Talk: “I am fragile and small”: Versions of Masculinity in Soviet Unofficial Poetics
6206C Phelps Phelps Hall, UC Santa Barbara, Santa BarbaraIn “'I am fragile and small'”: Versions of Masculinity in Soviet Unofficial Poetics," Ainsley Morse will examine the presentation of masculinity (usually that of the lyric speaker) in the work of several unofficial poets of the late Soviet period. As an institution, unofficial literature occupied a powerless position vis-a-vis officially published literature; yet, unofficial poets drew on the tradition of predecessors including Vladimir Mayakovsky and Daniil Kharms to construct a lyric presence that combined exaggerated weakness (“loserdom”) ...