Cultures of Protest in Russia: Interdisciplinary Workshop
Date and Time
Location
CULTURES OF PROTEST IN RUSSIA
Interdisciplinary Workshop
March 8-9, 2018
Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies
CGIS-South S354
Since the start of Vladimir Putin’s presidency, Russia has experienced an escalation in state-led interventions into the mass media, non-governmental organizations and oppositional politics. In turn, protesters have taken to the streets to address a wide range of issues, including freedom of assembly, electoral fraud, corruption, monetization of welfare benefits, housing policy, and intervention in Ukraine. As the government has expanded and modified an arsenal of methods to manage civil society, activists have continued to seek new strategies of resistance. Drawing on traditions of post-Soviet mobilization, engaged citizens today persist in developing alternative repertoires of contention, experimenting with different forms of public address, and building new social networks. The purpose of the workshop is to stimulate an interdisciplinary discussion of multiple facets of civil resistance and civic innovation in contemporary Russia.
March 8, 2018
4:00 p.m. - 6:30 p.m. Graduate Student Training Session
“How to Conduct Ethnographic Fieldwork as a Humanities Scholar”
Moderator: Fabrizio Fenghi (Brown)
Open to graduate students in the Boston area. Pre-registration is required.
March 9, 2018
10:00 a.m. - 10:15 a.m. Opening Remarks
Alexandra Vacroux (Harvard)
10:15 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. Panel 1: Discourses of Resistance
Chair: Xenia Cherkaev (Harvard)
Discussant: Julie Hemment (UMass Amherst)
“On Russian Conservative Postmodernism, Neo-Eurasianism, and the American Alt-Right”
Fabrizio Fenghi (Brown)
“Avant-Garde Post: Radical Poetics after the Soviet Union”
Marijeta Bozovic (Yale)
“On Three Forms of Anarchist Theater-Making: Monstration, Pussy Riot, and Teatr.doc”
Ania Aizman (Harvard)
12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. Lunch Break
1:00 p.m. - 2:30 p.m. Art of Resistance: Monstrations in Novosibirsk and Beyond
Moderator: Maria Sidorkina (Harvard)
Speaker: Artem Loskutov [videoconferencing]
2: 30 p.m. - 2:45 p.m. Coffee Break
2:45 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. Panel 2: Re-Imagining Protests: Innovative Protest Tactics and New Social Networks
Chair: Thomas Remington (Harvard/Emory)
Discussant: Graeme Robertson (University of North Carolina)
“Non-Identitarian Revolution: 'Object-Oriented' Protest Art in Russia since 2011–2012”
Jason Cieply (Wellesley)
“Counter-conduct: Analyzing Russian State Power from Below”
Maria Sidorkina (Amherst)
“Geography of Anti-Corruption Protests in Russia”
Olena Nikolayenko (Fordham)
4: 45 pm - 6:15 p.m. Roundtable. New Directions in the Study of Contentious Politics in Russia
Chair: Timothy Colton (Harvard)
Julie Hemment (UMass Amherst), Katharine Holt (University of St Andrews), Adam Leeds (Harvard), Graeme Robertson (University of North Carolina)
The workshop is sponsored by the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, the Master’s Program in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia, and the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Harvard University.