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Combining personal memoir, philosophical essay, and historical
analysis, Svetlana Boym explores the spaces of collective nostalgia
that connect national biography and personal self-fashioning in the
twenty-first century. She guides us through the ruins and
construction sites of post-communist cities-St. Petersburg, Moscow,
Berlin, and Prague-and the imagined homelands of exiles-Benjamin,
Nabokov, Mandelstahm, and Brodsky. From Jurassic Park to the
Totalitarian Sculpture Garden, Boym unravels the threads of this
global epidemic of longing and its antidotes.
The word "freedom" is so used and abused that it is always in
danger of becoming nothing but a cliche. In "Another Freedom",
Svetlana Boym offers us a refreshing new portrait of the age-old
concept that plays such a crucial role in today's politics.
Exploring the rich cross-cultural history of the idea of freedom,
from its origins in ancient Greece to the present day, she argues
that our attempts to imagine freedom should occupy the space of not
only "what is" but also "what if". Beginning with notions of
sacrifice and the emergence of a public sphere for politics and
art, Boym expands her account to include the relationships between
freedom and liberation, personal and political freedom, modernity
and terror, and public dissent and creative estrangement. While
depicting a world of differences, she affirms lasting solidarities
based on the commitment to the public sphere and passionate
thinking that reflections on freedom require. To do so, Boym
assembles a remarkable cast of characters: Aeschylus and Euripides,
Kafka and Mandelstam, Arendt and Heidegger, and a virtual encounter
between Dostoevsky and Marx on the streets of Paris. By offering a
fresh look at the strange history of this idea, "Another Freedom"
delivers a nuanced portrait of freedom, one whose repercussions
inform our present and future.
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Jews and the Ends of Theory (Paperback)
Shai Ginsburg, Martin Land, Jonathan Boyarin; Contributions by Svetlana Boym, Sergey Dolgopolski, …
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R984
Discovery Miles 9 840
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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Theory, as it’s happened across the humanities, has often been
coded as “Jewish.” This collection of essays seeks to move past
explanations for this understanding that rely on the self-evident
(the historical centrality of Jews to the rise of Critical Theory
with the Frankfurt School) or stereotypical (psychoanalysis as the
“Jewish Science”) in order to show how certain problematics of
modern Jewishness enrich theory. In the range of violence and
agency that attend the appellation “Jew,” depending on how,
where, and by whom it’s uttered, we can see that Jewishness is a
rhetorical as much as a sociological fact, and that its rhetorical
and sociological aspects, while linked, are not identical.
Attention to this disjuncture helps to elucidate the questions of
power, subjectivity, identity, figuration, language, and relation
that modern theory has grappled with. These questions in turn
implicate geopolitical issues such as the relation of a people to a
state and the violence done in the name of simplistic identitarian
ideologies. Clarifying a situation where “the Jew” is not
readily or unproblematically legible, the editors propose what they
call “spectral reading,” a way to understand Jewishness as a
fluid and rhetorical presence. While not divorced from sociological
facts, this spectral reading works in concert with contemporary
theory to mediate pessimistic and utopian impulses, experiences,
and realities. Contributors: Svetlana Boym, Andrew Bush, Sergey
Dolgopolski, Jay Geller, Sarah Hammerschlag, Hannan Hever, Martin
Land, Martin Jay, James I. Porter, Yehouda Shenhav, Elliot R.
Wolfson
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The Svetlana Boym Reader (Paperback)
Svetlana Boym; Edited by Cristina Vatulescu, Tamar Abramov, Nicole G. Burgoyne, Julia Chadaga, …
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R1,304
Discovery Miles 13 040
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
|
Svetlana Boym was a prolific writer, a charismatic professor, a
novelist, and a public intellectual. She was also a fiercely
resourceful and reflective immigrant; her most resonant book, The
Future of Nostalgia, was deeply rooted in that experience. Even
after The Future of Nostalgia carried her fame beyond academic
circles, few readers were aware of all of her creative personas.
She was simply too prolific, and her work migrated across most
people's disciplinary boundaries-from literary and cultural studies
through film, visual, and material culture studies, performance,
intermedia, and new media. The Svetlana Boym Reader presents a
comprehensive view of Boym's singularly creative work in all its
aspects. It includes Boym's classic essays, carefully chosen
excerpts from her five books, and journalistic gems. Showcasing her
roles both as curator and curated, the reader includes interviews
and excerpts from exhibition catalogues as well as samples of
intermedial works like Hydrant Immigrants. It also features
autobiographical pieces that shed light on the genealogy of her
scholarly work and rarities like an excerpt from Boym's first
graduate school essay on Russian literature, complete with
marginalia by her mentor Donald Fanger. Last but not least, the
reader includes late pieces that Boym did not live to see through
publication, as well as transcripts of her memorable last lectures
and performances.
