Russian Style: Twerking Air Cadets, "Gay" Propaganda, & Putin’s War in Ukraine

Many social scientists were taken aback by Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine in February of 2022, but those aware of cultural trends in the Russian Federation saw the connection between Putin’s restyling of Russian gender and sexuality and the war in Ukraine. Since rising to power in 1999, Putin has overhauled Russian citizenship so that young, sexually available, heterosexual women have become the country’s ideal citizens, and queer men, its scapegoats. This talk links the 2018 viral video made by air cadets in the city of Ulyanovsk to Russia’s infamous ban on “gay propaganda,” arguing that the inherent contradiction in both reveals the roots of Putin’s Ukrainophobia and military aggression. Julie Cassiday is the Willcox B. and Harriet M. Adsit Professor of Russian at Williams College, where she teaches Russian language, literature, and culture, as well as Comparative Literature and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Her research focuses on performance in the broadest possible sense in Russian culture. She has written a book on the emergence of the show trial in early Soviet Russia, as well as articles on topics ranging from Stalinist film to the cult of personality around Vladimir Putin. Her most recent book, published in 2023, is titled Russian Style: Performing Gender, Power, and Putinism, and her current research focuses on Russophone Boys Love, a transnational genre of popular romance.