Soviet and American Images of the “Enemy Number One”: Cold War Cinema and its Contemporary Reception

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

Today’s anxieties are shaped by the images of the enemy created in the previous times in no small degree; moreover, this imagery is widely employed by the actors of symbolic politics. The images of the enemy serve as a constant part of the human history but the Cold War provides especially rich materials for studying them. On the both sides of the Iron Curtain cinema played an irreplaceable role in constructing them within this cultural Cold War. The panel focuses on comparative analysis of the techniques of constructing the images of the enemy by Cold War films as well as the ways of deconstructing them by films of the detente. Besides that, the panel aims to examine how contemporary audiences in Russia and the United States perceive the Cold War cinematic imagery and to discuss its possible impact on the current state of Russia-U.S. relations.

Sub Unit

• Cinema/Television/Electronic Media

Chair

• Oleg V. Riabov, St. Petersburg State U (Russia)

Papers

• Dehumanization of the Enemy in Soviet and Early American Cold War Films: Comparative Analysis - Oleg V. Riabov, St. Petersburg State U (Russia)

• The Images of the Enemy in Soviet Cold War Non-fiction Films: Rhetorical and Narrative Strategies - Olga Davydova, Saint Petersburg State U (Russia)

• Political Detent and Reset: The Deconstruction of Ideological Rival Image in Soviet and American Cinema in the 1970-1980s - Aleksander Kubyshkin, St. Petersburg State U (Russia)

• Cinematic Images of Cold War Militaries’ Masculinities in the Eyes of Contemporary Russians and Americans - Tatiana B. Riabova, Herzen State Pedagogical U of Russia

Discussant

• Olga Vadimovna Shnyrova, Ivanovo Center for Gender Studies (Russia)

Session Manager

• Olga Davydova, Saint Petersburg State U (Russia)