Postmodern crises : from Lolita to Pussy Riot Postmodern Crises collects previously published and yet unpublished Mark Lipovetsky’s articles on Russian literature and film. Written in different years they focus on cultural and aesthetic crises that taken together constitute the postmodern condition of Russian culture. The reader will find here articles about classic subversive texts (such as Nabokov’s Lolita) performances (Pussy Riot) and recent but also subversive films. Other articles discuss such authors as Vladimir Sorokin such sociocultural discourses as the discourse of scientific intelligentsia; post Soviet adaptations of Socialist Realism and contemporary trends of “complex” literature as well as literary characters turned into cultural tropes (the Strugatsky’s progressors). The book will be interesting for teachers and scholars of contemporary Russian literature and culture; it can be used both in undergraduate and graduate courses Frontmatter Contents Preface LITERATURE The War of Discourses: Lolita and the Failure of a Transcendental Project The Poetics of the ITR Discourse: In the 1960s and Today The Progressor between the Imperial and the Colonial Cycles and Continuities in Contemporary Russian Literature Flеshing Flashing the Discourse: Sorokin’s Master Trope Pussy Riot as the Trickstar The Formal Is Political FILM Post Soc: Transformations of Socialist Realism in the Popular Culture of the Late 1990s–Early 2000s War as the Family Value: My Stepbrother Frankenstein Todorovsky Valery A Road of Violence: My Joy Loznitsa Sergei In Denial: The Geographer Drank His Globe Away Veledinsky Aleksandr Lost in Translation: Short Stories by Mikhail Segal Works Cited Index