Subversive Liberation: Affective Strategies in Contemporary Russian Culture and Politics

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Brief Description

Since the early 2010s there has been a noticeable shift in Russian culture and politics that can be termed the affective turn. Affect is widely used in public sphere, official rhetoric, but also pop culture. Affect serves as a tool for construction of a new collective national identity and plays a key role in the formation of certain mythological narratives that act as a substitute for ideological discourses. In the latter sense, ‘affective sensibilities’ can already be traced back to the era of late socialism. In this roundtable, we want to explore how affect is reflected in popular culture of late Soviet period and in the recent decades (2010-2020s). In particular, we will pay special attention to how various actors deploy different affective strategies and use affect in relation to liberatory and emancipatory discourses in a broader socio-political context.

Sub Unit

• Arts I: Visual Culture, Material Culture, Applied and Fine Arts

Roundtable Members

• Keti Chukhrov, Karlsruhe U of Arts and Design (Germany)

• Maria Engström, Uppsala U (Sweden)

• Aleksei Semenenko, Umeå U (Sweden)