Beschreibung

Monthly multimedia exploration of popular literature and film with d.a.i. teacher Scott Stelle. As the shocking Russian invasion of Ukraine unfolds, I’d like to turn our attention to America’s geopolitical imagination of Russia, the other imperial power in the global system, from Lenin to Putin. By approaching Russia chronologically and through popular books and films, we shall explore the cultural and political crosscurrents of the three different periods, from an American position.

The first book Ten Days That Shook the World (1919) presented a firsthand account of the 1917 Russian October Revolution, which received a wide range of critical reviews and was originally dramatized by the Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein in 1928. However, we’ll be viewing Warren Beatty’s film Reds (1981) that depicts the life and career of John Reed, the American journalist who chronicled the October Revolution. The other works are thrillers.

Genres that are written to entertain the reader are not only sociologically representative of the popular imagination, but they also shape it aesthetically and cognitively, offering the reader a map of the world with a heightened sense of place and atmosphere. Thrillers are one of the few genres, popular or literary, that are capable of telling an international plot to a mass audience.

Fr. 1.7. Jason Matthews, Red Sparrow (2013, film 2018)

In English

Location: d.a.i. hall
Admission: free, current COVID regulations apply.

Deutsch-Amerikanisches Institut Tübingen (d.a.i.)

Karlstrasse 3
72072 Tübingen

Lageplan