Join us on March 16 at 11:00 am for the virtual Sawchen Lecture Series, featuring Dr. Nick Mayhew of Stanford University. This talk is co-sponsored by the Eurasia Research Cluster (supported by the Public Humanities Hub).
View the recording of this talk here:
Title: “Russian Sexual Politics: The Day of Family, Love and Fidelity”
Abstract: Nick Mayhew’s talk will explore a national festival that was instated across the Russian Federation in 2008, the “Day of Family, Love and Fidelity” (День семьи, любви и верности). The celebration falls on July 8, which had long been the feast day of the married Orthodox saints Petr and Fevroniia. Both the saints and the festival have become a rallying point in Russia’s campaign for supposedly “traditional” family values and against supposedly “non-traditional sexual relations”. This talk explores how Orthodox culture is being harnessed to entrench a patriarchal view of “tradition” that extends beyond the confines of church walls to unite Russian citizens of different faiths.
Bio: Nick Mayhew is a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Slavic Languages and Literatures at Stanford University. His work explores gender, sexuality and queerness in Russia and Ukraine from a cultural studies perspective. He is particularly interested in exploring queer approaches to cultural traditions that are typically deemed conservative and heteronormative, such as Russian Orthodoxy. His current book project responds to the way the Orthodox tradition has been harnessed to underpin discriminatory sexual politics in Russia today.
