(For Thursday Sept. 27)
Below I have suggested three themes or questions, which I want you all to think about until Thursday. (The themes might also be used as points of departure for course papers.)
Choose one of the three themes to focus in depth on, and prepare a short (5-10 minute) presentation of it (work in groups, if you like).
On Thursday, we'll pick out 2-4 persons (or groups) to give the presentations they have prepared.
And then, we'll discuss whatever comes out of it.
Theme 1:
White summer night in Leningrad, 1966.
Click here for other images: Image 1, Image 2, Image 3, Image 4
You will also find relevant St. Petersburg / Leningrad related links on the course's link page.
What do you think it is like to live in this city, under the rule of a political and economic system of the kind we have been describing during this course?
Theme 2:
"In my view, Soviet totalitarianism is an extreme manifestation - a strange, cruel, and dangerous species - of a deep-seated problem that also finds expression in advanced Western society. These systems have in common something the Czech philosopher Václav B*lohradský calls the "eschatology of the impersonal," that is, a trend toward impersonal power and rule by megamachines or colossi that escape human control. Self-propelling megamachines, juggernauts of impersonal power such as large-scale enterprises and faceless governments, represent the greatest threat to our present-day world. In the final analysis, totalitarianism is no more than an extreme epresseion of this threat.The way I see it, enormous companies like Shell or IBM are not very different from so-called socialist enterprises. Of course, these companies are more efficient and profitable. But they closely resemble big socialist firms in that both are colossal machines from which the human dimension is increasingly lacking.
What are the causes of this situation?
It has something to do with the fact that we live in the first atheist civilization in human history. People have ceased to respect any socalled higher metaphysical values. I am not talking about a personal god, necessarily. I'm referring to whatever is absolute, transcendental, suprahuman. These fundamental considerations once represented a support, a horizon for people, but now they have been lost. The paradox is that in losing them we are losing our grip on civilization, which is running out of control. As soon as humanity declared itself to be the supreme ruler of the universe - at that moment the world began to lose its human dimension."
From an interview with Václav Havel, in the January 23 issue of the London Times Literary Supplement. The interview was conducted by Erica Blair. (Harper's, June 1987:27)
How can Havel's ideas be translated into anthropology? How would the resulting anthropological understanding of the post-Soviet world differ from the understanding promoted by Verdery, Humphrey, Wedel et al.?
Theme 3:
Using links provided on the homepage (see the link page), pick one of the "Small Peoples" of the Soviet North (malye narody severa) or one of the Caucasian people, and tell us about their way of life, their culture, their habitus or whatever you want to call it.Tip: A good place to start is with The Red Book of the Peoples of the Soviet Empire.
