Conference Program

This conference is free and open to the public. There is no registration fee.

Download conference program as PDF.

Wednesday, October 25 – 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Community Roundtable – “Putin and the Legacy of the 1917 Revolution”
Bob Wright Center, A104

Participants:
  • Ambassador Derek Fraser, “Why Russia Finds Democracy So Hard”
  • Dr. Don Nightingale, “Ukrainian-Russian Relations and the Struggle for Independence: 1917 and 2017”
  • Dr. Ben Isitt, Victoria City Councillor, "The Hot Origins of the Cold War: Canadian-Russian Relations in the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution"
Thursday, October 26 – 9:30 – 10:15 am

A transporter van will take conference presenters to UVic and drop them off outside McPherson Library, departing at 9 am. Please meet in the hotel lobby 5 minutes ahead of time.

Opening of conference art exhibit “1917 and Today: A Revolutionary Centenary” McPherson Library Special Collections

Featuring works from the Tate Gallery’s David King Collection and contemporary political satire by Sergei Elkin.
All panels take place in the Student Union Building Upper Lounge
Panel 1 Re-Evaluating the Revolution – 10:30 am – 12:00 pm (Chair and Discussant David Dolff, UVic, ddolff@uvic.ca)
  • Maria Silina (U Québec à Montréal, silina.maria@gmail.com), “The 1917 October Revolution Today: Memorials, Museums and Public Memory” (by Skype from Moscow)
  • Paul Robinson (Ottawa U, Paul.Robinson@uottawa.ca ), “Revolution, Emigration and Post-Communist Russia”
  • Jennifer Utrata (U Puget Sound, jutrata@gmail.com ), “The Stalled Soviet Gender Revolution: Normalized Crisis in Russia”
Lunch – 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Panel 2 Speaking Art to Power – 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm (Chair and Discussant Mark Baker, mrbaker1917@gmail.com)
  • Julie Deschepper (INALCO - Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales, julie_desch@hotmail.fr ), “Revolutionary Architecture in Putin’s Russia: Avant-Garde as a disputed heritage” (by Skype from Paris)
  • Annie Gérin (U Québec à Montréal, gerin.annie@uqam.ca ), “Artistic Satire in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia”
  • Kate Ehle (U Victoria, kehle@uvic.ca ), “Postmodern Savvy: Repackaging Totalitarian Tactics and Corporeal Dissent”
Keynote Address – 2:45 pm - 4:15 pm

Mark Lipovetsky (U Colorado-Boulder, mark.leiderman@colorado.edu ), “Russia Washed by Blood: Transformations of the revolutionary narrative in Russian literature and film since the 1960s”
A transporter van will meet conference presenters outside the Student Union Building to take them back to the hotel, departing at 4:30 pm.
Conference Dinner – 6:30 pm

Milestone’s Grill and Bar, 812 Wharf St.
Friday, October 27 – 10:30 am – 4:15 pm
Van to UVic Student Union Building, departing hotel 9:45 am. Please meet in the lobby 5 minutes ahead of time.
Panel 3 Disputed Legacies – 10:30 am – 12:00 pm (Chair and Discussant Alexia Bloch, UBC, abloch@mail.ubc.ca)
  • David Anderson (U Aberdeen, david.anderson@abdn.ac.uk ), “Ethnos theory in 1917 and Today”
  • Michael Tripp (Vancouver Island U, michael.tripp@viu.ca), “Russian National Parks: Evolution, Devolution and Continuity”
Lunch 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Panel 4 Anniversary, Commemoration, Silence – 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm (Chair and Discussant Lisa Sundstrom, UBC, lisa.sundstrom@ubc.ca)
  • Megan Swift (U Victoria, maswift@uvic.ca ), “Nostalgia and Neglect: Constructing the Post-Soviet Anniversary in Putin’s Russia”
  • Serhy Yekelchyk (U Victoria, serhy@uvic.ca ), “Violent Echoes of a Century-Old Revolution: The Collapse of the Tsarist Empire as a Symbolic Resource in the Present-Day Russo-Ukrainian Conflict”
Panel 5 Repurposing the Past – 2:45 – 4:15 pm (Chair and Discussant Katherine Bowers, UBC, Katherine.Bowers@ubc.ca)
  • Elena Baraban (U Manitoba, Elena.Baraban@umanitoba.ca ),”Fear of the Revolution in the Works of Boris Akunin and Grigorii Chkhartishvili”
  • Katherine Zubovich (Ryerson U, kzubovich@ryerson.ca ), “The Eighth Vysotka: Building on the Stalinist Past in Post-Soviet Moscow”
  • Alison Rowley (Concordia U, alison.rowley@concordia.ca ), “Lenin Kitsch/Putin Kitsch: What Difference Does a Hundred Years Make?”
Van from UVic Student Union Building to Hotel, departing 4:30 pm.
Conference Drinks, Appetizers and Dinner – 6:30 pm

Canoe Brewpub and Restaurant, 450 Swift St.
UVic Map
October 25 - 27 at the University of Victoria.

This conference is free and open to the public. There is no registration fee.