"Svetlana Boym: Exile and Imagination": Screening and Discussion

(2017, dir Judith Wechsler, USA, 60 min)      

In 1980, age 21, literary and cultural critic Svetlana Boym (1959-2015)  left the USSR for the US. After graduate studies at Boston University and Harvard, she became the Carl Hugo Reisinger Professor of Slavic and Comparative Literature at Harvard University. A brilliant writer and scholar of ambitious scope and great imagination, she explored motifs of exile, nostalgia, the diasporic imagination and forms of freedom in her books, essays and artmaking.  Interweaving videos, interviews, photographs, and photomontage with the subject's original texts and film excerpts, this moving documentary pays tribute to her legacy.  Director Judith Wechsler was awarded the Chevalier de l’ordre des arts et des lettres for her filmmaking and publications on 19th and 20th century art.

Co-sponsored by the Department of Languages, Literatures & Cultures.

Introduction by Catherine Portuges.

The director Judith Wechsler will be present for discussion.