UCL Credits: 30 | Total Learning Hours: 300 | ECTS: 15 |
Level: Advanced | Course Unit: 1.0 | Full Year |
Module Coordinator: Dr Kristin Roth-Ey Taught By: Dr Kristin Roth-Ey To find out more about this module, please contact the Module Coordinator |
Weekly Contact Hours: 2.0 (2 hour seminar) |
Prerequisites: None |
Compulsory Module for: N/A |
Summative Assessment
Coursework: 2x 2000-2500 word essays (25%)
2 hour examination (75%)
Formative Assessment
To be confirmed
Module Outline
This course explores the history of the Soviet Union’s experiment in creating a socialist “culture for the masses” from Stalinism through to 1991. In lectures and discussions, we will analyze the relationship of cultural developments to key issues in the history of the late USSR, such as the nature of power in the Soviet system,(Stalinist and post-Stalinist), the question of national and supra-national, or Soviet, identity formations, issues of generational conflict, “lifestyle” politics, and the cold war, and the impact of technological and sociological modernization. Readings will draw from secondary sources, first-person narratives, and documents in translation. The course focuses in-depth on cinema as a key sphere for cultural production and consumption in the USSR.
Indicative Texts
- James von Geldern and Richard Stites, eds. Mass Culture in Soviet Russia, 1917-1953 (1995)
- Jeffrey Brooks, Thank You, Comrade Stalin: Soviet Public Culture from Revolution to Cold War (2000)
- Richard Stites, ed. Culture and Entertainment in Wartime Russia (1995)
- Susan E. Reid, “Cold War in the Kitchen: Gender and the De-Stalinization of Consumer Taste in the Soviet Union under Khrushchev,” Slavic Review, Vol. 61, No. 2 (Summer 2002), 211-252 JSTOR
- Stephen Lovell, Russia in the Microphone Age: A History of Soviet Radio, 1917-1970 (2015)
- P. Blake & M. Hayward, eds., Half-way to the Moon: New Writing from Russia (1965)
- Christine Evans, “Song of the Year and Soviet Mass Culture in the ‘70s,” Kritika, Vol 12, no. 3 (Summer 2011)
- Yitzhak Brudny, Reinventing Russia: Russian Nationalism and the Soviet State, 1953-1991 (1998)
- Lisa A. Kirschenbaum, The Legacy of the Siege of Leningrad: Myth, Memories and Monuments (2006)
AFFILIATES |
Affiliates | Course Code | Assessment | ECTS |
Full Year Affiliates | Register for SEHI2009 | As Above | 15 |
Affiliates here for Term 1 only | Register for SEHI2009A | Two essays (2,000-2,500 words each) (100%) | 7.5 |
Affiliates here for Terms 2 and 3 only | Register for SEHI2009B | Two essays (2,000-2,500 words each) (100%) | 7.5 |
Please note: This outline is accurate at the time of publication. Minor amendments may be made prior to the start of the academic year.