Memory and the Senses I

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Brief Description

Drawing on insights from sensory, visual, and sound studies, the first roundtable in this stream traces how the senses trigger or preserve visceral memories in literature, culture, and art; how they shape, alter, or distort history; and how they are curated to memorialize figures and events in Russian and East European culture. The participants will work across literature, music, media, and film to consider various sensory configurations: synaesthesia/intersensoriality, sight/hearing, sound/recording, and color/touch. Polina Dimova will first introduce intersensoriality and discuss the memorialization of composer Aleksandr Scriabin and his multisensory afterlife that transformed him into a prophet of the revolution and the space age. Next, Erin Collopy will examine how Nadezhda Teffi uses sight and hearing to evoke mood in her "Ved’ma" stories about beings from Slavic folklore. Matthew Kendall will then contextualize sound recordings from the Russian State Archive within cultural history to shed light on Soviet cultural production in the 1930s-40s. Adrienne Harris will finally analyze how the recent monument "Podvigu zhenshchin," dedicated to women’s heroism as illustrated by the 1972 film "The Dawns are Quiet Here," invites visitors to recall the felt marshy, rocky terrain of Karelia during the Great Patriotic War and how it brings to mind the red motif of traumatic memories in postwar commemoration. To conclude, Jenny Kaminer will reflect on touch, war trauma, and film.

Sub Unit

• Literature: 20th Century

Chair

• Jenny Kaminer, UC Davis

Roundtable Speakers

• Polina Dimcheva Dimova, U of Denver

• Adrienne M. Harris, Baylor U

• Matthew Kendall, U of Illinois at Chicago