Please join us Friday, November 17 for the Interdisciplinary Approaches to Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia (REECA) workshop!
The paper topic is:
“(R)evolution of the mind? Evolution of the Soviet-Muslim discourse in the newspaper ‘Red Uzbekistan’ from the late 1920s through 1930s”
Description/abstract:
The aim of this paper is to demonstrate a live process of learning how “to speak Bolshevik” in the initial decade of Soviet Uzbekistan’s creation, as well as to identify and analyze the stages of this process. The paper’s central focus is on newspapers as a space where new language and new images were being formed and tested, through translation, adaptation, reinterpretation and, perhaps, original creativity. The author argues that the meaning of Soviet “Muslim modernity” has also been formed in this hybrid realm of the Soviet Uzbek newspapers that represented a complex constellation of cultural, socio-economic, and political factors. In fact, Uzbek Soviet newspapers were supposed to play the same role the cheap mass press and books for the people had played in the Russian empire a few decades earlier: to spread some universal version of mass culture, imagery and language, to educate in a literally sense (illiteracy elimination campaigns) and in a sense of educating consumers and participants of the hegemonic ideological sphere. To substantiate the above claims, the paper focuses on relevant but largely neglected early Soviet (1920s-1930s) Uzbek- and Russian- language Communist Party dailies as the instruments of creating a new language of Uzbek Soviet modernity and the ideal reader/participant of this modernity. In this paper, the author attempts to answer the following questions: Was this project a success? How had the hegemonic Soviet discourse been developed over the years? What questions /aspects of the problem remain unexplored?
Author: Zukhra Kasimova, PhD Candidate in History (University of Illinois at Chicago)
Discussant: Claire Roosien, PhD Candidate in NELC and History (UChicago)
November 17, 2017
11:00pm-12:20pm in Foster Hall, Room 103
University of Chicago
A light breakfast will be served. You are welcome to bring your own.
The paper is available on our website under the ‘Papers’ tab. Password: reeca17zk
For more information, visit our website: https://voices.uchicago.edu/reeca/
Please contact me (christymonet@uchicago.edu) if you have any questions about this workshop or if you believe you may need assistance.
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REECA workshop is an interdisciplinary scholarly forum where graduate students and faculty can explore different perspectives on area studies as they pertain to these deeply interconnected regions of the world. We invite topics of discussion from a wide range of disciplines, including but not limited to Slavic studies, political science, social thought, history, intellectual history, comparative literature, cinema studies, sociology, philosophy, divinity studies, economics, anthropology, public policy, comparative human development, and legal studies.
REMAINING SCHEDULE THIS QUARTER
Wednesday, November 29
SPECIAL SESSION with the Transnational Approaches to Modern Europe Workshop
Sheila Fitzpatrick, Professor of History and Neubauer Collegium Visiting Fellow (University of Sydney; Bernadotte E. Schmitt Distinguished Service Professor Emerita of Russian History and the College, University of Chicago)
Friday, December 1
“Spectacular Promises: The Politics of Art and Memory in Post-socialist Albania”
Sofia Kalo PhD in Anthropology (UMass Amherst)
Thank you!