Liberation as a State of Mind: Free Minds in a Captive World, Captive Minds in a Free World

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

This panel aims to examine the impact of oppressive political, cultural, and religious systems including totalitarian ones, on the individual. This impact will be examined both in the individual perspective, as the internalization of values and the development of survival strategies, as well as in the socio-political perspective – as seeking/rejecting the support of the group, collaborating with the system or opposing it. The phenomenon of emigration, including internal emigration in one’s own mind, will also be taken into account. The panelists are looking for answers to the following questions: Under what conditions do minds break free from the control of regimes? Did the regime even have control? What coping mechanisms does the mind devise to create internal freedom in a hostile environment? Do the mental chains of totalitarian systems remain even after a person escapes the actual constraints of the state? This panel explores these and similar questions in three distinct environs: a Russian émigré writer in the United States; Moldovan cultural elite reacting to increased freedoms under Gorbachev; and perceptions of Islam within the writings of Russophone women in a chaotic post-Soviet world.

Sub Unit

• Literature: 20th Century

Chair

• Kristine Juskova, Learn Russian in the European Union

Papers

• Nina Berberova in America: Captive Mind in a Liberated Country - Małgorzata Abassy, Jagiellonian U (Poland)

• The Moldovan Intelligentsia’s Internal Response to Threats and Opportunities of the Gorbachev Era - William D. Prigge, South Dakota State U

• Islam through the Eyes of Women Writing within Russia - Maria Hristova, Lewis and Clark College

Discussant

• Danica Anderson, The Kolo: Women's Cross-Cultural Collaboration