Russian Style : Performing Gender, Power, and Putinism

Julie A. Cassiday

ISBN 10: 0299346706 / ISBN 13: 9780299346706

Published by University Of Wisconsin Press Dez 2023, 2023

About this Item

Neuware - In the two decades after the turn of the millennium, Vladimir Putin s control over Russian politics and society grew at a steady pace. As the West liberalized its stance on sexuality and gender, Putin s Russia moved in the opposite direction, remolding the performance of Russian citizenship according to a neoconservative agenda characterized by increasingly exaggerated gender roles. By connecting gendered and sexualized citizenship to developments in Russian popular culture, Julie A. Cassiday argues that heteronormativity and homophobia became a kind of politicized style under Putin s leadership. However, while the multiple modes of gender performativity generated in Russian popular culture between 2000 and 2010 supported Putin s neoconservative agenda, they also helped citizens resist and protest the state s mandate of heteronormativity. Examining everything from memes to the Eurovision Song Contest and self-help literature, Cassiday untangles the discourse of gender to argue that drag, or travesti, became the performative trope par excellence in Putin s Russia. Provocatively, Cassiday further argues that the exaggerated expressions of gender demanded by Putin s regime are best understood as a form of cisgender drag. This smart and lively study provides critical, nuanced analysis of the relationship between popular culture and politics in Russia during Putin s first two decades in power.

Seller Inventory # 9780299346706

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Russian Style : Performing Gender, Power, and Putinism
• Publisher: University Of Wisconsin Press Dez 2023
• Publication Date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0299346706
• ISBN 13: 9780299346706
• Binding: Buch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 229W x 152H x 16D millimeters 229 millimeters width by 152 millimeters height by 16 millimeters depth
• Weight: 532 grams

About this title

Synopsis

As the West liberalized its stance on sexuality and gender between 2000 and 2020, Vladimir Putin’s Russia moved in the opposite direction, remolding the performance of Russian citizenship according to a neoconservative agenda characterized by increasingly exaggerated gender roles. By connecting gendered and sexualized citizenship to developments in Russian popular culture, Julie A. Cassiday argues that heteronormativity and homophobia became a kind of politicized style under Putin’s leadership. However, the multiple modes of gender performativity simultaneously helped citizens resist and protest the state’s mandate of heteronormativity. Examining everything from memes to the Eurovision Song Contest and self-help literature, Cassiday untangles the discourse of gender to argue that drag, or travesti, became the performative trope par excellence in Putin’s Russia. Provocatively, Cassiday further argues that the exaggerated expressions of gender demanded by Putin’s regime are best understood as a form of cisgender drag. This smart and lively study provides critical, nuanced analysis of the relationship between popular culture and politics in Russia during Putin’s first two decades in power. 

About the Author

Julie A. Cassiday is the Willcox B. and Harriet M. Adsit Professor of Russian at Williams College. She is the author of The Enemy on Trial: Early Soviet Courts on Stage and Screen and a coeditor of Russian Performances: Word, Object, Action.