Category Archives: Conferences

RSACS XLVI International Conference Theme

The theme of the XLVI International conference of the Russian Society for American Culture Studies at Journalism Department of Lomonosov Moscow State University will be “White, Silver and Black Mirrors: ‘Screening’ of American History and Dreams”, 

Cinematic and TV representation of any aspects of American culture will become for the first time the focus of analysis at our multidisciplinary conference.

The dates of the conference will be December 2-5, 2020.

Planned sections:

  • – Journalism,
  • – American Culture of the 17-19th Centuries,
  • – Contemporary Literature and Culture, with a Round Table Discussion on American Drama
  • – Ethnic Aspects,
  • – Gender Studies,
  • – Fantastic in the Arts, with Round Table  dedicated to Ray Bradbury’s Centennial
  • – Canadian perspectives, 

A traditional Round Table discussion: Imprints – Image of America and Image of Russia will also be held.

Additional panel discussions suggestions are accepted until March 15, 2020 at larmih@gmail.com Registration link will be made available at March 30.  

XLV RSACS Conference “Immigration and American Culture” SCHEDULE December 4-7, 2019

Day Section room
December 4, Wednesday
10.00-13.00 16.00-17.30
  18.00-20.00		Registration
 
Opening Plenary Session		 217
233
20.00-21.00 Tea and Pirozhki 217
December 5, Thursday
12.30 – 14.30   Section 5. Gender Aspects of American Culture             217
14.30 – 15.00 Lunch break  
15.00 – 18.00 Section 1. Journalism 217
17.30-19.00 Round Table discussion “Herman Melville Bicentennial” 103
December 6, Friday    
10.30 – 13.00 Section 3. Contemporary American Literature and Culture 217
13.00 –14.00 Lunch break
14.00 – 16.00  
16.30 – 19.00 		Section 4. Ethnic Aspects of American Culture 320
16.00 – 16.30 Кофе-брейк 217
14.00 – 16.00
  16.30 – 19.00 		Section 8. Geography of the US and Spatial Aspects of
American Culture   		103
December 7, Saturday    
10.00 – 11.30 Section 6.  Fantastic in the Arts   217
11.30 –12.00 Lunch break
12.00 – 13.30 Section 7. Canadian Dimension of American Culture 217
13.30 – 14.00 Coffe-break 217
14.00 – 18.30 Round Table discussion «Imprints: Image of Russia and
Image of America» 		103
18.30 – 19.30 Closing Plenary Session 103
20.30 – 21.30 Farewell dinner кафе

Program of the XLVth RSACS International Conference

December 4, Wednesday, 6 pm  Room 233

Plenary Opening Session

  1. Professor Yassen Zassoursky

RSACS President, President of Journalism Department,

Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia

Welcome speech

2. Professor.Andrew Wiget

Albuquerque University, USA

Moby-Dick: Melville on Demons, Demagogues and Democracy

3. Professor Pavel Balditsyn

Journalism Department,

Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia

The Way and the Fate of Chinese Immigrants in the USA in Images of the Chinese-American Literature

The object of the address is to comprehend the secret of Chinese immigrants’ success in the USA. Immigration is often tragic, Chinese immigration at the beginning was a double tragedy. It meant to lose their native names and relatives, their own ancient language and culture. They were humiliated and despised in America, depicted as aliens and “The Yellow Peril” and forbidden the country for long sixty years. But in some decades after the abolition of the infamous Exclusion act Asian immigrants were called “The Model Minority”.

What is the explanation of such an achievement? Chinese immigrants in the USA kept true to their traditional rules and values: “golden mean”, “to live in harmony with others”, “harmony but not sameness”, “to seek common ground while reserving differences”. One more slogan was: “The weak shall conquer”. They need to submit in circumstances of assimilation. At the same time Chinese migrants desired to become real Americans and to take principles of personal freedom and equality of all people, self-reliance and individualism, justice and democracy. Their strategy was to gain two homelands – China and America and to get twofold pride and patriotism. It was not a simple task. There were many losses and deaths, but love prevailed. Love to both countries and cultures. This way put a total overturn of traditional gender and generation roles of China, a hyphenated discourse and poetics of Chinese-American literature which use paradoxes and oxymorons, like that: “We are Americans now, we live in the tundra / Of the logical, a sea of cities, a wood of cars”.

