’s left to do?
Continue reading...Nadya Tolokno: Pussy Riot’s Fashion Icon or Fashion Victim?
Eliot Borenstein
It’s not easy being punk. It’s even harder to keep believing in punk (or, by extension, anarchism, activism, and the like). For a style of life and art that seems hell-bent on offending, punk lays down a surprising number of unwritten rules. The first commandment: Thou shalt not sell out.
Continue reading...Pussy Riot vs. Ksenia Sobchak, Round Two
Eliot Borenstein
So why did she conduct an interview with Pussy Riot that was god-awful enough to make it onto Buzzfeed?
Continue reading...Orthodox Awakening: The Fraying of Russia’s Church-State Alliance
Nadieszda Kizenko
To conclude that the Russian Orthodox Church is nothing more than a bastion of extreme conservatives is to miss the many ways that change is being forced upon it.
Continue reading...Putin vs. the Female Body, Round Two
Eliot Borenstein
Tsar Nicholas Putin: Continuity or Coincidence?
Nathaniel Knight
On a cold December morning in the capital city a crowd gathered to protest Russia’s new ruler. Slogans and cheers sounded through the winter air as the people awaited the regime’s response…
Continue reading...Russia’s Culture Wars, or Россия диве дается
Eliot Borenstein
When Mitt Romney declared Russia the “number 1 geopolitical foe” during the recent US presidential campaign, he would have been on much firmer ground had he simply added “of Madonna and Lady Gaga.”
Continue reading...Ksenia Sobchak, puzzled by sexism
Eliot Borenstein
Reintroducing Russia
Eliot BorensteinShow of hands by all the Russia watchers out there: in any of the scenarios in which Russia not only returned to the news, but became a cultural flashpoint, did anyone imagine that the key words would be “pussy riot?” “Riot,” perhaps, but… Here I’ll leave it to my readers to complete the thought.
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