From: "Serguei A. Oushakine" <oushakin@Princeton.EDU>
Subject: Interdisciplinary Conference. Totalitarian Laughter: Cultures of the Comic under Socialism (May 15-17, 2009, Princeton)
Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2009 15:43:37 -0400
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 Skradol (Hebrew University/Ben-Gurion University, Israel) Exceptional
Laughter
Discussant: Ben Nathans (University of Pennsylvania)
12:30 14:30
Panel 2 TWISTED TEXTS AND CRYPTIC LIVES
Chair: Liliana Milkova (National Gallery of Art, Washington)
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 KlumbytÄ (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 Emmerson
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 Fillm 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 OFF SUBVERSION
Chair: Stanislav Shvabrin (Princeton)
Anna Nisnevich (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 Dobrivojevic (Belgrade Institute of Contemporary History, Serbia)
Perception of "Others": Laughter as a Part of Official Party Propaganda in
Yugoslavia(1945 19555)
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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