Petre Petrov
| position: |
Assistant Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures |
| location: |
231 East Pyne |
| office hours: |
On leave in 2009-2010 |
| telephone: |
809-258-1605 |
| e-mail: |
ppetrov@princeton.edu |
| education: |
PhD in Russian Literature and Culture (University of Pittsburgh, 2006); MA in Russian Literature (University of Pittsburgh, 2001); MA in Bulgarian Philology (Sofia University "Kliment Okhridski," 1997) |
| download cv: |
CV |
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profile: My major areas of interest include pre- and post-revolutionary Russian modernism(s), the world of socialist realism in its various ages and fields of cultural production, Russian and Soviet critical theory (Formalism, Marxism, Bakhtin, the Tartu School). Still, I like to think of my academic profile as defined more by thematic/conceptual pursuits than by period boundaries, genres, or media. Thus my ongoing fascination with socialist realism—especially in its original, Stalinist variant—is in large part due to the fact that this cultural phenomenon raises in a unique (and at times disturbing) fashion questions that transcend geographic, generic, and chronological confines: What is the human subject? How is the subject defined vis-à-vis the social totality? What does it mean for the subject to "create" or "represent"? Wherefrom does the creative act issue and how is it constituted? etc.
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current project: My main project continues to be my dissertation thesis ("The Fate of Representation in Early Soviet Culture"), which I am currently reworking in preparation for publication. The thesis offers a philosophical interpretation of Stalinist socialist realism in its kinship relation with the Soviet avant-garde movements of the 1920s. I am also conducting research on the Moscow show trials of the 1930s, as part of a larger project provisionally entitled "The Ontological Crime."
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courses: Courses taught:
Beginning Polish
Figures of Madness in Russian Culture
Survey of 20th Century Russian Literature
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"The Scars of History and the Balms of Melodrama in Soviet Thaw Cinema."
in Studia Filmoznawcze. Vol. 27. (forthcoming)
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Review of Aesthetics of Alienation: Reassessment of Early Soviet Cultural Theories. Evgeny Dobrenko.
in Modern Language Review Vol. 2 (2007): 612-13.
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"Mikhail Bakhtin."
in Encyclopedia of Contemporary Russian Culture. London: Routledge, 2006.
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"Socialist Realism."
in Encyclopedia of Contemporary Russian Culture. London: Routledge, 2006.
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"The Freeze of Historicity in Thaw Cinema."
in Kinokul'tura. April, 2005.
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"Prostranstvo 'Amnazii'".
in Kurak: Kul’tura i iskusstvo Vol. 6 (2004): 59-60.
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"The Birth of Theatre from the Spirit of the Game: The Structure of Play in Gogol's Gamblers."
in Essays in Poetics Vol. 29 (Autumn 2004): 134-44.
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"The Truth of the Body: from War and Peace to Anna Karenina."
in Studies in Slavic Cultures. Vol 2 (2001): 30-62.
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Russian Film Symposium
For the past several years I have taken part in the organization of this one-of-a-kind event, which annually brings to Pittsburgh some of the most prominent students of Russian cinema, as well as some of its most distinguished artists.
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web-development Stalinka
I have collaborated with Helena Goscilo and Susan Corbesero on the development of this internet archive of materials related to I.V. Stalin. The archive currently contains over 400 visuals, including photographs, paintings, posters, etc.
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