Join CREES in Bailey Hall Rm. 318 at 1pm on Tuesday February 7th for another installment of our Brownbag Lecture Series. We welcome KU Film and Media Studies Professor Olga Kyrylova, who will give a talk titled "Volodymyr Vynnychenko: Political and Cinematic Fin-de-siècle Narratives for Independent Ukraine."

*Please note this event starts at 1pm. Our brownbag series usually starts at 12.*

Volodymyr Vynnychenko (1880-1951) was the Ukrainian political leader, novelist, playwright, scriptwriter, the Prime Minister of the Ukrainian People’s Republic in 1917-1918 (after the fall of Russian Empire). As a political thinker Vynnychenko developed ideas of concordism (a system of pan-coherent social harmony), collectocratia (experimental economy including enterprises in private property and collective ownership), solarism (solar energy based economy), anti-Nazi Euro-integration of the independent Ukraine from 1930s, referendum-based global disarmament to be supported by the United Nations. As a writer, playwright and scriptwriter Vynnychenko was deeply rooted in the fin-de-siècle decadence as its brightest representative in Ukraine which included both the utopian dimension introducing new biopolitics rooted in artistic aestheticism, naturism, queer culture and the eschatological dimension focused on the idea of decadence of Europe. The main point of the lecture is to show how Vynnychenko’s ideas might be applicable for Ukraine and for the whole world in the nearest future and how literary and cinematic narratives may work as powerful political narratives.

Olga Kyrylova is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Film and Media Studies Department, at the University of Kansas. She holds a PhD in Philosophy and Doctor of Science in Cultural Studies degrees from Ukraine. Before the Russian invasion she worked at the Departments of Cultural Studies and Political Science in the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy in Ukraine.