Browsing by Author "Gheith, Jehanne"
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Item Open Access Analyzing the "Chechen Syndrome": Disadaptation of Veterans with War Trauma in Contemporary Russian Literature(2012) Richards, HillaryThere is a new army marching onto the field of contemporary Russian literature: veterans of the recent Chechen Wars. The war veteran as author and/or protagonist has become increasingly popular, bringing to light social issues concerning the wars, including the presence of social disadaptation due to war trauma. This thesis analyzes the appearance of war trauma in contemporary works, connecting themes arising in the literary works to Russian psychological literature written about war trauma from 2000-2011. The first chapter focuses on the works of Arkady Babchenko, Andrei Gelasimov and Denis Butov and examines the similarities and differences in the manifestation of war trauma in their works. In particular, the thesis will show that the protagonists in each examined work all suffer or suffered from war trauma and disadaptation and are at different steps in the process of recovery from trauma. The second chapter will analyze the discourse in Russian psychological literature over the past twelve years, drawing mainly from studies and discussions presented in Military Medical Journal (Voenno-meditsinskii zhurnal) and Journal of Psychology (Psikhologicheskii zhurnal). This psychological literature provides insight into the work being done in the field of war trauma today, highlighting similarities and divergences in the specific case of Russian veterans of the Chechen wars.
Item Open Access Making Meaning through Music: How Older Adults’ Lifelong Experience with Music Creates Connections, Purpose, and Legacy(2024-04-29) Pawlak, AnikaThis project seeks to begin answering the question of how older adults perceive the way music has shaped their lives, experiences, and memories. Using an ethnographic approach, I interviewed nine current or previous residents of Croasdaile Village, a continuous care retirement community in Durham, North Carolina. Interviews were centered around themes of music across the lifespan, asking about origins of musicianship and music taste, experiences with music, and how these themes change during a lifetime. While initially, I wanted to gather first-person perspectives of how older adults view music's presence in their lives, being connected with many lifelong musicians quickly provided evidence that music is so much more than a soundtrack playing in the background. For my participants, music was, is, and will continue to be essential to who they are, the relationships they have, and the means by which they live their lives. The stories gathered in my interviews demonstrate the way interviewees organized their life narratives around music. This suggests that others might also do this. Through this means of storytelling, it became evident that for these folks, music provides purpose and dimension in life. Based on their narratives, it is clear my interlocutors believe that music is a lifelong experience that facilitates relationship building and meaning making in a way no other pursuit could. This interview project exposes and lifts up the importance of music as a mode of communication, connection and comfort across the lifespan.Item Open Access The Artist's Passion According to Andrei: Paintings in the Films of Andrei Tarkovsky(2014) Reiser, SerenaThis thesis examines the role of paintings in four of Andrei Tarkovsky's films: Solaris (1972), Mirror (1975), Andrei Rublev (1966), and Sacrifice (1986). Through close analysis of these films and the paintings that appear in them, the thesis demonstrates that Tarkovsky's selection and use of paintings reflects his theories and beliefs as a filmmaker and as an individual.
Item Open Access The Duality of Max Frei: Problems of Identity in Contemporary Popular Russian Fiction(2023) Garman-Davis, Gillian AnnMax Frei, whose given name is Svetlana Martynchik, is an important cultural phenomenon in the Russian sphere because she represents a growing push for change. Her approach is to question her reader’s identity by presenting challenges to the current reader-character relationship, as well as through her unique approach to the author-character relationship. In doing so, she questions the current definition of character and uses her creative works to demonstrate what she believes is most important: giving her characters life. For this work, I have studied ten of Frei/Martynchik’s interviews, available on her website, as well as Russian and English fandom websites such as fantlab.ru and Goodreads. Included in this work are four of her short stories, translated by me and available in Russian in the orange Russian Foreign Tales series, Books One, Four, and Six, to demonstrate her approach to the problems of identity in contemporary Russian fiction.
Item Open Access The Living Dead: Russia's Famous Dead as Political Currency(2014) Probert, AbigailThis thesis examines how the dead bodies of the Romanovs and of Vladimir Lenin are used as political and cultural capital in attempts to legitimate and shape Russia's post-Soviet government. The first chapter shows how the reburial of the Romanovs invoked tsarist imagery as part of a larger series of invocations of the tsarist past by then-President Boris Yeltsin and other groups to build a new government. However, due to political tension and infighting the only group that benefited from the reburial of the Romanovs was the Russian Orthodox Church. The second chapter explores how the embalmed body of Vladimir Lenin is problematic by being unburied and being a reminder of Soviet times. Both of these chapter use newspaper articles, speeches, and interdisciplinary analysis of academic text to show how Boris Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin, and the Russian Orthodox Church built, or attempted to build, stability in post-Soviet Russia.
This thesis shows that the dead bodies of Romanovs and Lenin have been used by people in power as a type of political currency, with varying degrees of success. Additionally, this thesis explores how these two sets of bodies demonstrate the importance of the past, both Tsarist and Soviet, in shaping Russia's government.