AATSEEL Panel on Race and/or Speech in Soviet Russia Seeks Third Paper

[Anastasia Kayiatos]

We are two doctoral candidates at U.C. Berkeley putting together a panel for
the next AATSEEL conference (in Philadelphia, Dec. 27-30), and we need a
third paper to complete our proposal before the submission deadline of April
15, 2009.

Our panel concerns the intersections between race and speech in the Soviet
era.  More specifically, we look at how Soviet cultural texts and practices
embodied and theorized the minoritized and ethnic speaking subject within
Soviet borders, and further investigate the implications of such
representations for issues of Soviet identity and subjectivity.

One of our papers considers how unimpaired artists of the 1960s made figural
use of disability, muteness and race in their performance art; and
conversely, attends to the theatrical production of Soviet "deaf-mutes"
within the context of Soviet state racism.

The other paper examines the representation of a Chinese partisan during the
Civil War in Vsevelod Ivanov's 1921 Armored Car 14-69, and how the
minoritization and racial formation of a Chinese subject primarily through
broken speech leads to his sacrifice through a staged geopolitical ritual
that effects a reversal of power relations between the new Soviet regime and
Japan.

We would like to include another paper that deals with both issues of race
and speech, but, at this late hour, might settle for one in which just one
(preferably race) is systematically engaged and theorized.

Interested paper-submitters should contact us off-list at
rbchan at berkeley.edu or akayiatos at berkeley.edu.

Thanks!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------