Writers have always been conscious of the contribution that clothes can make to their work—as mat... more Writers have always been conscious of the contribution that clothes can make to their work—as material objects, as outward signs of inner character, and as metaphors, especially for language itself. In the early 20th century, however, a time of rapid technological change, as well as of industrialization, globalization, and urbanization, literary interrogations and descriptions of dress evolved to respond to the new ways in which garments were designed, made, marketed, and sold, and to fashion’s increasing pervasiveness in society. Particularly sensitive to these changes were many of the writers associated with modernism, who shared with the nascent fashion industry a preoccupation with questions of novelty and the presentation of the self. Russia was no exception, and there poets, playwrights, and novelists explored and exploited the meanings of clothes and fashion in order to address the urgent questions concerning sex, gender, and race that were thrown up by life in the modern cit...
Public engagement, impact, and knowledge exchange are concepts that today rank highly on research... more Public engagement, impact, and knowledge exchange are concepts that today rank highly on research agendas across the UK. Yet the discussion of what constitutes engagement, on the politics and practicalities of building collaborations with non-academic partners, and on the ethics of conducting such work are still at their very earliest stages. Emerging from a British Academy-funded workshop, “Slavic Studies Goes Public: Creating an ECR Network in the Public Humanities,” this series of essays and critical-creative works — collaborations at the boundary of academic writing and artistic practice — explores what we see as some of the most important questions relating to public engagement in our field. What institutional factors and politics inform and determine the “who” of our public engagement work? How can the us/them dichotomy be rethought and with it the idea of “giving voice” to “voiceless” communities? How can those leading projects be sure that the legacy or change is desired by ...
People often now ask what our food means. But what happens when our food literally spells somethi... more People often now ask what our food means. But what happens when our food literally spells something out? A form of popular creativity often treated with derision – namely, salads in which ingredients form pictures or words – is here read as an instructive example of the production and reproduction of patriotic ideology on the Russian internet. After a brief consideration of connections between salads and discourses of nation and class, this article considers pictorial salads in the context of postmodernism in art, architecture and politics. I propose that the way in which images of these salads are shared and discussed is typical not only of the antagonistic, politicised space of the Russophone internet, but also of the online “prosumption” of images in general, which, I ultimately suggest, does not empower and liberate, but rather replicates the constrictive scopic regime of Socialist Realism.
Writers have always been conscious of the contribution that clothes can make to their work—as mat... more Writers have always been conscious of the contribution that clothes can make to their work—as material objects, as outward signs of inner character, and as metaphors, especially for language itself. In the early 20th century, however, a time of rapid technological change, as well as of industrialization, globalization, and urbanization, literary interrogations and descriptions of dress evolved to respond to the new ways in which garments were designed, made, marketed, and sold, and to fashion’s increasing pervasiveness in society. Particularly sensitive to these changes were many of the writers associated with modernism, who shared with the nascent fashion industry a preoccupation with questions of novelty and the presentation of the self. Russia was no exception, and there poets, playwrights, and novelists explored and exploited the meanings of clothes and fashion in order to address the urgent questions concerning sex, gender, and race that were thrown up by life in the modern cit...
Public engagement, impact, and knowledge exchange are concepts that today rank highly on research... more Public engagement, impact, and knowledge exchange are concepts that today rank highly on research agendas across the UK. Yet the discussion of what constitutes engagement, on the politics and practicalities of building collaborations with non-academic partners, and on the ethics of conducting such work are still at their very earliest stages. Emerging from a British Academy-funded workshop, “Slavic Studies Goes Public: Creating an ECR Network in the Public Humanities,” this series of essays and critical-creative works — collaborations at the boundary of academic writing and artistic practice — explores what we see as some of the most important questions relating to public engagement in our field. What institutional factors and politics inform and determine the “who” of our public engagement work? How can the us/them dichotomy be rethought and with it the idea of “giving voice” to “voiceless” communities? How can those leading projects be sure that the legacy or change is desired by ...
People often now ask what our food means. But what happens when our food literally spells somethi... more People often now ask what our food means. But what happens when our food literally spells something out? A form of popular creativity often treated with derision – namely, salads in which ingredients form pictures or words – is here read as an instructive example of the production and reproduction of patriotic ideology on the Russian internet. After a brief consideration of connections between salads and discourses of nation and class, this article considers pictorial salads in the context of postmodernism in art, architecture and politics. I propose that the way in which images of these salads are shared and discussed is typical not only of the antagonistic, politicised space of the Russophone internet, but also of the online “prosumption” of images in general, which, I ultimately suggest, does not empower and liberate, but rather replicates the constrictive scopic regime of Socialist Realism.
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