Round Table Discussion “Bicentennial of Herman Melville”

Coordinators Dr. Louisa Bashmakova (Krasnodar, Russia) and  Dr. Andrew Wiget (Albuquerque, USA)

1.Andrew Wiget

Albuquerque University, USA

Moby-Dick: Melville on Demons, Demagogues and Democracy

Most readers who manage to finish reading Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick conclude perhaps that  the essence of the story is the obsessive hunt by a mad captain Ahab who seeks revenge on a particular white whale who had bit off his leg.  In my experience, modern readers are either puzzled, annoyed, frustrated or defeated by the book. They want to get on with the chase, for which they have been made to wait 35 chapters until “The Quarterdeck” scene, when the manic plan is revealed, after which the climactic confrontation is postponed by another 98 chapters, which scatter among the narrative many chapters of exposition describing the business and technical aspects of whaling, whose only purpose seems to be to add length and not substance to the book.  Such a reading reflects at best an unprepared reader, at worst a juvenile one. It is my purpose to argue precisely for the value of Moby-Dick as a literary masterpiece that, while addressing the concerns of  Melville’s age, also speaks directly to the most urgent questions of our time:  not only the present war on nature, that takes many forms from climate change to the extinction of species, but more importantly to the dangerous political relations that make such a war possible. 

Two broad historical trends must frame any reading of Moby-Dick.  First, between 1820 and 1850 the new United States of America expanded westward  across the continent to its western shores, and thence to the furthest reaches of the Pacific Ocean and the Arctic.  During the same period, the population multiplied three times in 30 years, much of it through a massive increase in immigration.  The second was the growth of industrial capitalism, which by the end of the century would make the United States the most industrialized nation on earth.  These two trends sustained the rise of American imperialism, which was driven by violence against Nature, the successful destruction which validated America’s Manifest Destiny, in what Richard Slotkin so aptly called, “regeneration through violence.”

The anxieties and contradictions of antebellum America, which would eventually erupt in Civil War, were very close to Melville, who had the early sympathies of a Jacksonian Democrat.  He brought these anxieties and contradictions aboard the ship called Pequod, aptly named after the bloodiest seventeenth-century Puritan massacre of Indians. Any reading of the novel which overlooks these matters and prefers to “cut to the chase”, is both sterile and  juvenile.  For Melville, the voyage of the Pequod  in Moby-Dick is the sailing forth of the United States, burdened by the nightmares of its past, enchanted by its vision of the future, and struggling all the while to understand what kind of leader is required to make democracy just and humane on the one hand and profitable on the other.

2. Alla Nikulina

Akmulla Bashkir State Pedagogical University, Ufa, Russia

Herman Melville as a Pioneer of the U.S. Philosophical Novel

 Although the American mind was never inclined to abstract theorizing, the philosophical novel as a genre appeared in the U.S. national literature at an early stage of its development. H. Melville’s ‘Moby-Dick’ can be classified as a philosophical novel due to its deep consideration of the reality based on metaphysical theories, which are investigated and promoted by the author at all levels of the artistic whole. Western and Russian literary critics made several attempts to single out the dominant concept, connecting it to the philosophy of Spinoza, Emerson, Schelling, Schopenhauer, and even Wittgenstein, whose discoveries, according to K. Evans, Melville anticipated by a century. Anyway, we cannot fail to see Melville’s desire to rely upon well-established philosophical concepts in his investigation of the essence of the world, but we notice, first, that the writer centers his attention on the human rather than the universal, i.e. on practical and ethical consequences of accepting a certain abstract worldview. Besides, realizing the limits of ready-made concepts, Melville strives to reshape them in order to create his own original system. Characteristically, the later development of the genre in the American literature will be dominated by a similar approach, with the emphasis on pragmatic values, synthesis of various philosophic traditions and individual intellectual search.

3. Kirill Ignatov

Department of Foreign Languages and Area Studies,

Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia

Herman Melville in a University Course of US literature: From Screen to Novel

Herman Melville is one of the most popular 19th-century authors among university students in the course of US literature, since the exciting plot of his novels does not limit the text to adventure escapism, which imposes ‘age restrictions’ on, for example, some works of J.F. Cooper or Mark Twain. On the contrary, Melville’s novels due to their multi-layered nature offer opportunities for a variety of readings and a plethora of interpretations. This is reflected in the history of adaptations of the main works of Melville: Moby Dick, Bartleby, Billy Bud, Benito Cereno and others. The popularity of Melville’s works among filmmakers can be used in teaching US literature to encourage students to work independently with the text of the novel. The talk presents approaches based on the principle of indirect goal-setting, which can be used in the US Literature course to stimulate close reading of the novel, independent extracurricular work of students, and collective creativity. The novel ‘Moby Dick’ and its various adaptations are used to illustrate the approaches: from Millard Webb’s silent tape Sea Beast (1926) through the classic British version of John Huston Moby Dick (1956) to Trey Stokes’s modernized version in the form of action movie Moby Dick (2010).

