Alexei Yurchak

Anthropology at Berkeley

Anthropology Faculty
Research Interests

I received my Ph.D. in 1997 from Duke University. Before studying anthropology I specialized in telecommunications and linguistics (MS from St. Petersburg Academy of Aviation and Space Technology, Russia) and worked in research on speech synthesis and recognition (Department of Linguistics at St. Petersburg University and Popov Institute of Communications and Acoustics). My two areas of primary interest are linguistic anthropology and post-Soviet Russia and Eastern Europe. In the first area I am particularly interested in the analysis of how ideologies (political, cultural, national, market, etc.) are projected on and work through language, and what methods of discourse analysis social scientists can use to unpack their discursive power. In the second area of interest I am concerned with the contemporary transformations in the "post-communist" world, in particular in Russia. Specifically, I am interested in the cultural shifts brought forth by the collapse of the Soviet ideology, state institutions, and centralized economic principles and the advent of the ideology, institutions, and economic principles of a type of market, and how the interplay between these different forces contributed to the formation of socialist and post-socialist identities and subject positions. I am also interested in how forces of globalization (in business, mass media, communication technologies, transportation) become involved in the social processes of domination and resistance, division and unification, continuity and change, and the local responses to them. More generally my theoretical interests include the analysis of human agency and its interplay with language and discourses of power. My research methods are based on detailed ethnographic fieldwork and include long semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and critical analysis of linguistic practices.

Currently I am completing a book about the gradual transformation of the Soviet society during the period of late socialism (1960s-1980s), and how the conditions created by this transformation brought about the changes of perestroika and the ultimate spectacular collapse of the Soviet system in 1991. I am also completing work on several papers on comprehensive methods of critical discourse analysis for anthropology, on the advent of the post-Soviet "entrepreneurial" identity, and on the shifts in the Russian language as a form of the post-Soviet development of private business.

For my recent work on socialism, ideology and avant-garde art see this article in the online magazine Framing the Question.
Representative Publications

2005. Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation. Princeton University Press.

2004. Night Dances With the Angel of History: Critical Cultural Studies of Postsocialism. In Russian Cultural Studies. Aleksandr Etkind, ed. St. Petersburg: European University Press. (IN RUSSIAN)

2003. Soviet Hegemony of Form: Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More. In Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 45, No. 3, July. (IN ENGLISH)

2003. Russian Neoliberal:* The Entrepreneurial Ethic and the Spirit of New Careerism. In Russian Review. Vol. 62, No. 1. (IN ENGLISH)

2002. Entrepreneurial Governmentality in Post-Socialist Russia . A cultural investigation of business practices. In The New Entrepreneurs of Europe and Asia. V. E. Bonnell and T. B. Gold, eds. New York: M.E. Sharpe. (IN ENGLISH)

2001. Male Economy.* Business and Gender in post-Soviet Russia. In On Masculinity. Oushakine, Sergei, ed. Moscow: Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie. (IN RUSSIAN)

2001. Male Economy. Business and Gender in post-Soviet Russia. Neprekosnovennyi Zapas, N. 05, v. 19. (See: http://magazines.russ.ru/nz/2001/5/ur.html (IN RUSSIAN)

2000. Tracing a Woman's Image: Symbolic Work of the New Advertising Discourse.* In Woman and Visual Signs. A. Alchuk, ed. Moscow: Russian State Humanitarian University Press. (IN RUSSIAN)

2000. Privatize Your Name: Symbolic Work in a Post-Soviet Linguistic Market.* In Journal of Sociolinguistics 4(3). (IN ENGLISH)

1999. Gagarin and the Rave Kids: Transforming Power, Identity, and Aesthetics in the Post-Soviet Night Life. In Consuming Russia: Popular Culture, Sex, and Society Since Gorbachev. A. Baker, ed. Duke University Press. . (IN ENGLISH)

1997. The Cynical Reason of Late Socialism: Power, Pretense, and the Anekdot. Public Culture 9:2. (IN ENGLISH)

1997. The Myth of a Real Man and a Real Woman in Russian TV Advertising. In Family, Gender, Culture. Tishkov, ed. Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Ethnology Center of the Russian State Humanitarian University. Moscow. (IN RUSSIAN)

1995. Quick Cultural and Linguistic Production Among Recent Russian Immigrants in New York. Kabinet, The Journal of Philosophy and Cultural Studies 10. St. Petersburg. (IN ENGLISH)

1995. From Russia with Laughter: Soviet Political Humor. Mladina 30:25. Slovenia: Ljubljana. (IN ENGLISH)

1991. With Open Doors The Soviet Underground Has Undergone Many Changes: An Analysis of Soviet Unofficial Rock Culture and Its Transformations During Perestroika. Listen, The Journal of World Music 1. New York. (IN ENGLISH)

Anthropology 250X-8: Discourse & Social Theory: Methods & Analysis

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