Work Flows: Stalinist Liquids in Russian Labor Culture

20 Cooper Sq 20 Cooper Square, New York, NY, United States

  Dive into the fascinating world of “Work Flows” during our upcoming book discussion, exploring the evolution of “flow” as a crucial metaphor in Russian labor culture since 1870. This thought-provoking book contends that the fascination with fluid channeling is deeply rooted in vertical power structures, whether embodied by the state in Stalin’s Soviet Union and present-day Russia or by corporate monopolies in the contemporary Anglo-American West. Originating in pre-revolutionary bio-utopianism, the Russian discourse on liquids and flow reached its zenith during Stalin’s First Five-Year Plan and resurfaced in post-Soviet “managed democracy” and Western neoliberalism. By unraveling the understudied theme…

Theater of Capital: Modern Drama and Economic Life

20 Cooper Sq 20 Cooper Square, New York, NY, United States

Join scholars Rebecca Kastleman, Bruce Robbins, and Alisa Zhulina for a book talk and discussion of Theater of Capital: Modern Drama and Economic Life, Zhulina’s new book that traces how modern drama enacts vital critiques of art and life under capitalism. Zhulina shows how fin-de-siècle playwrights such as Henrik Ibsen, August Strindberg, Anton Chekhov, George Bernard Shaw, and Gerhart Hauptmann interrogate the meaning of “capitalism” and use their works to explore the theories of Adam Smith, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Max Weber, and others within the boundaries of bourgeois theater.