Dr. Jasmina Savic, Assistant Professor of Russian Studies, presented "Parapushkinistika: Remythologizing Aleksander Pushkin through Taboo" at the 14th MCL and Cultural Studies Faculty and Graduate Student Forum on Wednesday, April 22, from 1:00 to 2:30 PM in Horizon Hall 5225.
Her talk examined how the Russian writer and poet Alexander Pushkin became the subject of public debate through the taboo project Parapushkinistika, conceived by the controversial author Mikhail Armalinsky. Drawing on the Soviet and Russian trickster tradition, Armalinsky mobilizes what he terms a "bloodless revolution" to reimagine Pushkin as an obscene cultural construct, using cynicism, playfulness, and sexual transgression to confront Soviet and post-Soviet audiences with persistent cultural taboos.