The Thaw: Soviet Society and Culture during the 1950s and 1960s University of California, Berkeley May 12-15, 2005 sponsored by The Institute of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies, UC Berkeley with funding support from Sheila Fitzpatrick/Mellon Foundation The National Endowment for the Humanities and the generous assistance of The Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Toronto The Social Sciences Division of the College of Letters and Sciences, UC Berkeley The Arts and Humanities Division of the College of Letters and Sciences, UC Berkeley The Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley The Institute of European Studies, UC Berkeley The Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, UC Berkeley The Department of History, UC Berkeley The Graduate Division, UC Berkeley Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities, UC Berkeley Any views, finding, conclusions or recommendations expressed at this conference do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment of the Humanities.
	Conference Program Note: All papers are copyrighted to the authors.  Please do not reproduce, disseminate, or cite without the explicit written permission of the author. Thursday, May 12 7:00 pm Reception (for conference presenters and discussants only) All sessions will be held in Geballe Room, Townsend Center for the Humanities (Stephens Hall 220) Friday, May 13 8:00-8:45 Coffee Opening remarks: Yuri Slezkine (University of California, Berkeley) 8:45-11:15 The Gulag After Stalin Alan Barenberg (University of Chicago) From Prisoners to Citizens? The Experience of Ex-Prisoners in Vorkuta after Stalin, 1953-1965 Steven A. Barnes (George Mason University) Mass Release from the Gulag: 1953-1960 Marc Elie (Centre d'étude du monde russe, soviétique et post-soviétique, EHESS) Khrushchev's Gulag: Camps, Colonies and Prisons in the USSR, 1953-1964 Miriam Dobson (University of Sheffield) Cultivating the Communist Future: Wise Gardener Khrushchev and the Problem of Weeds Discussant:  Lynne Viola (University of Toronto) 11:15-11:30 Coffee Break 11:30-12:15 Keynote address:  Sheila Fitzpatrick (Bernadotte E. Schmitt Distinguished Service Professor, University of Chicago) 12:15-1:15 Lunch 1:15-3:45 Far From Moscow Per Brodersen (Heinrich Heine University Duesseldorf) Coping with the Past: The Koenigsberg Context of Kaliningrad in Times of the Thaw and beyond, 1953-1970 Cynthia V. Hooper (Columbia University, Harriman Institute) Three Thousand Questions: Party Responses to the Stalinist Past Michaela Pohl (Vassar College) The Virgin Lands Opening: Khrushchev's First Reform Amir Weiner (Stanford University) The Empires Pay a Visit: When Gulag Returnees Encountered East European Rebellions on the Soviet Western Frontier Discussant:  George Breslauer (University of California, Berkeley) 3:45-4:00 Coffee Break 4:00-6:15 Legal Consciousness and Political Change Brian LaPierre (University of Chicago) The Thaw in Petty Crime Punishments and the Soviet Union's Virtual Victory Over Hooliganism Benjamin Nathans (University of Pennsylvania) A. S. Esenin-Vol'pin and the Origins of the Soviet Human Rights Movement Kelly Smith (Georgetown University) A New Generation of Article 58ers: 'Anti-Soviet' Students, 1956-1957 Discussant:  Klaus Gestwa (Tuebingen Univeristy) Saturday, May 14 8:30-9:00 Coffee 9:00-11:30 Institutions and the Production of Culture Stephen Bittner (Sonoma State University) A Cult of Personality and a "Rhapsody in Blue" Susan Costanzo (Western Washington University) Setting the Stage: Control and Consumption in Amateur Theaters in the Khrushchev Era Karl Loewenstein (University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh) Making Space for Criticism: What the Activities Inside the Writers' Union Tell Us About 'the Thaw' Kristin Roth-Ey (Queens College of the City University of New York) Finding a Soviet Home for Television Discussant:  Gregory Freidin (Stanford University) 11:30-12:30 Brunch 12:30-3:00 Literature: Retrospection and Introspection Katerina Clark (Yale University) 'Wait for Me and I Shall Return': The Culture of the Early Thaw as a Reprise of the Late Thirties? Denis Kozlov (University of Toronto) Remembering and Explaining the Terror during the Thaw Galina Rylkova (University of Florida) Braving the Thaw: Anna Akhmatova in the 1950s and the 1960s Polly Jones (University College London, SSEES) 'Waving the White Flag'?: The Problem of Heroism in Narratives of De-Stalinisation after the 22nd Party Congress Discussant:  Irina Paperno (University of California, Berkeley) 3:00-3:15 Coffee Break 3:15-5:45 Realism and the Avant-garde Alexander Prokhorov (College of William and Mary) The Adolescent and the Child in the Thaw Cinema: The Politics of Age and Gender Susan E. Reid (University of Sheffield) In the Name of the People: the Manege Affair Revisited Peter Schmelz (State University of New York at Buffalo) Unofficial Concert Life in the Soviet Union from Volkonsky's Musica Stricta to Schnittke's First Symphony, 1956-1974 Discussant:  Olga Matich (University of California, Berkeley) 8:00 Dinner (for conference presenters, discussants, and invited guests only) Sunday, May 15 9:30-10 Coffee 10-12:30 Social Policies and the Soviet Person Steven E. Harris (George Mason University) From 'People's Construction' to the Housing-Construction Cooperative: Class, Housing, and the 'Thaw' Under Khrushchev Ann Livschiz (University of Tennessee at Knoxville) Children and the Welfare State: Social Politics of the Thaw Christine Varga-Harris (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) Homemaking, Keeping Up Appearances, and Petticoat Rule Larisa Zakharova (Centre d'étude du monde russe, soviétique et post-soviétique, EHESS) Strategies of Soviet Clothing Consumption during the 'Thaw' (in Russian) Discussant:  Victoria Bonnell (University of California, Berkeley) 12:30-1:30 Lunch 1:30-4:00 Soviet Discovery of the West Eleonory Gilburd (University of California, Berkeley) The Revival of Internationalism in the 1950s Anne Gorsuch (University of British Columbia) Socialism with a Difference: Soviet Tourism to Eastern Europe in the Khrushchev Era Nordica Nettleton (University of Glasgow) Exhibiting Alternatives: The Formation of Images of the West Through Exhibitions Shawn Salmon (University of California, Berkeley) Selling Socialism: Intourist and Hard Currency in the late 1950s and early 1960s Discussant:  Eric Naiman (University of California, Berkeley) 4:00-4:30 Closing remarks
	For more information, please contact conference co-organizers: Eleonor Gilburd at gilburd@yahoo.com or Denis Kozlov at dkozlov@chass.utoronto.ca Conference website designed and maintained by Jarrod Tanny Back to Top