Alexander Etkind: Russia's Internal Colonization: Where History and Literature Converge

Open to the public

Alexander Etkind, Reader in Russian Literature and Cultural History at King's College, Cambridge, will present in brief the central argument of his recent book, Internal Colonization:  Russia's Imperial Experience (Cambridge: Polity, 2011), which offers a new perspective on Russia's history as a simultaneous process of external and internal colonization of its enormous territory. Etkind's research involves a diverse body of historical and literary sources. Using Russia as a case study, he makes a powerful theoretical argument for revisiting such concepts as orientalism, modernity, colonialism and empire.  

Co-sponsored by Slavic Department, the Center for Russian, European and Eurasian Studies, and the Institute for the Humanities.