Sincerity After Communism: A Cultural History
Ellen Rutten
Abstract
This book presents the compelling study of “new sincerity” as a powerful cultural practice, born in perestroika-era Russia, and how it interconnects with global social and media flows. The global cultural practice of a “new sincerity” in literature, media, art, design, fashion, film, and architecture grew steadily in the wake of the Soviet collapse. This book traces the rise and proliferation of a new rhetoric of sincere social expression characterized by complex blends of unabashed honesty, playfulness, and irony. This study of a sweeping cultural trend with roots in late Soviet Russia addres ... More
This book presents the compelling study of “new sincerity” as a powerful cultural practice, born in perestroika-era Russia, and how it interconnects with global social and media flows. The global cultural practice of a “new sincerity” in literature, media, art, design, fashion, film, and architecture grew steadily in the wake of the Soviet collapse. This book traces the rise and proliferation of a new rhetoric of sincere social expression characterized by complex blends of unabashed honesty, playfulness, and irony. This study of a sweeping cultural trend with roots in late Soviet Russia addresses postsocialist, postmodern, and postdigital questions of selfhood. It explores how and why a uniquely Russian artistic and social philosophy was shaped by “cultural memory, commodification, and mediatization” and how, under Vladimir Putin, “new sincerity” talk merges with transnational pleas to “revive sincerity”.
Keywords:
new sincerity,
perestroika,
Russia,
Soviet collapse,
social expression,
selfhood,
social philosophy,
cultural memory,
commodification,
mediatization
Bibliographic Information
Print publication date: 2017 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780300213980 |
Published to Yale Scholarship Online: May 2017 |
DOI:10.12987/yale/9780300213980.001.0001 |