{"product_id":"soft-matter-the-poetics-of-weakness-in-late-soviet-socialism-paperback-softback-9780810148154","title":"Soft Matter; The Poetics of Weakness in Late Soviet Socialism (Paperback \/ softback) 9780810148154","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eSoft Matter\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003cfont size=\"5\"\u003eThe Poetics of Weakness in Late Soviet Socialism\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eJulia Vaingurt (Author)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9780810148154, Northwestern University Press\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003ePaperback \/ softback, published 15 January 2025\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e320 pages, 15 b\u0026amp;w halftones\u003cbr\u003e22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.454 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e“\u003ci\u003eSoft Matter\u003c\/i\u003e 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 \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Julia Vaingurt’s \u003ci\u003eSoft Matter \u003c\/i\u003ebrilliantly 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\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eIdentifies and examines a poetics of weakness in Soviet underground literature\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e Artists of the late Soviet era sought new, nonconformist ways of approaching literary fiction, arriving at weakness\u003ci\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eas 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. \u003ci\u003eSoft Matter: The Poetics of Weakness in Late Soviet Socialism \u003c\/i\u003eexplores 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eIllustrations\u003cbr\u003e Introduction\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 1. A Typology of Weakness: Lacking Heroes in Literature and Film\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 2. Iulii Kim’\u003cbr\u003es \u003ci\u003eCinderella in the Concentration Camp\u003c\/i\u003e: Performing Kurt Vonnegut’\u003cbr\u003es Gender Subversion in the USSR\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 3. “\u003cbr\u003eWhat a Hero of Weakness!”\u003cbr\u003e: The Radical Orthodoxy of Evgenii Kharitonov\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 4. “\u003cbr\u003eUniversal Chicken-heartedness”\u003cbr\u003e: Low Spirits and Immoderate Meditations in Venedikt Erofeev’\u003cbr\u003es \u003ci\u003eMoskva-Petushki\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 5. Enjoy Your Symptom!: Sasha Sokolov’\u003cbr\u003es \u003ci\u003eA School for Fools\u003c\/i\u003e as an Artist’\u003cbr\u003es Guide to Psychosis\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 6. The Weakling, the Genius, the Bomb, and the Globe: Writing as Weakness in Andrei Bitov\u003cbr\u003e In Conclusion: A Manifesto\u003cbr\u003e Works Cited\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n","brand":"Northwestern University Press","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52555667898648,"sku":"9780810148154","price":22.97,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/soft-matter-the-poetics-of-weakness-in-late-soviet-socialism-paperback-softback-9780810148154","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}