Intelligentsia Self-Fashioning in the Postwar Soviet Union: Revol´t Pimenov’s Political Struggle, 1949–57

Tromly, Benjamin

doi:10.1353/kri.2012.0005

Cited by 10 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 26 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Roberts (2005) suggests the existence of a form of cross-fertilization between religious idioms and LTTE secularism, in which ‘enchantment’ is nestled amid rational discourses. At a more general level, such cross-fertilization draws on the more general ability to appropriate and reinterpret dominant cultural idioms to envision a ‘new man’ (Sorensen 2007: 27–33, Tromly 2012, Salton-Cox 2013), whether it is nested in Marxist Christianism (Dussel 2003), Marxist Protestantism (Crossley 2018), Black Marxism (Robinson 1983), or Feminist Marxism (Barrett 2014).…”

Section: Self-fashioning Declassification and The Indian Left: A Theoretical Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

The Politics of Our Selves: Left self-fashioning and the production of representative claims in everyday Indian campus politics

Martelli¹

2020

Mod. Asian Stud.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Through engaging with everyday practices among student activists in contemporary Indian campus politics, this ethnographic study examines the breadcrumb trail between the left and self-fashioning. It focuses on a performative modality of political representation in Indian democracy by tracing the formation of biographical reconfigurations that implement subject-oriented techniques. The article charts their relevance in producing political legitimacy. It engages with the way in which personal reconfigurations are mobilized to recruit and appeal to both subaltern and privileged communities, thus generating universalistic representative claims and political efficacy. The study discusses self-presentations among leading left activists who are members of five contending Marxist student organizations that are active in Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University campus. It shows that reconfigurations are a hallmark of practices of social ‘downlift’ which echo the notion of declassifying, a concept developed by philosopher Jacques Rancière. While embracing secularism and the legacy of political martyrs, the analysis illustrates how self-fashioning attempts to erase signs and habits attached to economic and social privileges through subverting and engaging creatively with sacrificial and ascetic tropes. Conversely, such practices find themselves critically questioned by activists at the bottom of the social ladder who aspire to social upliftment, including members of lower castes and impoverished Muslim communities. I find that the biographical effects of left activism are both long-lasting and renegotiable, shaping campus lives and subsequent professional careers. While such reconfigurations are not inspired by world renouncers of the Hindu mendicant tradition, these practices of the self might exemplify the historical cross-fertilization between long-standing cultural idioms and the Indian Marxist praxis.

show abstract

Section: Self-fashioning Declassification and The Indian Left: A Theoretical Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

The Politics of Our Selves: Left self-fashioning and the production of representative claims in everyday Indian campus politics

Martelli¹

2020

Mod. Asian Stud.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

The Private World of Soviet Scientists from Stalin to Gorbachev

Rogacheva

2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Rogacheva sheds new light on the complex transition of Soviet society from Stalinism into the post-Stalin era. Using the case study of Chernogolovka, one of dozens of scientific towns built in the USSR under Khrushchev, she explains what motivated scientists to participate in the Soviet project during the Cold War. Rogacheva traces the history of this scientific community from its creation in 1956 through the Brezhnev period to paint a nuanced portrait of the living conditions, political outlook, and mentality of the local scientific intelligentsia. Utilizing new archival materials and an extensive oral history project, this book argues that Soviet scientists were not merely bought off by the Soviet state, but that they bought into the idealism and social optimism of the post-Stalin regime. Many shared the regime's belief in the progressive development of Soviet society on a scientific basis, and embraced their increased autonomy, material privileges and elite status.

show abstract

Chernogolovka Scientists between Loyalty and Dissent: The Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia and the Liubarskii Affair

Rogacheva¹

2017

The Private World of Soviet Scientists From Stalin to Gorbachev

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Intelligentsia Self-Fashioning in the Postwar Soviet Union: Revol´t Pimenov’s Political Struggle, 1949–57

Cited by 10 publications

References 26 publications

The Politics of Our Selves: Left self-fashioning and the production of representative claims in everyday Indian campus politics

The Politics of Our Selves: Left self-fashioning and the production of representative claims in everyday Indian campus politics

The Private World of Soviet Scientists from Stalin to Gorbachev

Chernogolovka Scientists between Loyalty and Dissent: The Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia and the Liubarskii Affair

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About