Transnational Russian Studies offers an approach to understanding Russia based on the idea that language, society and culture do not neatly coincide, but should be seen as flows of meaning across ever-shifting boundaries. Our book moves beyond static conceptions of Russia as a discrete nation with a singular language, culture, and history. Instead, we understand it as a multinational society that has perpetually redefined Russianness in reaction to the wider world. We treat Russian culture as an expanding field, whose sphere of influence transcends the geopolitical boundaries of the Russian Federation, reaching as far as London, Cape Town, and Tehran.
Our transnational approach to Russian Studies generates new perspectives on the history of Russian culture and its engagements with, and transformation by, other cultures. The volume thereby simultaneously illuminates broader conceptions of the transnational from the perspective of Russian Studies. Over twenty chapters, we provide case studies based on original research, treating topics that include Russia’s imperial and postcolonial entanglements; the paradoxical role that language plays in both defining culture in national terms, and facilitating transnational communication; the life of things ‘Russian’ in the global arena; and Russia’s positioning in the contemporary globalized world. Our volume is aimed primarily at students and researchers in Russian Studies, but it will also be relevant to all Modern Linguists, and to those who employ transnational paradigms within the broader humanities.
Contributors: Amelia M. Glaser, Cathy McAteer, Connor Doak, Dušan Radunović, Ellen Rutten, Galin Tihanov, Jeanne-Marie Jackson, Julie Curtis, Lara Ryazanova-Clarke, Marijeta Bozovic, Michael Gorham, Olga Maiorova, Philip Ross Bullock, Sergey Tyulenev, Stephen Hutchings, Stephen M. Norris, Tatiana Filimonova, Vera Tolz, Vitaly Nuriev and Vlad Strukov.
Section Title | Page | Price |
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Cover | 1 | |
Contents | 5 | |
List of Figures and Tables | 9 | |
Acknowledgements | 11 | |
Contributors | 13 | |
Introduction: Transnationalizing Russian Studies | 19 | |
Part I: Nation, Empire, and Beyond | 53 | |
Transnational, Multinational, or Imperial?: The Paradoxes of Russia's (Post)coloniality | 55 | |
Gogol''s Other Coat: Transnationalism in Russia's Literary Borderlands | 68 | |
The Empire Strikes East: Cross-cultural Dynamics in Russian Central Asia | 82 | |
Where the Nation Ends: Transnationalism and Affective Spacce in Post-Soviet Cinema | 96 | |
Vladimir Sorokin's Telluria: Post-imperial Eurasia, Fragmented Europe | 112 | |
Part II: Beyond and Between Languages | 129 | |
World Literature, War, Revolution: The Significance of Viktor Shklovskii's A Sentimental Journey | 130 | |
The Transnational Vladimir Nabokov, or the Perils of Teaching Literature | 145 | |
Bringing Books across Borders: Behind the Scenes in Penguin Books | 159 | |
'Sewing up' the Soviet Politico-cultural System: Translation in the Multilingual USSR | 173 | |
The Politics of Theatre: 'New Drama' in Russian, across Post-Soviet Borders and Beyond | 187 | |
Part III: Cultures Crossing Borders | 201 | |
A la russe, mais a l'entranger: Russian Opera Abroad | 202 | |
On Russian Cinema: Going West (and East): Fedor Bondarchuk's Stalingrad and Blockbuster History | 215 | |
Queer Transnational Encounters in Russian Literature: Gender, Sexuality, and National Identity | 231 | |
The Russian Novel of Ideas in Southern Africa | 250 | |
'Russian' Imperfections?: A Plea for Transcultural Readings of Aesthetic Trends | 265 | |
Part IV: Russia Going Global | 283 | |
Beyond a World with One Master: The Rhetorical Dimensions of Putin's 'Sovereign Internet' | 284 | |
RT and the Digital Revolution: Reframing Russia for a Mediatized World | 301 | |
Meduza: A Russo-centric Digital Outlet in a Transnational Setting | 319 | |
Transnational Self and Community in the Talk of Russophone Cultural Leaders in the UK | 336 | |
Index | 357 |