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Adams Hall Directory

2017 Kemp Symposium

“Ten Days that Shook the World”: Reflections on the Russian Revolution 100 Years Later

A centennial symposium exploring the impact of two of the Russian Revolution’s most radical projects: the establishment of gender equality and the liberation of Soviet society from the “opiate” of religious belief.
Soviet

Thursday, May 4 and Friday, May 5, 2017
Bowdoin College
Brunswick, Maine

Keynote Address: 

"Gender-Bender or Macho Mania? Sexual Politics of the Russian Revolution"
Laura Engelstein, Henry S. McNeil Professor Emerita of Russian History at Yale

Gender, as it always does, played a double role in the Russian Revolution and Civil War. On the one hand, as an organizing principle that affected what people experienced and what role they played. On the other, as a symbolic system, conveying emotions, values, and ideas. In both cases, as a factor in the exercise and distribution of power. The Bolsheviks promised a New Man and a New Woman, but men and women there still were going to be. How was the distinction reconstituted, in life and in representation? Who got to be a man, if not a New Man? What happened to the women? This in both senses: how were they affected and where did they go? The talk will provide some reflections on these issues.

Thursday, May 4, 2017
7:30 pm
Maine Lounge, Moulton Union

PANELISTS:

255 Maine Street
Brunswick, Maine 04011
 (207) 725-3000