THE WAYLAND RUDD COLLECTION presents artist Yevgeniy Fiks's archive of
Soviet media images of Africans and African Americans--from propaganda
posters to postage stamps--mainly related to African liberation
movements and civil rights struggles. Meditations, reflections, and
research-based essays by scholars, poets, and artists address the
complicated intersection of race and Communist internationalism, with
particular focus on the Soviet Union's critique of systematic racism in
the US. The project is named after Wayland Rudd (1900-1952), a Black
American actor who moved to the Soviet Union in 1932 and appeared in
many Soviet films and theatrical performances. The stories of Rudd and
other expat African Americans in the Soviet Union are given special
attention in the book. Bringing together post-colonial and post-Soviet
perspectives, the book maps the complicated and often contradictory
intersection of race and Communism in the Soviet context, exposing the
interweaving of internationalism, solidarity, humanism, and Communist
ideals with practices of othering and exoticization. Conceived and
introduced by Yevgeniy Fiks; with a foreword by Lewis Gordon; and
contributions by Kate Baldwin, Jonathan Flatley, Joy Gleason Carew,
Raquel Greene, Douglas Kearney, Christina Kiaer, Maxim Matusevich,
Vladimir Paperny, MaryLouise Patterson, Meredith Roman, Jonathan
Shandell, Christopher Stackhouse, and Marina Temkina.
Literary Nonfiction. Asian & Asian American Studies. Art. Essay.