4. Louiza Bashmakova

Kuban State University, Krasnodar, Russia

An April the 1st Showboat on Mississippi: on H. Melville’s Genre Singularity in Confidence-Man

The object of this discourse is Melville’s deep rootedness in genres and forms of American folk and popular culture. The writer’s art of high comedy attracts special attention, with an accent on analysis of Melville’s technique of burlesque, travesty, and grotesque. Principles of comparative literature studies are suggested as the base for analogies with the poetic ideas of Melville’s great predecessors – Cervantes, Shakespeare, Molière, Goethe.

5. Vladislav Alekseenko

Altai State Pedagogical University, Linguistic Institute, Barnaul, Russia

The Conceptual System of the World in Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick, or The Whale

Nowadays conceptual study of images in the literary text is important to reveal the author’s idea. In Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick, or The Whale it is manifested in the selection of concepts reflected in the writer’s work, in his individual works and in the selection of expressive and visual means. In linguistics, the Conceptual System of the world (CS) is understood as a reflected reality through the prism of concepts formed on the basis of human perceptions of the real world. A unit of the CS is a concept – the content of the concept in the distraction from the language form of its expression, which function is to fix and actualize the conceptual, emotional, associative, verbal, culturological and other content of the objects of reality, included in the CS structure. The mechanism of CS construction and the role of language in these processes were discovered by Rolandas Pavilionis, analyzing the conceptual system of the world from a logical and philosophical point of view. The conceptual system is characterized by the following properties: order of introduction of concepts; continuity of conceptual system construction; continuity of conceptual system. The language means of CS creation are: nominal language means; grammar means of language; figurative means; discursive means; phonosemantics of language. CS with components included in it can be explicated in various ways: as logical and verified tables and diagrams; frames and concepts. The analysis of Herman Melville’s work allows us to speak about the special importance of such basic concepts as «challenge» and «revenge» for the writer. The method of semantic expansion allows us to identify the semantic field of the “challenge” concept, including such units as «struggle», «test», «dare», «dispute», «face», «confrontation», «summon», «try», while the “revenge” concept includes lexical representations of the concepts of «vengeance», «retribution», «vindictiveness», «avenge». Moby Dick is understood as something that can be very desirable, or a goal that must be achieved: the author makes it clear that the captain Ahab intends to pursue the whale across all seas around the world. Other key concepts of the novel are «human obsession» and «destiny», based on the idea of revenge and persecution of inevitable death. Besides, the entire novel is filled with biblical imagery: the artistic form of the work and the biblical names of the characters emphasize the philosophical concepts. Interpretable as forms of public consciousness, they form the CS of the entire work.

6. Anna Doolina

Philological Department

Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia

«What my own astonished eyes saw…»: The Unreliable Narrator in H. Melville’s Short Stories

H. Melville’s short stories bring to the fore the problem of an unreliable narrator. The narrators in the short stories are often sick. The style and rhetoric of the narrative in the short stories depend directly on the narrator’s temper, and the narrative strategy of each of the stories is determined by their “clinical records”. It forms the second level of the story – about the development of the narrator’s obsessive state. Before meeting face-to-face with the striking phenomenon, the narrators find themselves already endowed with unusual sensitivity due to their physical deterioration (the narrator of The Piazza travels to the mountains after a serious disease, the narrator of the story Cock-a-Doodle-Doo! is also sick). Then, in contact with the object described, the narrators are so strongly influenced that they are no longer able to think clearly, they are “blinded”, become obsessed with what they once saw or heard, their narrative is invaded by long intrusive series of enumerations and repetitions. For example, the formula “I prefer not to” becomes contagious in Bartleby; in Poor Man’s Pudding and Rich Man’s Crumbs the narrator is exposed to the phrases of the poor. Thus, the repetitive phrases of the narrators, undergoing a semantic transformation, form the composition of Melville’s short stories and are in most cases associated with the images and theme of the disease, making the narrators of the short stories unreliable.

Round Table Discussion “Imprints: Image of America and Image of Russia”

Coordinator Professor Yassen Zassoursky (Journalism Department, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia)

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Registration to the XLV RSACS International conference is open

We are glad to announce “Immigration and American Culture”  as the theme of the XLV International conference of the Russian Society for American Culture Studies at Journalism Department of Lomonosov Moscow State University, in the hope that it will allow looking in more detail at the changing cultural landscape of the USA due to historical waves of immigration on the one hand, and at the complex influence of the present-day immigration policies on American culture, on the other.

