Download or read book The Slynx written by Tatyana Tolstaya and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2016-10-25 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A postmodern literary masterpiece.” –The Times Literary Supplement Two hundred years after civilization ended in an event known as the Blast, Benedikt isn’t one to complain. He’s got a job—transcribing old books and presenting them as the words of the great new leader, Fyodor Kuzmich, Glorybe—and though he doesn’t enjoy the privileged status of a Murza, at least he’s not a serf or a half-human four-legged Degenerator harnessed to a troika. He has a house, too, with enough mice to cook up a tasty meal, and he’s happily free of mutations: no extra fingers, no gills, no cockscombs sprouting from his eyelids. And he’s managed—at least so far—to steer clear of the ever-vigilant Saniturions, who track down anyone who manifests the slightest sign of Freethinking, and the legendary screeching Slynx that waits in the wilderness beyond. Tatyana Tolstaya’s The Slynx reimagines dystopian fantasy as a wild, horripilating amusement park ride. Poised between Nabokov’s Pale Fire and Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange, The Slynx is a brilliantly inventive and shimmeringly ambiguous work of art: an account of a degraded world that is full of echoes of the sublime literature of Russia’s past; a grinning portrait of human inhumanity; a tribute to art in both its sovereignty and its helplessness; a vision of the past as the future in which the future is now.
Download or read book Other Animals written by Jane T. Costlow and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2010-08-15 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The lives of animals in Russia are intrinsically linked to cultural, political and psychological transformations of the imperial, Soviet, and post-Soviet eras. Other Animals examines the interaction of animals and humans in Russian literature, art, and life from the eighteenth century until the present. The chapters explore the unique nature of the Russian experience in a range of human-animal relationships through tales of cruelty, interspecies communion and compassion, and efforts to either overcome or establish the human-animal divide. Four themes run through the volume: the prevalence of animals in utopian visions; the ways in which Russians have incorporated and sometimes challenged Western sensibilities and practices, such as the humane treatment of animals and the inclusion of animals in urban domestic life; the quest to identify and at times exploit the physiological basis of human and animal behavior and the ideological implications of these practices; and the breakdown of traditional human-animal hierarchies and categories during times of revolutionary upheaval, social transformation, or disintegration.From failed Soviet attempts to transplant the seminomadic Sami and their reindeer herds onto collective farms, to performance artist Oleg Kulik's scandalous portrayal of Pavlov's dogs as a parody of the Soviet "new man," to novelist Tatyana Tolstaya's post-cataclysmic future world of hybrid animal species and their disaffection from the past, Other Animals presents a completely new perspective on Russian and Soviet history. It also offers a fascinating look into the Russian psyche as seen through human interactions with animals.
Download or read book PC Mag written by and published by . This book was released on 1982-11 with total page 1296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: PCMag.com is a leading authority on technology, delivering Labs-based, independent reviews of the latest products and services. Our expert industry analysis and practical solutions help you make better buying decisions and get more from technology.
Download or read book Russia on the Edge written by Edith W. Clowes and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2011-04-15 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russians have confronted a major crisis of identity. Soviet ideology rested on a belief in historical progress, but the post-Soviet imagination has obsessed over territory. Indeed, geographical metaphors—whether axes of north vs. south or geopolitical images of center, periphery, and border—have become the signs of a different sense of self and the signposts of a new debate about Russian identity. In Russia on the Edge Edith W. Clowes argues that refurbished geographical metaphors and imagined geographies provide a useful perspective for examining post-Soviet debates about what it means to be Russian today. Clowes lays out several sides of the debate. She takes as a backdrop the strong criticism of Soviet Moscow and its self-image as uncontested global hub by major contemporary writers, among them Tatyana Tolstaya and Viktor Pelevin. The most vocal, visible, and colorful rightist ideologue, Aleksandr Dugin, the founder of neo-Eurasianism, has articulated positions contested by such writers and thinkers as Mikhail Ryklin, Liudmila Ulitskaia, and Anna Politkovskaia, whose works call for a new civility in a genuinely pluralistic Russia. Dugin’s extreme views and their many responses—in fiction, film, philosophy, and documentary journalism—form the body of this book. In Russia on the Edge literary and cultural critics will find the keys to a vital post-Soviet writing culture. For intellectual historians, cultural geographers, and political scientists the book is a guide to the variety of post-Soviet efforts to envision new forms of social life, even as a reconstructed authoritarianism has taken hold. The book introduces nonspecialist readers to some of the most creative and provocative of present-day Russia’s writers and public intellectuals.
