Past Event

Department of Sociology & Anthropology Colloquium

Presents:

Petra Rethmann, Professor and Acting Chair Department of Anthropology McMaster University

This talk seeks to open up a space from which to think about what has recently been called a politics of the “otherwise” (Povinelli). In building on a poetry reading that happened in Moscow in June 2011 and that featured examinations of both Ivan Goncharov’s 19th Century novel Oblomov as well as of 1970s Italian Marxist writings, I examine how and why they assist a Russian “new left” (Rethmann and Budratskis) in reconceptualizations of politics and work. While the examination of literary culture may be something novel in anthropology to begin with, what interests me here most are the ways in which in Russia these readings act as sources of inspiration for imagining autonomy and freedom. Yet even as the contemporary Russian Federation constitutes the analytical optics in my talk, it also addresses social issues and concerns that extend beyond its perimeters.

Petra Rethmann is a Professor of Anthropology at McMaster University, a faculty member in the university’s Cultural Studies and Critical Theory program, and a member of the Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition. She writes and teaches on the relationship between politics, agency, and imagination as well as on aesthetics and art. She is the author and editor of two books and the author of numerous articles that have appeared in edited volumes and in journals, such as American Anthropologist, American Ethnologist, Anthropologica, Cultural Critique, and Anthropology Today. She is currently working on a book that examines the conditions and possibilities for deep democracy in Russia.

This lecture is part of the Carleton Sociology and Anthropology Department Colloquium Series and is co-sponsored by EURUS.