The dates of the conference will be December 4-7, 2019.

Planned sections:

  • – Journalism,
  • – American Culture of the 17-19th Centuries, with a Round Table Discussion on Bicentenary of Herman Melville

Round Table: Herman Melville’s Bicentenary (01.08.1819 – 28.09.1891)

Coordinators: Louisa P. Bashmakova, Prof. Emerita, KubSU, Krasnodar, Russia (888lpb@gmail.com), Prof. Andrew Wiget, Lomonosov MSU, and Prof. Emeritus, New Mexico State University, USA (andrew.wiget@gmail.com).

Melville’s contribution to the cultural and literary heritage of America and the world constitutes an immeasurable legacy.  Themes for papers and conversations may vary from biographical issues to historical and theoretical arguments, literary interpretations, or the critical reception or artistic transformation of the writer’s works in the USA and abroad. Presentations of teaching Melville to students are especially welcome.   

  • – Contemporary Literature and Culture, with a Round Table Discussion on American Drama
  • – Ethnic Aspects,
  • – Gender Studies,
  • – Fantastic in the Arts,
  • – Canadian perspectives, 
  • – Geography of the US and Spatial Aspects of American Culture  

Coordinator: Ruslan Dokhov, MSU,  Geography Department

Topics for discussion:

  • US cities: spatial structure and dynamics.
  • Geography of migrations in the US: internal and external flows. Geography of stayers.
  • Ethnic and confessional geography of the US.
  • Political geography of the US: electoral mosaics and regional patterns.
  • Economic geography, the geography of transportation and energy.
  • US regions, regional identity, locality at the age of globalism.


 A traditional Round Table discussion: Imprints – Image of America and Image of Russia will also be held.

Registration form

Annual Conference of the Gesellschaft für Fantastikforschung: Das Romantisch-Fantastische – The Romantic Fantastic

September 18th–23rd, 2019 at the Free University of Berlin, Cinepoetics – Center for Advanced Film Studies and Department of Film Studies

Romanticism again and again! In autumn 1979, Michael Ende’s novel The Neverending Story was published in the Federal Republic of Germany. Even to Ende’s contemporaries, Bastian’s journey to Fantastica and back seemed to be the beginning of a revitalization of romantic longings and ideas within popular culture. Almost at the same time, US-American cinema discovers the genre of fantasy film. The motif of Campbell’s hero’s journey, a world that needs healing and the interconnectedness of all things becomes a constitutive trait of these films’ poetics. On the one hand, the corresponding novels and films emerged in answer to the uncertainty of a bipolar world – fear of the atomic bomb and nuclear fallout as ultima ratio of the Cold War – and the nascent awareness of environmental vulnerability. On the other hand, they, like their famous predecessors, have been accused of a penchant for escapism and ill-conceived inwardness.

A similar area of tension can be observed in the fantasic today. Once again, the potential of recent speculative fiction as well as its critique seem to be indicating a core collection of romantic notions. Like at the end of the 18th century, romanticism and the fantastic provide a corrective to the frigid, mercantile rationality of a world that no longer knows any secrets. In light of contemporary political, economic and ecological distortions, speculative fiction is looking for ways of rethinking the world – and man’s place in it. And once again, the fantastic is accused of turning its back on hard facts and necessities to take refuge in sentimentalized other-worlds.

Based on these findings, the conference will pursue two goals: First, it intends to take a critical look into the relationship of romantic ideas, poetics, and images to possible genealogies of the fantastic. What is to be gained by locating fantastic works in a romantic tradition? Does this dialogue facilitate a deeper understanding of the continued effect of romanticism or poetics of the fantastic? Second, the resilience of speculative fiction’s inherent capability for critique is to be scrutinized in reference to its romantic origins. Can the relation between fantastic worlds and everyday reality be conceptualized in a way that forgoes the dichotomy of critical realism and ahistorical escapism? Would it be possible to illustrate, using its stories, images, and audiovisual presentations, the untenability of accusations which label the fantastic as being politically reactionary and aesthetically conservative – or do the subversive moments in its poetics remain marginal?

