Theory Research Seminar
The Theory Research Seminar provides a forum for researchers attached to the Bakhtin Centre and from elsewhere to present their work. Although many, if not most, papers in the series have to date focused on Bakhtin and the Bakhtin Circle, this is not a requirement: papers on other aspects of critical and cultural theory are welcome.
Autumn 2009/10
KATARINA CLARK
`The Visit of Mei Lanfang (Famous Male Interpreter of Female Roles in Peking Opera) to Moscow in 1935 and the Responses of Brecht, Eisenstein and Tretiakov´
Thursday 1 October 2009, 5.15–6.45
Seminar Room, Douglas Knoop Centre, Humanities Research Institute, 34 Gell Street
Katerina Clark is Professor in the Departments of Comparative Literature, and of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Yale University. She has published widely on Russian Culture of the Twentieth Century, including the books The Soviet Novel: History As Ritual (1981), Mikhail Bakhtin (with Michael Holquist, 1984) and Petersburg, Crucible of Cultural Revolution (1995). She is currently working on a study of Cultural interactions in Europe with special emphasis on the avant-garde and a cultural history of Moscow 1930-1941.
The current presentation will pay special attention to Eisenstein's response, which engages long-standing philosophical discussions about the distinctions between voice and writing, alphabet and hieroglyph, and traditional and modern mentalities.
LISA ERDMAN
`Dialogical Aesthetics in Public Art: Creating Conversation on Multiple Levels´
Tuesday 20 October 2009, 5.15–6.45
Seminar Room, Douglas Knoop Centre, Humanities Research Institute, 34 Gell Street
Lisa Erdman is a multimedia artist and doctoral candidate at the University of Art and Design Helsinki, Finland. Using corporate parody and satirical humour, Lisa's multimedia art explores the politics of gender, race, and cultural identity. Since 1992, her videos, installations, and performances have been presented in such venues as: The Kitchen Performance Space in New York City; The Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki, Finland and the SIGGRAPH Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques in Boston. Her current research is entitled, "Art, Humor and Advertising as a Tool for Political Dialogue" investigates the use of fictitious, satirical medical advertising as a tool to generate public dialogue regarding social and political issues.
The Bakhtin Centre and the National Centre for English Cultural Tradition Joint Seminar
KIRSTI SALMI-NIKLANDER
`Small stories and local event narratives. Dialogue, identity and interaction in hand-written Newspapers´
Tuesday 27 October 2009
Seminar Room, Douglas Knoop Centre, Humanities Research Institute, 34 Gell St., 5.15–6.45.
Dr. Kirsti Salmi-Niklander is an Associate Professor at the Department of Folklore Studies in University of Helsinki. In her doctoral thesis "Self-education and Rebellion" she has analysed the oral-literary tradition of working-class youth in early 20th-century Finland. Her research interests are related with narrative theory, media history and oral history. Her post-doctoral project "Hand-written newspapers as an alternative medium in 19th- and early 20th-century Finland" has been funded by Academy of Finland 2007–2009. She has published articles in English in Folklore (2006) and International Review of Social History (2007).
NATALIA SKRADOL
'The Light Genre of Stalinism: Politics of Humour in the Soviet Popular Folklore of the 1930s-1950s'
5.15-6.45, Tuesday 8 December 2008
Seminar Room, Douglas Knoop Centre, Humanities Research Institute, 34 Gell Street
Natalia Skradol is Visiting Research Fellow In the Bakhtin Centre. She has published in the areas of film studies, psychoanalysis and totalitarian rhetoric. Her current research project is "Totalitarian emotions" - representations of the emotional world of the 'New Man' in popular scientific and propagandistic texts from the time of the Weimar Republic, National Socialism, post-revolutionary Russia and the period of 'high Stalinism.'