The “Late Soviet Temporalities” Reading Group critically explores conceptions of time that were developed during the late Soviet period. Since its launch in February 2023, it has grown into a vibrant group of people based across five different time zones, who gather every three weeks on Zoom. We have discussed texts by Alexandre Kojève, Anzhelika Arthyukh, Evald Ilyenkov, Yuri Mamleev and Boris Groys, among others. We listened to music by Valentin Silvestrov and watched films by Vladimir Kobrin, Chantal Akerman and a collective known as the Necrorealists.
Based on our discussions of the above sources, we discerned a number of factors that shaped the new regimes of time during late socialism — which we call “late Soviet temporalities”: the postmodern condition, eschatology, dialectical materialism, Russian mysticism, New Age spirituality, occultism, Orthodox Christianity, non-Western religions and particularly Buddhism, neo-conservatism, and continental philosophy.
The reading group’s working language is English. The sessions are interactive and we encourage participants to curate and chair sessions. The reading group is open to everyone who is interested in time and Soviet temporalities. Just drop us a line!
After each session we co-write a recap which summarises the main points that came up during our discussion. You can subscribe to our Substack to receive these recaps, as well as our research blog posts and newsletter.