All contributions are welcome which examine the complex relationship between romanticism and specific implementations/ of the fantastic, its types and genres, protagonists, and media, on a theoretical, historical, and analytical level.
Possible Topics:

  • • Universal poetry and worldmaking (atmosphere, synesthesia, science and art as modes of knowing and experiencing)
  • • Media of the supernatural: romantic concepts of media and their influence on the mediality of the fantastic
  • • Romantic conceptions of history and the faculty of historic imagination as driving forces of the fantastic (recourse to the Middle Ages)
  • • Fairy tales, myths, and legends as genres and modalities of fantastic narratives
  • • Traditions of gothic fiction in modern fantasy
  • • Updating gothic topoi in contemporary horror cinema (for instance ghosts, living dolls and possessed clerics in the Conjuring-franchise, or witches and religious mania in folk horror)
  • • The beautiful and the sublime, the gruesome and the grotesque as models for poetics of affect in horror and fantasy
  • • Romantic imagery and its influence on visual forms of the fantastic (art, comic, film, series, computer game etc.)
  • • Forms, practices and theories of the fantastic in the era of romanticism (ghost and witch lore, demonology, phantasmagoria etc.)
  • • Soundscapes which establish a quasi-natural stance beyond the human (as in Dark Ambient or Drone Metal)
  • • Poetics of fantasy as modes of magical thinking
  • • Romantic poetics and the becoming-fantastic of the ordinary
  • • Forms of romantic love in fantasy
  • • Fantasy as a form of political romanticism

As usual at GFF conferences, there will be an open track for all lectures which are not directly related to the topic of the conference. Hence, we are open to further proposals.

The GFF offers two scholarships of 250 euros each to students to help cover their travel expenses to the conference. Please indicate if you would like to be considered when submitting your abstract.

Deadline for abstracts and short biographies (max. 2000 characters): January 1st-February 28th, 2019. 
Submission of constituted panels (3-4 speakers) is encouraged.
Submission form and further information available at: www.gff2019.cinepoetics.fu-berlin.de.

For additional inquiries, mail to: gff2019@fu-berlin.de.

Conference Board: Jun.-Prof. Dr. Jan-Hendrik Bakels, Regina Brückner, Jun.-Prof. Dr. Matthias Grotkopp, Dr. Tobias Haupts, Dr. Daniel Illger, Cilli Pogodda, Prof. Dr. Michael Wedel

Program of the XLIV International RSACS Conference “America and Europe: Forms of Cultural Interaction” December 5-8, 2018

December 5, Wednesday, 6 pm  Room 103

Plenary Opening Session 

  1. Professor Yassen Zassoursky

RSACS President, President of the Journalism Department,

Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia

American Language: A Project of the 18th Century by Jonathan Edwards 

 

Section 1: Journalism

Coordinator Professor Yassen Zassoursky

 (Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia)

December 6, Thursday, 10 am – 12 am  room 217

 

1.Nikolai Zykov

Journalism Department,

Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia

American-European Cultural Links in the Programs of the Voice of America

 

The topic of cultural relations has been and remains one of the main subject in the programs of the oldest international radio station in the United States, rising throughout the history of the work of the broadcaster. It is about the deep interrelation of cultures of the former colony and the countries of Europe, contacts of cultural figures and ordinary citizens. Such contacts contribute to the establishment of mutual understanding in the international arena. These programs have long been remembered by listeners.

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Abstracts of RSACS XLIII International Conference

American Humor and Satire: Functions and Forms
December 7-9, 2017

December 7, Thursday, 12.00 Lecture Hall 201
Plenary Opening Session

1. Professor Yassen Zassoursky
RSACS President, President of Journalism Department,
Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia

Greetings to the Conference participants

2. Professor Irwin Weil
Northwestern University
Evanston IL, USA
From Mark Twain to Jokes over the Hot Stove – a stroll through American Humor

Mark Twain had a profound notion about the irregularities, disparities, and laughable nature of American Life, Religion, and Pretensions.

American anecdotes, many of them in the Twain tradition, know how to send up our national and personal pretensions: from politics to religion, from medicine to psychiatry, from legal life to the after-life in both heaven and hell.

3. Professor Pavel Balditsyn
Journalism Department
Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia
Traditions of American Humor from Mark Twain to Woody Allen and Jon Stewart:  Continuity and Changes

