Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Optical Play: Glass, Vision, and Spectacle in Russian Culture

Optical Play: Glass, Vision, and Spectacle in Russian Culture

Chadaga, Julia Bekman
Morson, Gary Saul

Paperback

Series: Studies in Russian Literature and Theory

Literary CriticismRussian HistoryRussian & Former Soviet Union Art

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 0810134357
ISBN13: 9780810134355
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
Published: Oct 31 2014
Pages: 336
Weight: 1.00
Height: 0.91 Width: 6.01 Depth: 8.91
Language: English

Longlist finalist, 2015 Historia Nova Prize for Best Book on Russian Intellectual and Cultural History

Julia Bekman Chadaga's ambitious study posits that glass--in its uses as a material and as captured in culture--is a key to understanding the evolution of Russian identity from the eighteenth century onward. From the contemporary perspective, it is easy to overlook how glass has profoundly transformed vision. Chadaga shows the far-reaching effects of this phenomenon.

Her book examines the similarities between glass and language, the ideological uses of glass, and the material's associations with modernity, while illuminating the work of Lomonosov, Dostoevsky, Zamyatin, and Eisenstein, among others. In particular, Chadaga explores the prominent role of glass in the discourse around Russia's contentious relationship with the West--by turns admiring and antagonistic--as the nation crafted a vision for its own future. Chadaga returns throughout to the spectacular aspect of glass and shows how both the tendentious capacity and the playfulness of this material have shaped Russian culture.

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