panel

[Katya Hirvasaho]

Dear Seelangers:

I am posting the actual description of the panel I have proposed for the
AATSEEL annual meeting in San Francisco, because the web-page version of
the description was edited, it seems to me, to the point that it does not
adequately express the purpose of the panel.

"Redefining Russia. A House of Many Nations"

A redefinition of one of the central objects of our study, Russian culture,
might be helpful for revitalizing our field.  The current concept is
constructed from a certain linguistic and Euro-centered dominant
perspective, which privileges particular regions as "centers" and social
classes and ethnic groups as bearers of "Russian culture."  This conception
is limiting to our research and course offerings, which could benefit from
a more multi-layered and polyphonic interpretation of Russian culture(s).
In short, I am proposing a post-modernist panel of papers that would
address topics along the following lines:

        a) redefine Russia as a realm of non-Russians, either by
                1. exploring the non-Russian nationality experience (any
nationality within the old Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, or new Russia)
in a Russian-dominated culture; i.e., papers that explore the colonial
experience itself
                2.by exploring Russian attitudes toward other nationalities
of the geo-politically defined Russia (any period)
                3.by exploring these nationalities' attitudes toward
Russians (possibly within the colonial experience)

        b)  redefine Russia as an empire by
                1.  exploring Russian imperialism and colonialism in
Russian literature or film or as a cultural phenomenon (some kind of
cultural text)
                2.  exploring discursive constructions of power within
Russian culture/literature, which have privileged Russian/East Slavic
interpretation of Russian culture and ignored or devalued other
nationalities as equal contributors (for example: "Old Russian"
architecture, but not "Old Ukrainian")
                3. exploring discursive and cultural consructs which define
Russia as a land of Russians (discourses that have contributed to the
airbrushing of other nationalities out of the picture)

        c) examine/question the role of the field of Slavic Studies in
perpetuating myths about Russia, for example,
                1. by subscribing to the canonical interpretation of the
rise of Russian culture along the Kiev-Moscow-St. Petersburg-back to Moscow
line
                2. by contributing to Moscow pronvincialism by defining
Russian culture as virtually Moscow culture (for example, Russian language
textbooks centered on Moscow)
                3. by not questioning the "objectivity" of scholarly
discourse of Russian/Soviet historians, literatura- iskusstvo- etc. -vedov
(for example, the near-unanimous linguistic affirmation that "Russia
had/has no colonies," since they are not called such--only "borderlands")

        d) examine the possibilities/positive effects a reinterpretation of
Russia as a multinational empire would have for our field by
                1.  research possibilities created
                2.  courses in minority cultures (and languages?),
cross-cultural, interdisciplinary courses (colonailism, religion, ecology),
courses in Russian-language minority literatures (russophone) that could be
offered.

Katya Hirvasaho
Department of German and Russian
Carleton College, MN 55057
tel. 507/646-4449
e-mail: khirvasa at carleton.edu