Initially there were two extreme trends in the American humor from the times of Benjamin Franklin: the first is pursuit of established and true facts and drive for serious social and moral thought and criticism; the second is exuberant fantasy and wild grotesque imagery in tall tales of the frontier and romantic extravaganzas of Washington Irving and Edgar Poe. Mark Twain was the perfect master of both extremes and combined them in his works: he did it in a short letter on St. Patrick; he wrote at the same time phantasy of a young Satan making miracles and political pamphlets versus tyranny, chauvinism, and imperialism. Therefore, he was generally recognized as the maker of the American comic tradition.
The American culture developed as open and responsive to many world traditions, and its character was plural and complementary from the beginning of the 19th century. Mark Twain followed not only Shakespeare and Franklin but also Cervantes and Voltaire, he knew his direct precursors – tall tales and works of literary clowns of the South-West. In the age of multiculturalism the American humor absorbed new elements especially of Afro-American and Jewish laughter notably in cinema, and stand-up comedy in the halls and on TV.
Staginess and visual appeal were important features of the American humor from the times of Mark Twain: comic speech was mainly vernacular and used extralinguistic means – facial expression, gestures, tone, intonation, and persona at last. This drift increased in the last century when humor expanded into new visual arts – cinema and TV , performed in media culture with its collective authorship and industrial creation. Artemus Ward and Mark Twain did their work single-handed, Woody Allen and Jon Stewart work in groups of coworkers. For example, Jon Stewart made his satirical news program The Daily Show with more than 30 co-authors. It is impossible to host a comic show 4 days a week and 42 weeks in a year otherwise.
Polyphony and dialogism are the main patterns of fiction and humor of Mark Twain and contemporary American comic writers and showmen. They try to debate and travesty the traditional and authoritative discourse. Limits of tolerance changed greatly from the times of Mark Twain, but the burden of humor remains as ever: laughter breaks social rules and moral standards. Its backbone is to say the truth and reject all lies in contemporary society under any circumstances.

Section 1: Journalism (coordinator Dr. Yuliya Balashova, Saint-Petersburg State University, Russia)

1. Yuliya Balashova
Saint-Petersburg State University, Russia
Historical Dynamics of the American Almanacs Development in Global Context

Especially important for intercultural communications are those media which are not compromised by propaganda or ideological battles. The almanac as a type of publication is this kind of media. Historically, almanacs were widespread in the USA, as in many countries in Europe and Asia. A comparison of the historical path of the almanac’s development in the United States with other countries gives reason to make a conclusion about the particular pragmatism of the American culture in the whole. This feature manifestation is the almanacs satirical variety development in the United States.

2. S.V. Kanashina
MGIMO, Moscow, Russia
Internet Meme as a Modern Comic Genre in the USA

The development of information technologies and the emergence of the Internet have led to the evolution of traditional comic genres in the USA. A unique cultural phenomenon – internet meme – appeared within American internet communication 15 years ago (see picture 1). Broadly speaking the internet meme is an internet communication phenomenon consisting of verbal (textual) and non-verbal (visual) components and having a special square design. It is typical of internet memes to be humorous, topical, expressive, and the humor is often original and goes beyond the bounds of all the conventions. To convey humor the authors of internet memes use different means, for example, pun, allusion, grotesque, absurd. Different real facts of American life, famous people, events of social importance are laughed at in internet memes. Thus the internet meme can be regarded as a modern comic genre in the USA which keeps the tradition of independent and authentic American humor.

3. Irina Arkhangelskaya
Higher School of Economics -Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
Political Discourse of the US Late Night Comedy Shows of the 2000-2010s

The US Late Night Comedy Shows give politicians opportunities to present their programs, strengthen the existing image, or ruin a negative stereotype. TV humor-shows make it possible to reach the audiences that are not much aware of politics, young people being among them.
The role of Comedy Central‘s projects: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (2000 – 2015) and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah (2015 – present), in forming the political agenda are being analyzed in the report.
The style, themes, approaches to picking up guests and interviewing them of The Daily Shows’ are compared with those in The Late Show with David Letterman (2000 – 2015) and The Tonight Show with David Leno (2000 – 2014).

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Abstracts of RSACS XLII International Conference “Creative Communication: American Culture as Communication System” December 7-10, 2016

 

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December 7, Wednesday

5 pm                           Opening Plenary session                                                       room 232

Keynote speaker:

Svetlana Sigida, Doctor of Art

Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory

Cooperative Creativity in the Art of Opera in the late 20-early 21-st Centures: the Minimalists Composers Ph.  Glass and J. Adams with Theater Directors R. Wilson and P.Sellars (exemplified in “Einstein on the Beach”,”Nixon in China” and “Doctor Atomic”)

 

6.30 pm – 8 pm          Tea and pirozhki                                                                   room 217

 

Section 1. Journalism

Coordinator Prof. Irina Arkhangelskaya (Nizhny Novgorod, aib@sandy.ru)

8 December 8, Thursday 6.30 pm – 8.00 pm  room 103

  1. Irina Arkhangelskaya,

Higher School of Economics -Nizhny Novgorod, Russia

Online Version of USA Today as a Communication platform with Electorate during the US 2016 Presidential Campaign

The dynamics of developing main themes and communication character of candidates with voters in the online version of USA Today (September – November 2016) during the US 2016 presidential campaign are considered in the report.

