Russian Style

Julie A. Cassiday is the Willcox B. and Harriet M. Adsit Professor of Russian at Williams College. She is the author of The Enemy on Trial: Early Soviet Courts on Stage and Screen and the coeditor of Russian Performances: Word, Object, Action.

“A brilliant, entertaining work of scholarship that sheds light on some of the most important phenomena in contemporary Russian politics and mass culture. Using style as her central concept, Cassiday brings together many seemingly disparate examples from mass media, pop culture, and politics in a way that is truly enlightening.” - Eliot Borenstein, New York University“Well conceived, researched, and executed, Russian Style makes an invaluable contribution to the field and to broader discussions of gender, sexuality, and the body in contemporary popular culture. Bringing to the forefront questions of citizenship and national identity, Cassiday thinks through the changes (political, ideological, sexual) that have taken place over the past two decades in Putin’s Russia. ” - Lilya Kaganovsky, UCLA“Incisive. . . . What Cassiday proposes is nothing less than a new political and cultural theory that shows how a militaristic ideology is created through a participatory internet culture, winking irony and an emphasis on entertainment and performance. . . . Russian Style is an important book.” - The Times Literary Supplement“Provocative. . . . Cassiday provides a fresh and insightful lens. . . . [A] valuable study.” - The Russian Review

• List of Illustrations Preface Introduction Chapter 1. A Genealogy of Post-Soviet Pop Performativity Chapter 2. The Soviet Legacy of Traumatized Bodies Chapter 3. Travesti and the Post-Soviet Drag Queen Chapter 4. Queer Performativity in Putin’s Russia Chapter 5. Post-Soviet Post-Feminism Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index