For those who don't already know or just need reminding, I've included a description of our group below. And below that you'll find a schedule for the fall semester, which is very TBD and begging for your bibliographic input.
You can contact us at akayiatos@berkeley.edu or nina.aron@berkeley.edu .
Who we are, what we do.
The Socialisms & Sexualities Working Group offers an interdisciplinary forum for exploring the intersection of formations and articulations of sexuality and the political economic systems called ‘socialist’ and ‘post-socialist.’
How might queer theory benefit from a more sustained look at how political economies other than those of late capitalism intersect with and inflect the formation of sexualities, specifically nonheteronormative ones? And how might theories of socialism and, in particular, the theoretical contributions generated in the aftermath of the dissolution of the Soviet Union (in the problem-space of the former second world), benefit from an engagement with theoretical insights that have emerged from the study of gender, sexuality and queer subjectivities?
This group will also address texts gathered under the banner of ‘postsocialism’ in order to investigate further the crises of meaning produced by the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and to better understand the negotiations these crises prompted at the level of individual self-making and self-understanding, as well as at the level of ideology.
Fall 2011 Reading Schedule. Please suggest alternative/additional readings!
September 1. Introductory Meeting
September 2. State of the Field: Socialisms and Sexualities
Brian James Baer, “Translating Queer Texts in Soviet Russia.”
Robert Kulpa and Joanna Mizielinska, De-Centring Western Sexualities: Central and Eastern European Perspectives.
Aleksandar Štulhofer and Theo Sandfor, Sexuality and Gender in Postcommunist Eastern Europe and Russia.
October 1. Sex Etiquette and Soviet Advice
Frances Lee Bernstein, The Dictatorship of Sex: Lifestyle Advice for the Soviet Masses.
Catriona Kelly, Refining Russia: Advice Literature, Polite Culture, and Gender from Catherine to Yeltsin.
Tricia Starks, Propaganda, Hygiene, and the Revolutionary State.
October 2. Late-Soviet Gender
Hilary Pilkington, “Farewell to the Tusovka: Masculinities and Femininities on the Moscow Youth Scene”
Benjamin Sutcliffe, The Prose of Life: Russian Women Writers from Khrushchev to Putin
November 1. State of the Field: Post-Socialist Gender
Maria Bucur, “An Archipelago of Stories: Gender History in Eastern Europe”
Almira Ousmanova, “On the Ruins of Orthodox Marxism: Gender and Cultural Studies in Eastern Europe”
Anna Temkina and Elena Zdravomyslova, “Gender Studies in Post-Soviet Society: Western Frames and Cultural Differences” from the special issue on “ Gender and Culture Theory in Russia Today” in Studies in East European Thought (2003).
November 2. Post-Socialist Gender
Gail Kligman and Susan Gal, The Politics of Gender after Socialism
December 1. Queers in Post/Socialism
Brian James Baer, “Russian Gays/Western Gaze” and Other Russias (selections)
Harlow Robinson, "'Molchanie--eto smert' or 'Keeping Russia Clean': Recent Developments in the Gay and Lesbian Movement in Russia.”
Adi Kuntsman, "Between Gulags and Pride Parades”
December 2. Queering Post/Socialism
Vladimir Sorokin, Blue Lard
anyone at Stanford want to help us get him to Berkeley for the afternoon????
