220173 Consumerism, everyday life and materiality in the late Soviet time (S) (WiSe 2024/2025)

The seminar focuses on discussing transformations in everyday life and consumerism during the late Soviet period as part of the “material turn” in contemporary humanities and social sciences. Over the past 8-10 years, numerous new studies have been published on the anthropological aspects of consumer culture in the late USSR: from elite stores (like “Beryozka”) and the black market to the widespread practices of customization of goods by Soviet citizens. The seminar will primarily problematize the Soviet past as an experience—complex, changing over time, closely related to the transforming Soviet political system, but not reducible to it. This perspective allows for new insights not only into the history of everyday life and cultural and economic practices but also into social history (including issues related to elites in late Soviet society), gender history, and regionalism in the USSR.

During the seminar, we will focus on analyzing film and television culture, as well as visual sources (photos, caricatures, music videos, and advertisements), with particular interest in materiality and its official and unofficial social and economic value in the late Soviet era. Methods of analysis and contemporary approaches to interpretation will also be discussed. The seminar will be conducted in English and Russian.