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Studies in Russian Literature and Theory Ser.: Soft Matter : The Poetics of Weakness in Late Soviet Socialism by Julia Vaingurt (2025, Trade Paperback)
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About this product
Product Identifiers
PublisherNorthwestern University Press
ISBN-100810148153
ISBN-139780810148154
eBay Product ID (ePID)4069210156
Product Key Features
Number of Pages320 Pages
LanguageEnglish
Publication NameSoft Matter : the Poetics of Weakness in Late Soviet Socialism
SubjectSemiotics & Theory, Russian & Former Soviet Union
Publication Year2025
TypeTextbook
AuthorJulia Vaingurt
Subject AreaLiterary Criticism
SeriesStudies in Russian Literature and Theory Ser.
FormatTrade Paperback
Dimensions
Item Height0.6 in
Item Weight16 Oz
Item Length9 in
Item Width6 in
Additional Product Features
Intended AudienceScholarly & Professional
LCCN2024-032954
Reviews"Julia Vaingurt's Soft Matter brilliantly elucidates a set of attitudes within late Soviet culture that opposed the dominant discourse of heroism and masculinity by embracing "weakness" as a desirable human condition. Not only is this a rich study in the intersection of literary and philosophical ideas, it is especially apt in an era when a Russian regime has once again resorted to masking its own weakness behind grotesque and exaggerated claims of masculinity."--Thomas Seifrid, University of Southern California, Dornsife, " Soft Matter seems all too necessary in a world newly divided and threatened by aggressive populism, military invasions, climate change, and increasing socio-economic inequality. Vaingurt's study of "weakness" makes an important contribution to ongoing conversations about Soviet culture after Stalin, the challenges of late modernity, the need to reconsider gender categories, and the ethical and political potentials of solidarity based on human vulnerability." --Ann Komaromi, University of Toronto, "Julia Vaingurt's Soft Matter brilliantly elucidates a set of attitudes within late Soviet culture that opposed the dominant discourse of heroism and masculinity by embracing 'weakness' as a desirable human condition. Not only is this a rich study in the intersection of literary and philosophical ideas, it is especially apt in an era when a Russian regime has once again resorted to masking its own weakness behind grotesque and exaggerated claims of masculinity."--Thomas Seifrid, University of Southern California, Dornsife, " Soft Matter seems all too necessary in a world newly divided and threatened by aggressive populism, military invasions, climate change, and increasing socioeconomic inequality. Vaingurt's study of 'weakness' makes an important contribution to ongoing conversations about Soviet culture after Stalin, the challenges of late modernity, the need to reconsider gender categories, and the ethical and political potentials of solidarity based on human vulnerability." --Ann Komaromi, University of Toronto
Table Of ContentIllustrations Introduction Chapter 1. A Typology of Weakness: Lacking Heroes in Literature and Film Chapter 2. Iulii Kim's Cinderella in the Concentration Camp : Performing Kurt Vonnegut's Gender Subversion in the USSR Chapter 3. "What a Hero of Weakness!": The Radical Orthodoxy of Evgenii Kharitonov Chapter 4. "Universal Chicken-heartedness": Low Spirits and Immoderate Meditations in Venedikt Erofeev's Moskva-Petushki Chapter 5. Enjoy Your Symptom!: Sasha Sokolov's A School for Fools as an Artist's Guide to Psychosis Chapter 6. The Weakling, the Genius, the Bomb, and the Globe: Writing as Weakness in Andrei Bitov In Conclusion: A Manifesto Works Cited
SynopsisSoft Matter: The Poetics of Weakness in Late Soviet Socialism is a provocative exploration of the cultivation of weak subjectivity in late Soviet fiction as both an aesthetic strategy and an ethical code., Identifies and examines a poetics of weakness in Soviet underground literature Artists of the late Soviet era sought new, nonconformist ways of approaching literary fiction, arriving at weakness as a crucial principle of narrative and character formation. Julia Vaingurt argues that this counter-discourse of strategic weakness constituted both an aesthetic strategy and an ethical code, affording like-minded authors a feeling of recognition and commonality and uniting an international community of artists in resistance to the divisiveness of their worlds. Soft Matter: The Poetics of Weakness in Late Soviet Socialism explores the cultivation of weak subjectivity through modes such as gender subversion, queer holy foolishness, intoxication, madness, and writing disorders like graphomania and writer's block. Identifying the poetics of weakness as formative for Soviet underground literature of the 1960s and '70s, Vaingurt also traces the inheritance of a far older tradition within Russian culture of salutary weakness. As democratic deliberation continues to be under threat around the world, alternatives to the ubiquitous politics of force are an aesthetic, ethical, and ideological imperative., Julia Vaingurt argues that the late Soviet-era discourse of salutary weakness constituted both an aesthetic strategy and an ethical code, affording like-minded authors a feeling of recognition and uniting an international community of artists in resistance to the divisiveness of their worlds. Soft Mailer: The Poetics of Weakness in Laie Soviet Socialism explores the cultivation of weak subjectivity through such modes as gender subversion, queer holy foolishness, intoxication, madness, and writing disorders. As democratic deliberation continues to be under threat around the world, finding alternatives to the ubiquitous politics of force is an aesthetic, ethical, and ideological imperative.
LC Classification NumberPG3022.V35 2025
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