The analysis of politicians’ agendas (economic issues, taxes, migration problems, international relations) is based on 100 materials (news, analytical reviews, commentaries, interviews, sociological polls). Special attention is paid to the contexts in which names of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are mentioned.

One of the most popular US papers USA Today is «mainstream» mass medium. It forms opinions of average Americans and plays an important role in communications between political elites and electorate.

During the presidential campaign, the resource journalists did all their best to stay neutral. The elections results have been unexpected for the newspaper’s editorial board, as seen in commentaries and analytics.

  1. Nikolai Zykov

MSU Journalism Department, Lomonosov State University, Russia

American Culture in Multimedia Format in the Voice of America Coverage

 American culture has always been and remains one of the most important ones for a leading American international broadcaster. One of its main tasks is to promote American culture in the world. This is the same in the present transition from radio to Internet broadcasting. In recent years the emphasis is on video, as it allows, for example, to quickly cover news, Hollywood news, cultural events and more. Traditions were established in the Russian edition of radio era and continue today.

  1. Tatiana Biryukova

Journalism Department, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia

Origin of Hypertext Journalism: a case study of the FEED magazine)

 The 1990s was a time not only of dot.com boom, it was also a time of hypertext theory boom.  Branching nonlinear text with hyperlinks, which initially has been described by Ted Nelson, seemed to be more appropriate for the computer era then a linear text.  It is no wonder that hypertext theory had an impact on journalistic theory:  in the 1990s there were plenty of theoretical articles, which acclaimed a range of advantages of hypertext over print journalism.  The turning point for the development of hypertext journalism was the creation in New York in 1995 of one of the first online magazine – FEED.  The authors of FEED put into practice many Internet-specific features, which were described by hypertext theorists. Experiments with the interface, hyperlinks and forms of narrative have been here in the foreground.  But the results of these five-year experiments with nonlinear texts now allow to look very differently on the hypertext itself as well as on its possibilities for journalism.

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Program of the RSACS XLI International Сonference “Imagining and Building Peace in American Culture” December 4-11, 2015

постер (Мелкий)

December 4. Opening session 5 pm, room 233

 

Keynote speaker

Andrew Wiget.             ‘Make Love Not War'”: Imagining and Building Peace in American Culture

 

Professor Emeritus, New Mexico State University, Albuquerque, USA

Adjunct Professor, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia

 

 

Section 1. Journalism

Coordinator: Professor Irina Arkhangelskaya (Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod, Russia aib@sandy.ru)

 

  1. Bouchev Alexander

Tver State University, Russia

American Mass Media on Interreligious Communication across the Globe

 The report illustrates the global media discourse on religious issues after event in Paris in the early 2015. Of interest is the approach of critical discourse analysis which is connected with interpretation of stereotyped and axiological elements in the discourse under scrutiny. The author discusses the problem of interreligious communication in the multicultural society. The analyzed example considers characteristics of global mass media political discourse describing Egyptian politics in 2013. Special attention is paid to the need of elaborating cognitive techniques of comprehension of global mass media discourse, and the peculiarities of political discourse shedding light upon nominations and assessments are being analyzed. The author shows stereotyped expressions, axiological connotations of terms and as generic features of political discourse. The paradigm approaches to discourse interpretation in politics are also studied. Of interest are the conclusions about the rhetoric and linguistics characteristics of analyzed discourse. The report suggests changes in the sphere of cultural education.

 2. Nikolai Zykov

Journalism Department

Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia

Adaptation of immigrants into American society in the covering of the Voice of America

 One of the main tasks of the international broadcaster Voice of America is to inform the foreign audience about the social processes in the United States. Interethnic conflicts recently caused serious tensions in society. They were covered openly and frankly. But in in other areas, such as the adaption of immigrants, including the Russian-speaking, things were peaceful. There has been interesting trend.

