BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Feeling Revolution: Cinema and the Emancipation of the Soviet Sens
 es - Dr Emma Widdis\, Cambridge
DTSTART:20171102T173000Z
DTEND:20171102T190000Z
UID:TALK89011@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:53971
DESCRIPTION:Karl Marx himself suggested provocatively that the ‘end of p
 rivate property’ (socialism) would bring about an ‘emancipation of the
  senses.’ \nCapitalism creates a rupture between the human body and the 
 world: \ncapitalist senses are impoverished. So Socialist revolution must\
 , and would\, create socialist senses: the human subject would be reborn i
 nto a heightened sensory appreciation of the material world. Revolution wo
 uld be felt- and lived – through the body.\n\nThis ambition had particul
 ar resonance in Soviet Russia during the first decades after 1917. In this
  lecture\, we will examine cinema’s role in an anticipated Soviet sensor
 y revolution. Still a new medium in the early 20th century\, film seemed a
 ble both to discover the world afresh\, and model a new way of inhabiting 
 (or sensing) it. Filmmakers exploited the textures and surfaces of materia
 l on screen. They experimented with film’s potent all-body impact on the
  spectator\, seeking to provoke new\, and specifically socialist\, sensati
 ons.\n\nThis evening\, we will explore some of these ‘socialist’ sensa
 tions through the figure of the craftsperson\, and consider the ambivalent
  status of hands and handwork in the emerging Soviet revolutionary aesthet
 ics. Alongside\, and even within\, those iconic Soviet ‘production’ \n
 movies and their ubiquitous machines\, we find potters\, weavers\, shoemak
 ers and carpenters. Why was the traditional ‘maker’ a starting point i
 n the search for a newly sensate model of human subjectivity?\n
LOCATION:Umney Theatre\, Robinson College
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR