Book Launch: The Russian language edition of Alexander Etkind’s Warped Mourning: Stories of the Undead in the Land of the Unburied

В рамках научного семинара Международного центра истории и социологии Второй мировой войны и ее последствий

 

 

As part of a scholarly seminar sponsored by the International Center for the History and Sociology of World War Two and Its Consequences, Alexander Etkind presented the Russian language edition of his book Warped Mourning: Stories of the Undead in the Land of the Unburied.The presentation took place on March 24 at the HSE School of History (Petrovka 12). In his presentation, Etkind spoke about the mechanisms of memory and mourning, as well as about the way in which grief reconstitutes the past in the imagination, in texts, and in rituals. Through its coverage of such topics as the History Affair, the masterpieces of Soviet cinema, memorials to the victims of the Gulag, and “magical historicism” in post-Soviet literature, Etkind’s new book presents an unusual panorama of post-catastrophe culture. After the presentation, researchers from the Center and guests of the HSE participated in a discussion, together with Etkind, about these topics.

 

Alexander Etkind is a professor of Russian literature and culture at the University of Cambridge. He also has appointments at NYU and Georgetown. He has conducted research in Princeton, Berlin, and Canterbury (New Zealand). His texts, including Eros of the Impossible: The History of Psychoanalysis in Russia (1993), Whip: Sects, Literature, and Revolution (1998), Internal Colonization: Russia’s Imperial Experience (2013), have been translated into seven languages.