Download or read book The Big Book of Science Fiction written by Jeff VanderMeer and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2016-07-12 with total page 1218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Quite possibly the GREATEST science-fiction collection of ALL TIME—past, present, and FUTURE! • "Nearly 1,200 pages of stories by the genre’s luminaries, like H. G. Wells, Arthur C. Clarke and Ursula K. Le Guin, as well as lesser-known authors." —The New York Times Book Review What if life was never-ending? What if you could change your body to adapt to an alien ecology? What if the Pope was a robot? Spanning galaxies and millennia, this must-have anthology showcases classic contributions from H.G. Wells, Arthur C. Clarke, Octavia Butler, and Kurt Vonnegut alongside a century of the eccentrics, rebels, and visionaries who have inspired generations of readers. Within its pages, find beloved worlds of space opera, hard SF, cyberpunk, the new wave, and more. Learn the secret history of science fiction, from literary icons who wrote SF to authors from over 25 countries, some never before translated into English. In THE BIG BOOK OF SCIENCE FICTION, literary power couple Ann and Jeff VanderMeer transport readers from Mars to Mechanopolis, planet Earth to parts unknown. Read the genre that predicted electric cars, travel to the moon, and the modern smart phone. We’ve got the worlds if you’ve got the time. Including: · Legendary tales from Isaac Asimov and Ursula LeGuin! · An unearthed sci-fi story from W.E.B. DuBois! · The first publication of the work of cybernetic visionary David R. Bunch in 20 years! · A rare and brilliant novella by Chinese international sensation Liu Cixin! Plus: · Aliens! · Space battles! · Robots! · Technology gone wrong! · Technology gone right!
Download or read book Russian Literature since 1991 written by Evgeny Dobrenko and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-11-12 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An international team of leading experts provide the first comprehensive account of post-Soviet Russian literature.
Download or read book Literature Redeemed written by Nicolas Dreyer and published by Böhlau Köln. This book was released on 2020-07-13 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the post-Soviet period, discussions of "postmodernism" in Russian literature have proliferated. Based on close literary analysis of representative works of fiction by three post-Soviet Russian writers – Vladimir Sorokin, Vladimir Tuchkov and Aleksandr Khurgin – this book investigates the usefulness and accuracy of the notion of "postmodernism" in the post-Soviet context. Classic Russian literature, renowned for its pursuit of aesthetic, moral and social values, and the modernism that succeeded it have often been seen as antipodes to postmodernist principles. The author wishes to dispute this polarity and proposes "post-Soviet neo-modernism" as an alternative concept. "Neo-modernism" embodies the notion that post-Soviet writers have redeemed the tendency of earlier literature to seek the meaning of human existence in a transcendent realm, as well as in the treasures of Russia's cultural past.
Download or read book Post Soviet Literature and the Search for a Russian Identity written by Boris Noordenbos and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-06-09 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines a wide range of contemporary Russian writers whose work, after the demise of Communism, became more authoritative in debates on Russia’s character, destiny, and place in the world. Unique in his in-depth analysis of both playful postmodernist authors and fanatical nationalist writers, Noordenbos pays attention to not only the acute social and political implications of contemporary Russian literature but also literary form by documenting the decline of postmodern styles, analyzing shifting metaphors for a “Russian identity crisis,” and tracing the emergence of new forms of authorial ethos. To achieve this end, the book builds on theories of postcoloniality, trauma, and conspiracy thinking, and makes these research fields productively available for post-Soviet studies.
Download or read book Language on Display written by Ingunn Lunde and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2017-11-22 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the effects of colonialism and independence on modern Arab autobiography written in Arabic, English and French.
Download or read book The Philosophy of Computer Games written by John Richard Sageng and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-07-10 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Computer games have become a major cultural and economic force, and a subject of extensive academic interest. Up until now, however, computer games have received relatively little attention from philosophy. Seeking to remedy this, the present collection of newly written papers by philosophers and media researchers addresses a range of philosophical questions related to three issues of crucial importance for understanding the phenomenon of computer games: the nature of gameplay and player experience, the moral evaluability of player and avatar actions, and the reality status of the gaming environment. By doing so, the book aims to establish the philosophy of computer games as an important strand of computer games research, and as a separate field of philosophical inquiry. The book is required reading for anyone with an academic or professional interest in computer games, and will also be of value to readers curious about the philosophical issues raised by contemporary digital culture.
Download or read book The Nonexistent written by Anthony Everett and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-08-29 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anthony Everett gives a philosophical defence of the common-sense view that there are no such things as fictional people, places, and things. He argues that our talk and thought about such fictional objects takes place within the scope of a pretense, and that we gain little but lose much by accepting fictional realism.
