Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Perestroika and the end of the Soviet Union transformed every aspect of life in Russia, and as hope began to give way to pessimism, popular culture came to reflect the anxiety and despair felt by more and more Russians. Free from censorship for the first time in Russia's history, the popular culture industry (publishing, film, and television) began to disseminate works that featured increasingly explicit images and descriptions of sex and violence.In Overkill, Eliot Borenstein explores this lurid and often-disturbing cultural landscape in close, imaginative readings of such works as You're Just a Slut, My Dear! (Ty prosto shliukha, dorogaia!), a novel about sexual slavery and illegal organ harvesting; the Nympho trilogy of books featuring a Chechen-fighting sex addict; and the Mad Dog and Antikiller series of books and films recounting, respectively, the exploits of the Russian Rambo and an assassin killing in the cause of justice. Borenstein argues that the popular cultural products consumed in the post-perestroika era were more than just diversions; they allowed Russians to indulge their despair over economic woes and everyday threats. At the same time, they built a notion of nationalism or heroism that could be maintained even under the most miserable of social conditions, when consumers felt most powerless.For Borenstein, the myriad depictions of deviance in pornographic and also crime fiction, with their patently excessive and appalling details of social and moral decay, represented the popular culture industry's response to the otherwise unimaginable scale of Russia's national collapse. "The full sense of collapse," he writes, "required a panoptic view that only the media and culture industry were eager to provide, amalgamating national collapse into one master narrative that would then be readily available to most individuals as a framework for understanding their own suffering and their own fears."

Post-communism --- Popular literature --- Violence in mass media. --- Sex in mass media. --- Violence in popular culture --- Sex in popular culture --- Popular culture --- Postcommunism --- World politics --- Communism --- Literature, Popular --- Books and reading --- Mass media --- Pornography in mass media --- Sexuality in popular culture --- Social aspects --- History and criticism. --- Culture --- History and criticism

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

"With the rise of new creators who emphasized their own individual voices while also focusing on their characters' inner lives, Marvel Comics in the 1970s laid the groundwork for the next decade's breakthroughs, expanding our sense of what the comics medium can do and what the superhero genre makes possible"--

Comic books, strips, etc. --- Publishers and publishing. --- History and criticism. --- History --- Marvel Comics Group --- Marvel Comics Group. --- Publishing. --- 1900-1999 --- COMICS & GRAPHIC NOVELS / Superheroes. --- Comic books, strips, etc --- LITERARY CRITICISM / Comics & Graphic Novels. --- SOCIAL SCIENCE / Popular Culture. --- 1900-1999.

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

"After their scandalous performance of an anti-Putin protest song in Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior and the imprisonment of two of its members, the punk feminist art collective known as Pussy Riot became an international phenomenon. But, what, exactly, is Pussy Riot, and what are they trying to achieve? The award-winning author Eliot Borenstein explores the movement's explosive history and takes you beyond the hype"--

Community organization --- Russia --- Protest movements --- History --- Pussy Riot (Musical group)

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

"The Russian internet is a hotbed for memes and viral videos: the political, satirical and simply absurd compete for attention in Russia while the West turns to it for an endless reserve of humorous content. But how did this powerful cyber community grow out of the repressive media environment of the Soviet Union? What does this viral content reveal about the country, its politics and its culture? And why are the memes and videos of today's Russia so popular, spreading so rapidly across the globe? Award-winning author Eliot Borenstein explores the explosive online movement and unpicks, for the first time, the role of mimetic content and digital activism in modern Russian history up to the present day"

Memes --- Digital media --- Internet and activism --- Political aspects

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

As Borenstein shows in his readings of a range of popular culture texts, the imaginary identities Russians have been trying on since the Soviet collapse reflect an aggressive, often outward-facing self-hatred that allows some Russians to come to terms with their country's standing in the world, the social and economic misery, and the dominance of oligarchism and Putinsim

NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS, RUSSIAN --- POST-COMMUNISM--RUSSIA (FEDERATION) --- RUSSIA (FEDERATION)--SOCIAL CONDITIONS --- Since 1991