3. Zagvozdkina Ekaterina

Journalism Department

Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia

The Times They Are A’Changing:

Collision of values in American society on the representation of

The Beat Generation in the US mainstream media of the 1950s – 1960s

 In the 1960s the American society underwent serious changes and became more liberal in its morals and values. The aim is to examine those changes through the representation of the Beat Generation subculture in the media: what Time and Life magazines wrote on the beats, including the most famous of them: poet Allen Ginsberg, writers Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs, at the end of the 50s, when the movement became famous (after the release of Kerouac’s On the Road in 1957 and the birth of the term «beatnik». We have chosen Time and Life as our empirical basis as in that period they had the largest and widest audience in the USA. That is why, we suppose, these magazines expressed the opinion of the average American reader – therefore through the changes in Time and Life we can trace not only changes in journalists’ opinions, but in America itself throughout the decade. Texts are analyzed both directly through the epithets and comparisons, and via context, stories concerning them and attitude towards their works.

  4. Ksenia Omelchenko

Saint-Petersburg State University, Russia

American Propaganda During the War in Iraq

 During military conflicts media becomes a traditional way to implement the foreign policy of any state. This announcement leads to the term «propaganda», and includes spread of views, news, arguments, facts, and ‘fakes’ to form public opinion or idea.

We reviewed the techniques of American propaganda during the war in Iraq in the early years of the war.

During the first week of the war, American networks and British BBC or Canadian CBS showed two different wars. The United States news ignored the Arab victims, anti-war and anti-American protests, the discontent of citizens and the negative aspects of the war, while these topics were covered in Canada and the UK, and in the Arab countries the conflict was broadcast as the invasion in Iraq and the coup attempt.

In 2003, the brutality of the Iraqi people against the Pentagon was shown in the documentary drama “Saving Private Lynch” on NBS with the main character – Jessica Lynch – was tortured as one of the first prisoners of the war.

Direct propaganda has been broadcast on the television station «Al-Hurra», «Radio Sawa» in the magazine «Hai», which were created in 2004 by producer of «Voice of America» in opposition to «Al Jazeera».

The role of mass media in boosting as well as solving the conflict is under consideration.

5. Tarasevich Sophia

Publishing House «Kommersant», Moscow, Russia

Conciliatory Rhetoric: Hide-and-seek or Search for a Compromise?

 Nowadays attention of American and Russian politicians is attracted to three main world conflicts: Syria, Ukraine and Iran. Talking about the military operation against ISIS in Syria, the process of arrangement in Ukraine and searching for a compromise on Iranian nuclear program, they often use conciliatory rhetoric and encourage solving contradictions peacefully. We are interested in analysis of not just contemporary American and Russian politicians’ rhetoric, but also in the forms of communication with public they use. Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs started to use actively the form of briefing, previously commonly used by the US State Department. Politicians, ambassadors, and diplomats in Moscow and Washington also do not forget about a powerful tool for promulgating their rhetoric in public – social networks, .Twitter being one of them. Conciliatory mood often recedes when politicians give a speech in front of the inner audience as candidates during election debates. The presentation is based on empirical data collected during April-October 2015: news messages from news agencies Reuters, AP, AFP, TASS, RIA Novosti, Interfax and other media. It also includes the results of social media monitoring (Facebook and Twitter) and official data of Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the US State Department.

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Invitation to RSACS Conference -2015 “Imagining and Building Peace in American Culture”

Dear Colleagues,
The XLIst International conference of the Russian Society of American Culture Studies will be held December 4-11, 2015 at Lomonosov Moscow State University Journalism Department. It’s theme – “Imagining and Building Peace in American Culture”.

Sections: Journalism, American Culture of the 17-19th Centuries, Contemporary Literature and Culture, Drama, Ethnic Contribution, Gender, Fantastic in the Arts, Canadian perspectives. Besides a traditional Round Table discussion: Imprints – Image of America and Image of Russia will be held and two more – Arthur Miller’s Centennial (coordinator Dr. Maya Koreneva) and Herman Melville’s Literary Legacy (coordinator Dr. Luisa Bashmakova 888lpb@gmail.com).

Suggestions for additional sections and panel discussions are welcome with 300 words description and at least two other panelists’ names suggested until September 1st, 2015.

Official languages of the conference are English and Russian. All participants will understand papers given in English and will provide an English resume of their talk if given in Russian.

The deadline for abstracts – September 10, 2015 (half a page). Please send them to all to larmih@gmail.com
On the basis of delivered and discussed papers, an annual bilingual collection is published.
Conference fee $ 100 US, payable upon arrival, includes also an excursion to Kremlin and a farewell party.
Information about visa support: As it is a lengthy process – please send the needed materials [copy of two first pages of passport and info on place of birth (city and country), affiliation and position, office address, phone and fax numbers, place of visa application, dates of arrival and departure] to the address larmih@gmail.com no later than September 10, 2015.

See you at our conference!

Larisa Mikhaylova
RSACS Secretary