Author Description

The chapters in this volume consider gender and sexuality as phenomena informing the post-Petrine modern phase of Russian civilization, offering a balance of interpretative, analytical and theoretical writings. While each is a separate study of history, art, folklore, philosophy or literature, the contributions are methodologically united and arranged into groups according to the sequence of arguments they develop, gender and power, gender and national identity, sexual identity and artistic expression, literary discourses of male and female sexualities, and sexuality and literature in contemporary Russian society. Even though pre-Petrine Russia, the Soviet and the post-Soviet periods are considered specifically in several of the essays, the book chiefly highlights the 19th and early 20th centuries.