On how the Russian information war works and the role of cultural stereotypes.
Tuesday, 03. November 2015, 18:30 – 20:00 h
At the University of Zurich, Rämistrasse 71, 8006 Zurich, KOL-G-201 (Aula)
The year 2014 will go down in history as a year of European crisis. The Kremlin has put a stranglehold on Ukraine in an unprecedented act of aggression. The Russian government is attempting to stylise the war as an ethnic conflict between "Ukrainians" and "Russians". This radically calls into question the Ukrainian independence consensus of 1991. How does the Russian information war work? Which cultural stereotypes are used as weapons?
Prof. Dr. Ulrich Schmid, born in Zurich in 1965, has been Associate Professor for Russian Culture and Society at the University of St. Gallen since April 2007. He studied Slavic studies, German studies and political science at the universities of Zurich, Heidelberg and Leningrad and was a research assistant from 1992 to 2000 and assistant professor for Slavic literary studies at the University of Basel until 2003, where he habilitated in 1999. From 2003 to 2005 he was an SNSF professor at the Institute for Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Bern and also lectured at various universities. Schmid's areas of specialisation include Russian, Ukrainian and Polish literature, philosophy and culture as well as literary and media theory, autobiography and internet literature. Schmid is co-editor of the series "Basler Studien zur Kulturgeschichte Osteuropas" (BSKO), which he founded and is published by Pano-Verlag in Zurich. He has also emerged as a translator and editor of thematic anthologies (philosophy of religion, media theory, etc.) and has been a regular contributor to the NZZ feuilleton for years.