The Slavic Literature and Culture Forum welcomes Professor Julie Cassiday (Williams College) to OSU and invites all interested to attend her talk, titled "Glamazons en Travesti: Camp, Kitsch, and the Russian Drag Queen"
Abstract: At the same time that the Putin era has witnessed a conservative backlash culminating in federal legislation against “homosexual propaganda,” the Russian drag queen or travesti-artist has come into her own. Appearing perhaps in fewer numbers but in the same venues as in Western Europe and the United States, professional drag performers in Russia present a seeming paradox in a country that increasingly defines itself as traditionally heteronormative and conventionally gendered. However, an overview of professional travesti-artisty in Putin’s Russia reveals that they use a variety of strategies, which, rather than question or subvert notions of masculinity and femininity, in fact naturalize this binary opposition through performance. Whether their spectacle of femininity results in kitsch or camp, contemporary travesti-artisty preserve the hierarchical gender regime considered traditional and natural in Putin’s Russia, proving the unique capacity of men to define and express femininity as a profession. This ability to naturalize the height of feminine artifice offers a vivid example of how gender expression and identity formation are policed in contemporary Russia. The seeming paradox of male performers embodying ideal femininity also points to the double entanglement of professional drag in Russia today, as well as to its place in the country’s larger post-feminist landscape.
