Russian Cultural Studies An Introduction

In a wide-ranging account of a variety of cultural forms and sites of cultural production--such as literature, cinema, radio, TV, the visual arts, journalism, advertising and consumerism, music, theatre, the Church--this groundbreaking book gives unprecedented prominence to the processes of cultural reception in the USSR and post-communist Russia. Including essays by an international roster of specialists, the volume spotlights the role that images of national identity, gender politics, and youth culture have played in the formation of cultural forms. In this regard, the interaction of Russia's public and private consciousness is also explored.

Intended as a companion to Constructing Russian Culture in the Age of Revolution: 1881-1940 (also published by OUP) and covering a later period until the present day, this stimulating, original, and controversial book will not only be a vital resource for university courses on Russian culture at undergraduate and postgraduate level but essential reading for all those interested in Russian culture in the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. In a wide-ranging account of a variety of cultural forms and sites of cultural production--literature, cinema, radio, television, the visual arts, journalism, advertising and consumerism, music, theatre, the Church--the book sets out to give greater prominence to the processes of cultural reception than in previous texts. The book highlights the role images of national identity, gender politics , youth culture and the interaction of public and private consciousness have played in the formation of cultural forms in the USSR and post-communist Russia. Drawing extensively but critically on the theoretical agenda of contemporary cultural studies the book challenges the `top-down' model according to which cultural production is determined principally by its relationship to `high' politics and political institutions. Contributors include leading specialists in Russian literature, cultural history, and cultural theory from Britain, the USA, and Russia and the text is liberally illustrated with picture features and includes a chronology of events and suggestions for further reading with each section.

1 - Introduction: Why Cultural Studies?
2 - `Revolutionary' Models for High Literature: Resisting Poetics
3 - Culture and Crisis: The Intelligentsia and Literature After 1953
4 - Performing Culture: Theatre
5 - Music in the Socialist State
6 - Soviet Music after the Death of Stalin: The Legacy of Shostakovich
7 - Building a New Reality: The Visual Arts, 1921-53
8 - The Art of the Political Poster
9 - Cinema
10 - The Media as Social Engineer
11 - Creating a Consumer: Advertising and Commercialisation
12 - The Retreat from Dogmatism: Populism Under Krushchev and Brezhnev
13 - Religion and Orthodoxy
14 - Russian Culture and Emigration, 1921-53
15 - Sexuality
16 - Gender Angst in Russian Society and Cinema in the Post-Stalin Era
17 - `The Future is Ours': Youth Culture in Russia, 1953 to the Present

Catriona Kelly is Reader in Russian and Fellow at New College, Oxford David Shepherd is Professor of Russian and Director of the Bakhtin Centre at the University of Sheffield