Introduction: Centrifuge and Fragmentation

The seismic changes inaugurated by desovietization not only recast the entire framework of Russia\u27s cultural priorities, production, and reception, but ultimately revised fundamental concepts of what constitutes culture

Los bienes jurídicos penalmente protegidas

Fil: Coscilo, Antonieta. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Derecho. Cátedra de Derecho Penal II. Buenos Aires, ArgentinaTemas de Derecho Penal I

Style and S(t)imulation: Popular Magazines, or the Aestheticization of Postsoviet Russia

The new Postsoviet genre of the glossy magazine that inundated bookstalls and kiosks in Russia\u27s urban centers served as both an advertisement for a life of luxury and an advice column on chic style. Conventionalized signs of affluence, models of beauty, educational articles on topics ranging from the history and significance of ties to correct behavior at a first-class restaurant filled the pages of magazines intended to provide an accelerated course in etiquette, appearance, and appurtenances for Russia\u27s newly wealthy. The lessons in spending, demeanor, and taste emphasized moneyed visibility. Despite their differing emphases, popular magazines all shared the new-found fascination with aesthetics as a mode of constructing a cynosural Postsoviet public identity

Reflections and Refractions: The Mirror: Introduction

Why has humankind approached the mirror with both awe and trepidation? What is a mirror and what does it do? If posed fundamentally, the questions yield answers more complicated than one might expect

The Mirror in Art: Vanitas, Veritas, and Vision

Humankind’s venerable obsession with the mirror, traceable to the ancient myths of Medusa and Narcissus, is copiously attested in Western art, which historically relied on the mirror as both practical tool and polysemous trope. While the mirror’s reflective capacities encouraged its identification with the vaunted mimetic function of literature and film, its refractive quality enabled artists to explore and comment on perspective, in the process challenging the concept of art’s faithful representation of phenomena. My radically compressed and selective overview of the mirror’s significance in Western iconography focuses primarily on visibility, gaze, and gender, dwelling on key moments and genres that most vividly illustrate the paradoxes of the mirror as both symbol and utilitarian object. Comparing Russian art with its Western counterpart, I argue that Russia’s distinctive iconographic traditions account for Russian divergences from major aspects of the inherited and evolving mirror rhetoric that prevailed in Western Europe

International Conference on Women in War

The University Archives has determined that this item is of continuing value to OSU's history.The International Conference on Women in War explores the role of women in war from World War II to the present. The conference focuses geographically on Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and the Soviet Union, and the Balkans; and historically on World War II, the wars in Afghanistan (1979-1989) and secessionist Chechnya (1994-96, 1999-present), and the Bosnia/Croatia/Serbia war (1992-95).Ohio State University. Mershon Center for International Security StudiesOhio State University. Center for Slavic and East European StudiesOhio State University. Office of International AffairsOhio State University. College of HumanitiesOhio State University. Dept. of Slavic and East European Languages and LiteraturesOhio State University. Dept. of Comparative StudiesOhio State University. Dept. of Film StudiesOhio State University. Center for the Study of ReligionsOhio State University. Dept. of Women's StudiesOhio State University. Association for Women in DevelopmentOhio State University. Dept. of Near Eastern Languages and Cultureswebsite announcement, conference website, conference photo

At the intersection of globalization and "civilizational originality' : cultural production in Putin's Russia

This special issue originates from a transnational collaboration of scholars in philology, comparative literature, social theory, sociology, anthropology, ethnography, and media studies. The collection strives to advance a research agenda built on the nexus of three intellectual and academic domains: post-Soviet Russian cultural studies', the research paradigm put forward by Cultural Studies, as well as empirical methods developed in sociology. The collection illustrates the importance of expanding the experience of Cultural Studies beyond its established spheres of national investigation, while it also speaks to the necessity to re-evaluate the hegemony of the English-language academic and cultural production on the global scale. The collection offers insights into the gamut of cultural practices and institutional environments in which Russian cultural production happens today. It shows how cultural industries and institutions in Russia are integrated into the global marketplace and transnational communities, while they also draw on and contribute to local lives and experiences by trying to create an autonomous space for symbolic production at personal and collective levels. Through diverse topics, the issue sheds light on the agency, i.e. practitioners and participants, creators and consumers, of Russian cultural production and the neoliberal practices implemented on creative work and cultural administration in Russia today. The Introduction outlines the development of academic studies on Russian cultural practices since 1991; describes main political developments shaping the cultural field in Putin's Russia; and, finally, identifies the Cultural Studies debates the editors of the collection find most productive for investigations of Russia, i.e. the instrumentalization of culture and culture as resource. Relocated in an analysis of a post-socialist society, these conceptualisations seem increasingly problematic in a situation where local and federal policies governing cultural and creative work focus simultaneously on marketization and on nationalism as the main tools of legitimizing the federal government.Peer reviewe

Russia’s Social Upper Class: From Ostentation to Culturedness

This article discusses examples of strategies employed by representatives of Russia’s new social upper class to acquire social distinction. By the late 2000s many of the upper-class Russians included in this study distanced themselves from the conspicuous ostentation ascribed to the brutish 1990s. Instead, they strove to gain legitimacy for their social position by no longer aggressively displaying their wealth, but instead elaborating more refined and individualized tastes and manners and reviving a more cultured image and self-image. These changes found their expression in various modes of social distinction ranging from external signs, such as fashion and cars, to ostentation vicariously exercised through the people these upper-class Russians surrounded themselves with