Moscow Conceptualism: New Translations from the Russian

Geballe Room, Townsend Center, 220 Stephens Hall, November 22, 1.30-6.30 p.m.

Cosponsored by the Townsend Center for the Humanities, the Institute for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies, the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, and the John F. Hotchkis Chair in English, U.C. Berkeley, and the Department of Theater and Performance Studies, and the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, Stanford University

A spate of new translations is bringing the writers and artists of Moscow Conceptualism to an English-language readership for the first time. Even as they drew on currents in western art, the Moscow Conceptualists (1970s-1980s) weredistinguished by a singular focus on the Soviet experience, from the legacies of the avant-garde to the official culture of the Era of Stagnation. Serving as an ironic commentary on the entire arc of Soviet history, Moscow Conceptualism continues to exert a powerful influence on performance art in Putin’s Russia.

Our mini-symposium invites local scholars as well as American translators of the Moscow Conceptualists to read and discuss their work.

1.30 p.m.:   Welcome: Prof. Harsha Ram, Slavic Languages and Literatures

1.45-3.00:   The Poets and their Verse
Moderated by Matvei Yankelevich, editor of the Eastern European Poets Series at Ugly Duckling
Presse
Ainsley Morse and Bela Shayevich read Vsevolod Nekrasov
Yelena Kalinsky and Brian Droitcour read Andrei Monastyrski
Simon Schuchat reads Dmitrii Prigov
Matvei Yankelevich reads Lev Rubinstein

3.00-3.15:   Coffee break

3.15:             Monastyrski and Prigov
Moderated by Prof. Edward Tyerman, Slavic Languages and Literatures
Christina Schwartz, Slavic Languages and Literatures
Remontnye Raboty: Anamnesis in the life- writings of Andrei Monastyrski”

3.40:             Prof. Olga Matich, Slavic Languages and Literatures
“Conceptualist Total Art Prigov”

4.15-4.30:    Coffee break

4.30-5.30:    Roundtable Discussion
Moderated by Prof. Alexei Yurchak, Anthropology

5.30:              Prof. Lyn Hejinian, English
“The Eros of Russian-American Poetic Exchange”