Interdisciplinary Conference. Totalitarian Laughter: Cultures of the Comic under Socialism (May 15-17, 2009, Princeton)

[Elena Gapova]

Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies
Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures

Interdisciplinary Conference

TOTALITARIAN LAUGHTER: CULTURES OF THE COMIC UNDER SOCIALISM

May 15-17, 2009

Aaron Burr Hall
Room 219

http://slavic.princeton.edu/events/calendar/detail.php?ID=1921

MAY 15

10:00 – 12:00     Panel 1
FUNNY STALIN

Chair: Petre Petrov (Princeton)

Alexandra Arkhipova (Russian State University for Humanities, Moscow).
Laughing about Stalin: The Formation and Evolution of Soviet Uncensored
Jokelore

Boris Briker (Villanova University, USA)
The Image of Stalin in the Kremlin in Life-Death Jokes of the 1930s

Natalia Scradol (Hebrew U of Jerusalem/Ben-Gurion U of the Negev, Israel)
Exceptional Laughter

Discussant: Ben Nathans (University of Pennsylvania)


12:30 – 14:30     Panel 2
TWISTED TEXTS AND CRYPTIC LIVES

Chair: TBA

Dennis Ioffe (Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada/ University of
Amsterdam, The Netherlands )
Day-to-day Eccentric Behavior and the Problem of the “Text of Life”: Alexey
Kruchenykh's Laughter

Yuri Leving (Dalhousie University, Canada)
“Mr. Twister in the Land of Bolsheviks:” The Ideology of Laughter and
Auto-Censorship in Marshak’s Poem

Dragan Kujindzic (University of Florida, USA)
Mickey Marx: Eisenstein with Disney and Other Funny Stories from the
Socialist Realist Crypt

Dmitry Golynko (Russian Institute of Arts History, St. Petersburg)
Totalitarian Laughter as Magic Ritual: The ‘Soviet’ Poems and Plays by D.A.
Prigov in the Context of Moscow Conceptualism

Discussant:  Eliot Borenstein (NYU)


14:45 – 16:45     Panel 3
PICTURING JOKES

Chair: Kim Lane Scheppele (Princeton University)

Stephen Norris (Miami University of Ohio)
“Laughter is a Very Sharp Weapon”: Boris Efimov and Soviet Visual Humor

Alena Ledeneva (University College London, UK)
Smiling at 'Open Secrets': Visual Images of Blat and Kumovstvo

Neringa Klumbytė (Miami University)
Soviet Ethical Citizenship: Morality, Identity, and Laughter in Late Soviet
Lithuania

Discussant: Catharine Nepomnyashchy (Columbia University)


17:00 – 18:30  Keynote Address

Caryl Emerson
A. Watson Armour III University Professor
Chair of the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures

We Almost Died Laughing and Other Theories of the Comic for a Dark Age


MAY 16


9:30 – 11:30    Panel 4
THE LAUGHABLE EVERYDAY

Chair: Serguei Oushakine (Princeton University)

Ilia Kalinin (Smolny College St. Petersburg/Neprikosnovennyj Zapas, Russia)
Laughter Helps Us to Live and to Build: Soviet Anthropology and
Comediography on Productive and Unproductive Laughter

Bella Ostromoukhova (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, France)
Production of Comic Theater by Soviet Students, 1953-1970

Maria Ionită (University of Toronto)
“Turnips as far as the eye can see:” Satirical science-fiction in late 1980s
Romania

Alexander Lamazares (Bronx Community College at the City University of New
York)
Post-Soviet Aesthetics in Cuba: Cultural Change, Humor and Tropical
Perestroika

Discussant: Kevin Platt (University of Pennsylvania)


11:45-13:45    Panel 5
TEARFUL LAUGHTER

Chair: TBA

Sibelan Forrester (Swarthmore College)
Black Humor in Danilo Kiš’s Tales of Totalitarianism

Andrew Horton (University of Oklahoma)
Beyond No Man’s Land: Comic Tragedy and Tearful Laughter in Cinemas of the
Balkans

Svetlana Adonyeva(St. Petersburg State University, Russia)
Bawdy Chastushki: Shame and Domination

Discussant: Martha Lampland (University of California, San Diego)



14:30 – 16:30   Panel 6
JOLLY FELLOWS OF SAD COMEDIES

Chair: Ellen Chances (Princeton University)

Olga Bessmertnaya (Russian State University for Humanities, Moscow)
“Jolly Fellows”: Why not “A Herder of Abrau-Durso”? Two Scenarios of the
First Soviet Musical Film Comedy

Martin William (Polish Cultural Institute, USA)
Zlatan Dubov’s Late Film Comedies

Mark Leiderman (University of Colorado-Boulder, USA)
Tricksters' Laughter in Soviet Culture

Lilla Toke (State University of New York- Stony Brook, USA)
Eastern European film satires from the 1960s

Discussant:  Seth Graham (University College London, UK)


16:45 – 18:00  Screening and Discussion with Film Director Ben Lewis

Hammer and Tickle: The Story of a Political System that Was Laughed out of
Existence (2006)


MAY 17

9:30 – 11:30    Panel 7
NOTES OF SUBVERSION

Chair: Stanislav Shvabrin (Princeton)

Anna Nisnevic (University of Pittsburgh, USA)
Laughter at the Opera House: The Case of Prokofiev’s Love for Three Oranges

Anthony Qualin (Texas Tech University, USA)
Laughing at Carnival Mirrors: the USSR as reflected in Vladimir Vysotsky’s
humorous songs

Laura Olson Osterman (University of Colorado-Boulder, USA)
Subversive Songs in Liminal Space: Women’s Political Chastushki in Rural
Communities

Discussant: Helena Goscilo


11:45-13:45    Panel 8
ETHNICITY OF JOKES

Chair: Michael Reynolds (Princeton)

Anna Oldfield (Hamilton College, USA)
Laughter and the Anxiety of Ethnicity: The New Caucasian Woman in Kavkazkaya
Plennitsya and Qaynana

Ivana Dobrivoevic (Belgrade Institute of Contemporary History, Serbia)
Perception of “Others”: Laughter as a Part of Official Party Propaganda in
Yugoslavia (1945 – 1955)

Justine Gill (University of Alberta, Canada)
Cultures of the Comic under Socialism: Afghanistan and Soviet Jokes

Discussant: Mark Beissinger (Princeton)

Program Committee:

Serguei Oushakine (Princeton), Seth Graham (UCL), Petre Petrov (Princeton),
Kevin M.F. Platt (University of Pennsylvania), Nancy Ries (Colgate U).

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