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  • HSE Campus in Perm
  • Summer School 'Culture of Totalitarian Society and Memory Studies Cases'
Summer School

Culture of Totalitarian Society and Memory Studies Cases

(6 ECTS credits, 92 contact hours, HSE Perm)

The phenomenon of totalitarianism has revealed itself throughout the past century in many ways, including but not limited to Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, Stalin’s Soviet Union and Mao’s China. The use of the term “totalitarianism” assumes some typological similarity of political regimes. We suggest that totalitarianism is a complex phenomenon, requiring not only the study of state institutions but also an analysis of public life, which cannot be reduced to state policy only. Such an approach requires studying habits and perceptions of ordinary people who have to accept, to stand against or to avoid challenges posed by the state authorities. This view from ordinary people offers an opportunity to understand the lives of Soviet, German or Italian workers, peasants, teachers, scientists and creative class.

The objective of the Summer School is to bring together the perspectives from different disciplines to study the totalitarian society and its images in late soviet and post-soviet cultures and to familiarize the participants with the phenomena of the past and complex phenomena of modern historical memory.

The summer school will address the following issues:

  • Totalitarian state "from the inside." Agents of power at the level of local and regional government institutions.
  • Totalitarian cultural space. The aesthetics of the Soviet, non-Soviet, and anti-Soviet.
  • Political socialization of Soviet citizens: the Soviet school and propaganda campaign.
  • Channels of information and political communication between the government and the population.
  • Soviet in the post-Soviet. Culture of memory of the Stalin period in modern Russia.
  • Physicality in Soviet everyday life: hunger and deprivation.
  • Modern information environment for the study of Stalinism and Soviet period.
  • Totalitarian societies in comparative perspective.

 

The school is aimed at Bachelor's and Master’s students, graduate students, researchers in history, culture, sociology, anthropology and philosophy, who are interested in the Soviet and post-Soviet periods.

The school’s programme consists of seminars, workshops and lectures. In addition to classroom activities, field seminars are to be held at Perm archives, museums and memorial sites of the Kama region, including the prominent Perm-36 museum of political repression.

The school will take place at HSE Perm, Russia.

Deadline: April 30, 2019

Participation fee: €400

The participation fee includes tuition fees, handouts, accommodation in double rooms, lunch, coffee breaks, excursions. Transfer by plane, train, etc. to the venue of the summer school is paid by participants or a sending party. All bank charges for the transfer of money for the particiaption fee shall be covered by the Customer.

The summer school is being supported by the DAAD Go East Stipend Program. Therefore applicants can also apply for the DAAD scholarship. More information on the scholarship can be found here. Each application is considered both for participation in the summer school and for the DAAD scholarship.

You can apply online here.

Frequently asked questions.