PUBLIC TALK: Theories of Art/Theories of Terror. Avant-garde, Totalitarianism, and Post-Structuralist Epilogue.

A public lecture by Professor Anatoly Rykov, St Petersburg State University and 2016 Institute of Advanced Studies Short Stay Visiting Fellow.

In this public lecture Professor Anatoly Rykov will address the convergence between totalitarian (proto-fascist) discourses and early avant-garde theories. He will then trace the destiny of the avant-garde utopian heritage in contemporary Western humanities, their rhetorical systems and political premises.

In his provocative talk, Professor Rykov will develop the claim that leftist projects in art and culture often employ repressive and totalitarian concepts and metaphors. He will introduce the notion of “radical conservatism” in order to explain this phenomenon in the theoretical matrix of the avant-garde and its postmodern interpretation. For Professor Rykov, the essence of “radical conservativism” is the postmodern theoretical strategy of self-exclusion - “critical loneliness”, which he sees as a combination of the Romantic myth of the genius with the modernist “hygienic” discourse of ideological purity.