This collection of previously unpublished autobiographical and
semi-autobiographical “snippets of experience” written by
Svetlana Boym in the final period of her life capture her penchant
for seamlessly melding, poetically and dream-like, the intensively
personal with the everyday and the world-historical. They
illuminate the formative conditions for the thinking which she was
to develop into her majestic work on nostalgia. Importantly, these
pieces fill in gaps in understanding the genesis and scope of her
take on the world. For readers both familiar with her work and for
those new to it, The Origins of Nostalgia will enable our own
cultural past as well as that of the former Soviet Union to be
viewed in a different light.
|
The Svetlana Boym Reader (Hardcover)
Svetlana Boym; Edited by Cristina Vatulescu, Tamar Abramov, Nicole G. Burgoyne, Julia Chadaga, …
|
R4,613
Discovery Miles 46 130
|
Ships in 12 - 17 working days
|
Svetlana Boym was a prolific writer, a charismatic professor, a
novelist, and a public intellectual. She was also a fiercely
resourceful and reflective immigrant; her most resonant book, The
Future of Nostalgia, was deeply rooted in that experience. Even
after The Future of Nostalgia carried her fame beyond academic
circles, few readers were aware of all of her creative personas.
She was simply too prolific, and her work migrated across most
people's disciplinary boundaries-from literary and cultural studies
through film, visual, and material culture studies, performance,
intermedia, and new media. The Svetlana Boym Reader presents a
comprehensive view of Boym's singularly creative work in all its
aspects. It includes Boym's classic essays, carefully chosen
excerpts from her five books, and journalistic gems. Showcasing her
roles both as curator and curated, the reader includes interviews
and excerpts from exhibition catalogues as well as samples of
intermedial works like Hydrant Immigrants. It also features
autobiographical pieces that shed light on the genealogy of her
scholarly work and rarities like an excerpt from Boym's first
graduate school essay on Russian literature, complete with
marginalia by her mentor Donald Fanger. Last but not least, the
reader includes late pieces that Boym did not live to see through
publication, as well as transcripts of her memorable last lectures
and performances.
From political debates about global free markets to local free
lunches, today the word 'freedom' is in danger of becoming a
distorted and tired cliche. In "Another Freedom", Svetlana Boym
explores the rich history of the idea of freedom, from its origins
in ancient Greece through the present day, suggesting that our
attempts to imagine freedom should occupy the space of not only
'what is' but also 'what if'. Beginning with notions of sacrifice
and the emergence of a public sphere for politics and art, Boym
expands her account to include the relationships between freedom
and liberty, modernity and terror, political dissent and creative
estrangement, and love and freedom of the other. While depicting a
world of differences, Boym affirms lasting cross-cultural
solidarities with the commitment to passionate thinking that
reflection on freedom requires. "Another Freedom" is filled with
stories that illuminate our own sense of what it means to be free,
and it assembles a truly remarkable cast of characters: Warburg and
Euripides, Pushkin and Tocqueville, Kafka and Osip Mandelshtam,
Arendt and Heidegger, and an imagined encounter between Dostoevsky
and Marx on the streets of Paris. What are the limits of freedom
and how can it be imagined anew? Reflecting upon her experience as
a Leningrad native transplanted to the United States, Boym dares to
ask whether American freedom can be transported across the national
border. With these questions in mind, Boym attempts to reinvent
freedom as something 'infinitely improbable' - yet nevertheless
still possible. By offering a fresh look at the strange history of
this idea and opening a new arena of inquiry, "Another Freedom"
delivers a nuanced portrait of freedom's unpredictable occurrences
and unexplored plots, one whose repercussions will be felt well
into the future.
|
Jews and the Ends of Theory (Hardcover)
Shai Ginsburg, Martin Land, Jonathan Boyarin; Contributions by Svetlana Boym, Sergey Dolgopolski, …
|
R3,226
Discovery Miles 32 260
|
Ships in 12 - 17 working days
|
Theory, as it's happened across the humanities, has often been
coded as "Jewish." This collection of essays seeks to move past
explanations for this understanding that rely on the self-evident
(the historical centrality of Jews to the rise of Critical Theory
with the Frankfurt School) or stereotypical (psychoanalysis as the
"Jewish Science") in order to show how certain problematics of
modern Jewishness enrich theory. In the range of violence and
agency that attend the appellation "Jew," depending on how, where,
and by whom it's uttered, we can see that Jewishness is a
rhetorical as much as a sociological fact, and that its rhetorical
and sociological aspects, while linked, are not identical.
