Soviet Science Fiction Cinema and the Space Age
Regular price
€40.99
14 days return policy
Shipping & Delivery
A01=Natalija Majsova
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
Author_Natalija Majsova
automatic-update
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=APF
Category=ATF
COP=United States
cultural memory
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Language_English
memory studies
PA=Available
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
russian cinema
russian film
science fiction
softlaunch
soviet cinema
soviet film
space age
utopia
Product details
- ISBN 9781793609335
- Weight: 408g
- Dimensions: 153 x 224mm
- Publication Date: 31 Jan 2023
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
This book interrogates the relations between nostalgias of today and past utopias in the context of the space age of the 20th century and its cinematic representations in the USSR and in post-Soviet Russia. Once an enthusiastic projection, then a promising and uncanny present, and eventually an assemblage of nostalgic signifiers, in the history of world cinema, this space age has been linked primarily to the genre of science fiction. Here, aspects of the space age such as humanity’s imminent expansion to space, interplanetary travel, contact with extraterrestrial intelligence, and intergalactic governance and economy were both celebrated and critically interrogated as cosmopolitan ideals and nation-branding strategies. This book presents the contemporary relevance of this genre as heritage and legacy, archive and canon, and a nest of forgotten ideals and warnings, as well as nostalgic anchoring points. The author analyzes over 30 Soviet science fiction films, foregrounding their structures of utopia and their evolution over time, in order to trace both their transnational positionalities, transmedial resonance, and impact on post-Soviet Russian films about the space age. Concepts, crucial to the understanding of space futures of the past, such as utopianism, otherness, liminality, and no(w)stalgia are activated to draw out the fictional tenants of the memory of the Soviet space age, and to establish the limits and potentialities of Soviet (exra)terraformative ambitions.
Natalija Majsova is assistant professor at the University of Ljubljana.
