Socialist Realism without Shores

Published by Duke University Press 1997

Socialist Realism without Shores

Edited by: Thomas Lahusen and Evgeny Dobrenko

In the series Post-Contemporary Interventions

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822398097

Overview
Contents

About this book

Socialist Realism without Shores offers an international perspective on the aesthetics of socialist realism—an aesthetic that, contrary to expectations, survived the death of its originators and the demise of its original domain. This expanded edition of a special issue of the South Atlantic Quarterly brings together scholars from various parts of the globe to discuss socialist realism as it appears across genres in art, architecture, film, and literature and across geographic divides—from the "center," Russia, to various points at the "periphery"—China, Germany, France, Poland, remote republics of the former USSR, and the United States.
The contributors here argue that socialist realism has never been a monolithic art form. Essays demonstrate, among other things, that its literature could accommodate psychoanalytic criticism; that its art and architecture could affect the aesthetic dictates of Moscow that made "Soviet" art paradoxically heterogeneous; and that its aesthetics could accommodate both high art and crafted kitsch. Socialist Realism without Shores also addresses the critical discourse provoked by socialist realism—Stalinist aesthetics, "anthropological" readings; ideology critique and censorship; and the sublimely ironic approaches adapted from sots art, the Soviet version of postmodernism.

Contributors. Antoine Baudin, Svetlana Boym, Greg Castillo, Katerina Clark, Evgeny Dobrenko, Boris Groys, Hans Günther, Julia Hell, Leonid Heller, Mikhail Iampolski, Thomas Lahusen, Régine Robin, Yuri Slezkine, Lily Wiatrowski Phillips, Xudong Zhang, Sergei Zimovets

Author / Editor information

Thomas Lahusen is Associate Professor of Russian and Literature at Duke University and the editor of Late Soviet Culture, also published by Duke University Press. Evgeny Dobrenko is Associate Professor of Russian Literature at Duke University.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Introduction Thomas Lahusen and Evgeny Dobrenko Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Socialist Realism in Search of Its Shores: Some Historical Remarks on the "Historically Open Aesthetic System of the Truthful Representation of Life" Thomas Lahusen Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	5
Socialist Realism with Shores: The Conventions for the Positive Hero Katerina Clark Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	27
A World of Prettiness: Socialist Realism and Its Aesthetic Categories Leonid Heller Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	51
A Style and a Half: Socialist Realism between Modernism and Postmodernism Boris Groys Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	76
Peoples at an Exhibition: Soviet Architecture and the National Question Greg Castillo Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	91
Paradoxes of Unified Culture: From Stalin's Fairy Tale to Molotov's Lacquer Box Svetlana Boym Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	120
The Disaster of Middlebrow Taste, or, Who "Invented" Socialist Realism? Evgeny Dobrenko Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	135
Censorship as the Triumph of Life Mikhail Lampolski Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	165
Wise Father Stalin and His Family in Soviet Cinema Hans Gunther Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	178
Son of the Regiment: Deus ex Machi Sergei Zimovets Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	191
Soft-Porn, Kitsch, and Post-Fascist Bodies: The East German Novel of Arrival Julia Hell Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	203
"Why is Soviet Painting Hidden from Us?" Zhdanov Art and Its International Relations and Fallout, 1947-53 Antoine Baudin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	227
W. E. B. Du Bois and Soviet Communism: The Black Flame as Socialist Realism Lily Wiatrowski Phillips Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	257
The Power of Rewriting: Postrevolutionary Discourse on Chinese Socialist Realism Xudong Zhang Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	282
Primitive Communism and the Other Way Around Yuri Slezkine Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	310
The Past as a Dustbin, or, The Phantoms of Socialist Realism Rigine Robin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	337
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	357
Notes on Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	367

Language: English
Publisher: Duke University Press
Pages
- Main content: 376
Illustrations
- Other: 22 b&w photographs, 2 line art images

eBook

Published: April 30, 1997
ISBN: 9780822398097