Dr. Mathijs Pelkmans

MSc Anthropology and Development, MSc China in Comparative Perspective and MSc Social Anthropology. The course is also available as an outside option and to General Course students where regulations permit and with the permission of the teacher responsible for the course.

This course discusses recent anthropological literature on the former Soviet Union, focusing on issues such as religion, nationalism, and everyday economics. It will use an ethnographic lens to look at some of the most salient processes occurring in the former Soviet world. We will start by looking at what “really existing socialism” meant for people’s everyday existence during the Soviet period, and how Soviet politics influenced popular ideas of culture and identity. Next, we will examine the varying ways in which inhabitants of the region reconfigured political, economic, and ideological landscapes following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Drawing from ethnographies of Siberia, central Russia, Ukraine, Central Asia, and the Caucasus, the course will provide an overview of debates on religious renewal, nationalism, conflict, economic life, and lifestyle. The course argues that this relatively new field of anthropological research offers fresh and inspiring perspectives on long-standing anthropological debates.

10 hours of lectures and 10 hours of seminars in the MT.

Anthropology students taking this course will have an opportunity to submit a tutorial essay for this course to their personal tutors. For non-Anthropology students taking this course, a formative essay may be submitted to the course teacher.

Derluguian, Giorgi. 2005. Bourdieu’s Secret Admirer in the Caucasus: A world-system biography. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Grant, Bruce. 1995. In the Soviet House of Culture: A century of Perestroika’s. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Humphrey, Caroline. 2002. The Unmaking of Soviet Life: Everyday Economies after Socialism.
Humphrey, Caroline. 1998. Marx Went Away, but Karl Stayed Behind. Updated version of Karl Marx Collective: Economy, Society, and Religion in a Siberian Collective Farm. The University of Michigan Press.
Nazpary, Joma. 2001. Post-Soviet Chaos: Violence and dispossession in Kazakhstan. Pluto Press.
Pelkmans, Mathijs. 2006. Defending the Border: Identity, Religion, and Modernity in the Republic of Georgia. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Ries, Nancy. 1997. Russian Talk: Culture and Conversation during Perestroika. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Tishkov, Valery. 2004. Chechnya: Life in a War-torn society. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Vitebsky, Piers. 2005. The reindeer People: Living with animals and spirits in Siberia. HarperCollins.
Wanner, Catherine. 2007. Communities of the converted: Ukrainians and global evangelism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

One two-hour examination in the ST (100%)