Davis Center Conference: Did Ten Days Shake the World? Centenary Perspectives on the Russian Revolution

Date: 

Fri - Sat, Oct 6 to Oct 7, 9:00am - 6:30pm

Location: 

CGIS South, 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA

Registration is not required, but is appreciated for planning purposes.

Friday, October 6
8:50–9:00 a.m.
Welcoming remarks

9:00–10:45 a.m.
Panel One: Theorizing Russia's Revolution

Chair: Oleg Kharkhordin, European University at St. Petersburg (EUSP)

Artemi Magun (EUSP)—"Revolutionary Spontaneity, from the 1900s to 2010s"

Bill Rosenberg (University of Michigan)—“On Narratives of Revolution and the Nature of Social Protest: Scarcity, Loss, and the Problem of Power in Revolutionary Russia”

Jan Plamper (Goldsmiths, University of London)—“Sounds of February, Smells of October: A Sensory History of the Russian Revolution”

10:45–11:00 a.m.
Break

11:00 a.m.–12:45 p.m.
Panel Two: Contextualizing Russia's Revolution

Chair: Charles Maier, Harvard University

Laura Engelstein (Yale University)—“Contextualizing the Revolution”

John Horne (Trinity College Dublin)—“War as Revolution, 1904–1923”

Alessandro Stanziani (EHESS-CRH, Paris)—“The Russian Revolution in Global Perspective (the Political Economy of Capitalisms and Empires), 18th–Early 20th Century”

Boris Kolonitskii (EUSP)—TBD

12:45–1:45 p.m.
Break

1:45–3:30 p.m.
Panel Three: Revolution as the End of Empire?

Chair: Serhii Plokhii, Harvard University

Mark von Hagen (Arizona State University)—“From the Russian Revolution in Ukraine to the Ukrainian Revolution in Russia: Forgotten Wars, Forgotten Peaces, Forgotten Revolutions”

Mark Bassin (Södertörn University, Sweden)—“Revolutionary Visions of the Russian East”

3:30–3:45 p.m.
Break

3:45 – 5:30 p.m.
Panel Four: Revolution as Rebirth of Nation-State?

Chair: Elizabeth Wood, MIT

Serhii Plokhii (Harvard University)—“How Russian Was the Russian Revolution?”

Serhy Yekelchyk (University of Victoria)—“The Ukrainian Revolution as an Extension of the First World War”

Alexei Miller (EUSP)—“World War, Revolution, Korenizatsia, and Their Role in Identity Politics in Great, Little, and White Russia”

Saturday, October 7
9:00 a.m.–10:45 a.m.
Panel Five: Revolution and Culture

Chair: Stephanie Sandler, Harvard University

Ilya Doronchenkov (EUSP)—“Messianism on the Service of the World Revolution. The Concept of ‘International of Arts’ 1918–21”

Kirill Tomoff (University of California – Riverside)—“Music and International Revolution during the Cold War: The Role of Music in Soviet Foreign Relations, 1948-1958”

Michael Kunichika (Amherst College)—“Mirovaia literatura, Weltliteratur, World Literature: On a Revolutionary Program”

10:45 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
Panel Six: Gendering the Revolution

Chair: Nancy Cott, Harvard University

Rochelle Ruthchild (Brandeis University)—“What's Suffrage Got to Do with It? Women and Gender in the 1917 Russian Revolutions”

Anna Temkina and Elena Zdravomyslova (EUSP)—“The Soviet Gender Contract: Born in Revolution, Stalled by Patriarchy”

Kristen Ghodsee (Bowdoin College)—“The Women's Revolution: The Zhenotdel, the Soviet Women's Committee, and the Global Impacts of the Woman Question”

12:30–1:15 p.m.
Break

1:15–3:00 p.m.
Panel Seven: The Revolution's Global Effects I: The European Context

Chair: John Horne, Trinity College Dublin

Charles Maier (Harvard University)—“Revolution Deferred, Revolution Denied: Europe 1917-24”

William Kirby (Harvard University)—“A 'Chinese Solution' for Europe in 1989?”

Michael Geyer (University of Chicago)—"A Europe of Nations and Its Enemies"

3:00–3:15 p.m.
Break

3:15–5:00 p.m.
Panel Eight: The Revolution's Global Effects II

Chair: Artemy Magun, EUSP

Beverly Gage (Yale University)—“The Problem of American Communism”

Padraic Kenney (Indiana University)—“What Does a Communist Do? Performing the Revolutionary in 20th-century Poland”

Yves Cohen (EHESS-CRH, Paris)—"Organization, Authority, and Hierarchies: A Worldwide Journey since October"

5:00–6:30 p.m.
Closing Roundtable

Chair: Terry Martin, Harvard University

Oleg Kharkhordin, EUSP

Alison Frank Johnson, Harvard University

Richard Pipes, Harvard University

Lucan Ahmad Way, University of Toronto

Register here.

Hotel room block and group rate available for reservations at the Charles Hotel in Harvard Square. If interested, book here. 

Cosponsored with the European University at St. Petersburg

For more information, please call 617-495-4037.