Download or read book Energy Culture written by Jillian Porter and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-04-06 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume investigates energy as a shaping force in Russian and Soviet literature, visual culture, and social practice. Chronologically arranged chapters explain how nineteenth-century ideas about energy informed realist novels and paintings; how the poetics of energy defined pre-Revolutionary and Stalinist utopianism; and how fossil fuels, electricity, and nuclear fission generated distinct aesthetic features in Imperial Russian, Soviet, and post-Soviet literature, cinema, and landscape. The volume’s concentration on Russia responds to a clear need to understand the role the country plays in social, political, and economic processes endangering life on Earth today. The cultural dimension of Russia’s efforts at energy dominance deserves increased scholarly attention not only in its own right, but also because it directly affects global energy policy. As the contributors to this volume argue, the nationally inflected cultural myths that underlie human engagements with energy have been highly consequential in the Anthropocene.
Download or read book Science Fiction and the Dismal Science written by Gary Westfahl and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2019-11-30 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite the growing importance of economics in our lives, literary scholars have long been reluctant to consider economic issues as they examine key texts. This volume seeks to fill one of these conspicuous gaps in the critical literature by focusing on various connections between science fiction and economics, with some attention to related fields such as politics and government. Its seventeen contributors include five award-winning scholars, five science fiction writers, and a widely published economist. Three topics are covered: what noted science fiction writers like Robert A. Heinlein, Frank Herbert, and Kim Stanley Robinson have had to say about our economic and political future; how the competitive and ever-changing publishing marketplace has affected the growth and development of science fiction from the nineteenth century to today; and how the scholars who examine science fiction have themselves been influenced by the economics of academia. Although the essays focus primarily on American science fiction, the traditions of Russian and Chinese science fiction are also examined. A comprehensive bibliography of works related to science fiction and economics will assist other readers and critics who are interested in this subject.
Download or read book PC Magazine written by and published by . This book was released on 1982-11 with total page 838 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book New Perspectives on International Comparative Literature written by Shunqing Cao and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2022-07-25 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bringing together 17 articles by renowned scholars from around the globe, this volume offers a multi-dimensional view of comparative and world literature. Drawing on the scope of these scholars’ collective intellects and insights, it connects disparate research contexts to illuminate the multi-dimensional views of related areas as we step into the third decade of the 21st century. The book will be of particular interest to scholars working in comparative literary and cultural studies and to readers interested in the future of literary studies in a cross-culturized world.
Download or read book Pushkin s Children written by Tatyana Tolstaya and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2012-07-18 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Tolstaya’s essays in this compact, historically significant volume offer a fascinating, highly intelligent analysis of Russian society and politics” (Publishers Weekly). These twenty essays address the politics, culture, and literature of Russia with both flair and erudition. Passionate and opinionated, often funny, and using ample material from daily life to underline their ideas and observations, Tatyana Tolstaya’s piees range across a variety of subjects. They move in one unique voice from Soviet women, classical Russian cooking, and the bliss of snow to the effect of Pushkin and freedom on Russia writers; from the death of the tsar and the Great Terror to the changes brought by Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and Putin in the last decade. Throughout this engaging volume, the Russian temperament comes into high relief. Whether addressing literature or reporting on politics, Tolstaya’s writing conveys a deep knowledge of her country and countrymen. Pushkin’s Children is a book for anyone interested in the Russian soul. “Tolstaya is simply the most fearless female observer of the very male-centric culture . . . of the USSR.” —Ben Dickinson, Elle
Download or read book The Complete Review Guide to Contemporary World Fiction written by M.A. Orthofer and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2016-04-19 with total page 423 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A user-friendly reference for English-language readers who are eager to explore contemporary fiction from around the world. Profiling hundreds of titles and authors from 1945 to today, with an emphasis on fiction published in the past two decades, this guide introduces the styles, trends, and genres of the world's literatures, from Scandinavian crime thrillers and cutting-edge Chinese works to Latin American narco-fiction and award-winning French novels. The book's critical selection of titles defines the arc of a country's literary development. Entries illuminate the fiction of individual nations, cultures, and peoples, while concise biographies sketch the careers of noteworthy authors. Compiled by M. A. Orthofer, an avid book reviewer and the founder of the literary review site the Complete Review, this reference is perfect for readers who wish to expand their reading choices and knowledge of contemporary world fiction. “A bird's-eye view of titles and authors from everywhere―a book overfull with reminders of why we love to read international fiction. Keep it close by.”—Robert Con Davis-Udiano, executive director, World Literature Today “M. A. Orthofer has done more to bring literature in translation to America than perhaps any other individual. [This book] will introduce more new worlds to you than any other book on the market.”—Tyler Cowen, George Mason University “A relaxed, riverine guide through the main currents of international writing, with sections for more than a hundred countries on six continents.”—Karan Mahajan, Page-Turner blog, The New Yorker
