Mark Griffiths

Email address: m.j.griffiths@ucl.ac.uk

Working title of thesis: Gods, Wandersmänner and the City: Post-Soviet literary portrayals of Moscow and the narratives of Moscow's cityscape since 1991

Present degree status: MPhil candidate

Start date of research: September 2009

Supervisors: Dr Seth Graham and Dr Polly Jones

Centre to which the thesis is affiliated: Centre for Russian Studies

Description of research topic:
My thesis focuses on post-Soviet fiction-writers' depictions of Moscow, comparing these imagined visions of the city with the narratives of Moscow's extant cityscape. My work is underpinned by the distinction which Michel de Certeau draws between the gods who gaze down from a vantage point above the city and the Wandersmänner who traverse its streets. As an index of urban experiences, works of fiction offer another dimension to what people intimate about the city, articulating Moscow's complexities by combining the universal and the particular, the real and the imagined.

This page last modified Thursday 4 November 2010.