Attention to this disjuncture helps to elucidate the questions of
power, subjectivity, identity, figuration, language, and relation
that modern theory has grappled with. These questions in turn
implicate geopolitical issues such as the relation of a people to a
state and the violence done in the name of simplistic identitarian
ideologies. Clarifying a situation where "the Jew" is not readily
or unproblematically legible, the editors propose what they call
"spectral reading," a way to understand Jewishness as a fluid and
rhetorical presence. While not divorced from sociological facts,
this spectral reading works in concert with contemporary theory to
mediate pessimistic and utopian impulses, experiences, and
realities. Contributors: Svetlana Boym, Andrew Bush, Sergey
Dolgopolski, Jay Geller, Sarah Hammerschlag, Hannan Hever, Martin
Land, Martin Jay, James I. Porter, Yehouda Shenhav, Elliot R.
Wolfson
This collection of previously unpublished autobiographical and
semi-autobiographical “snippets of experience” written by
Svetlana Boym in the final period of her life capture her penchant
for seamlessly melding, poetically and dream-like, the intensively
personal with the everyday and the world-historical. They
illuminate the formative conditions for the thinking which she was
to develop into her majestic work on nostalgia. Importantly, these
pieces fill in gaps in understanding the genesis and scope of her
take on the world. For readers both familiar with her work and for
those new to it, The Origins of Nostalgia will enable our own
cultural past as well as that of the former Soviet Union to be
viewed in a different light.
What is the "real Russia"? What is the relationship between
national dreams and kitsch, between political and artistic utopia
and everyday existence? Commonplaces of daily living would be
perfect clues for those seeking to understand a culture. But all
who write big books on Russian life confess their failure to get
properly inside Russia, to understand its "doublespeak."
Boym is a unique guide. A member of the last Soviet Generation,
the Russian equivalent of our Generation X, she grew up in
Leningrad and has lived in the West for the past thirteen years.
Her book provides a view of Russia that is historically informed,
replete with unexpected detail, and everywhere stamped with
authority. Alternating analysis with personal accounts of Russian
life, Boym conveys the foreignness of Russia and examines its
peculiar conceptions of private life and common good, of Culture
and Trash, of sincerity and banality. Armed with a Dictionary of
Untranslatable Terms, we step around Uncle Fedia asleep in the
hall, surrounded by a puddle of urine, and enter the Communal
Apartment, the central exhibit of the book. It is the ruin of the
communal utopia and a unique institution of Soviet daily life; a
model Soviet home and a breeding ground for grassroots informants.
Here, privacy is forbidden; here the inhabitants defiantly treasure
their bits of "domestic trash," targets of ideological campaigns
for the transformation ("perestroika") of everyday life.
Against the Russian and Soviet myths of national destiny, the
trivial, the ordinary, even the trashy, take on a utopian
dimension. Boym studies Russian culture in a broad sense of the
word; she ranges from nineteenth- and twentieth-centuryintellectual
thought to art and popular culture. With her we go walking in
Moscow and Leningrad, eavesdrop on domestic life, and discover
jokes, films, and TV programs. Boym then reflects on the 1991 coup
that marked the end of the Soviet Union and evoked "fin de siecle"
apocalyptic visions. The book ends with a poignant reflection on
the nature of communal utopia and nostalgia, on homesickness and
the sickness of being home.
Svetlana Boym writes a new genealogy of modernity, moving beyond
older debates between modernism and postmodernism to focus on the
intersection of art, architecture, technology, and philosophy in
the early twenty-first century. Drawing on theories of Georg
Simmel, Henri Bergson, Aby Warburg, and Jacques Derrida, Boym
presents the off-modern as an eccentric, self-questioning,
anti-authoritarian perspective with roots in the Russian
avant-garde, now developed in surprising ways by contemporary
artists, architects, and curators around the world. She illustrates
the off-modern in discussions of (and with) figures as diverse as
architect Rem Koolhaas, Albanian artist-turned-mayor Edi Rama, an
art collective in Delhi, and the creator of the Museum of Jurassic
Technology in Los Angeles. Both a manifesto and a memoir, The
Off-Modern often returns to themes of travel and immigration,
exploring issues of diasporic intimacy and productive estrangement
amid nostalgic landscapes of urban ruins.
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