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Violent Affections uncovers techniques of power that work to translate emotions into violence against queer people. Based on analysis of over 300 criminal cases of anti-queer violence in Russia before and after the introduction of 'gay propaganda' law, the book shows how violent acts are framed in emotional language by perpetrators during their criminal trials. It then utilises an original methodology of studying 'legal memes' and argues that these individual affective states are directly connected to the political violence aimed at queer lives more generally. The main aim of Violent Affections is to explore the social mechanisms and techniques that impact anti-queer violence evidenced in the reviewed cases. Alexander Sasha Kondakov expands upon two sets of interdisciplinary literature – queer theory and affect theory – in order to conceptualise what is referred to as neo-disciplinary power. Taking the empirical observations from Russia as a starting point, he develops an original explanation of how contemporary power relations are changing from those of late modernity as envisioned by Foucault's Panopticon to neo-disciplinary power relations of a much more fragmented, fluid and unstructured kind – the Memeticon. The book traces how exactly affections circulate from body to body as a kind of virus and eventually invade the body that responds with violence. In this analytic effort, it draws on the arguments from memetics – the theory of how pieces of information pass on from one body to another as they thrive to survive by continuing to resonate. This work makes the argument truly interdisciplinary.

In June 2013, Russian Parliament (the State Duma) adopted the bill 135-FZ meant to "protect children from information that promotes denial of traditional family values." This piece of legislation amended several federal laws and the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation with the final purpose to ban from public access something called "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations".

Homosexuality has recently become a matter of international politics. UNO General Secretary announced LGBT rights a global agenda and called for rejection of discriminatory laws in national legislatures. Former president of the USA supported widening of sexual citizenship by inclusion of samesex couples. Similar tendencies have been demonstrated by the European Union countries. Yet, simultaneously, there are attempts to criminalize homosexuality in a somewhat concurrent camp of the global debate: new round of criminalization in India, prison terms for gay men in Uganda, or capital punishment in Zimbabwe. Ban of so called 'propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations' stands in this row. It was enacted in Russia in 2013 to protect children from becoming gay by learning information on LGBT issues. This initiative has been interesting for members of parliament in other post-Soviet republics. It seems like the world is divided in two parts by the question of homosexuality. But this perception is an oversimplification. Both inclusive and exclusive approaches use the same power technics and come from the same source. I use ideas of Michel Foucault and queer theory to show the ways how a complex analysis of the situation might be brought about. In this sense, power does not come from only one source, but is always embedded in relations between forces. Hence, there are intersecting currents of power that make the international discussion of homosexuality possible.

This book is an extraordinarily great success for the Russian intellectual community. It summarizes all the main ideas of Judith Butler's work, from her first book, Gender Trouble, treating fundamental social categories as performative, to the current project in which she proposes a new democracy based on alliances and coalitions instead of aging identity movements. At the same time, the author independently brings together her own ideas, which have always maintained interconnection, but have never been explicitly presented in such a consistent presentation. The relatively small number of translations of Butler's works into Russian largely determines the meager acquaintance with these ideas in the Russian academic environment. Another important obstacle is the confusing and overly specific language of translations, only partly dictated by the original. Although not all of these obstacles have been fully overcome in this edition, the structure of the book and the lecture style of presentation of the material in many respects make it possible to solve these problems and finally get to know the philosopher's theories in Russian quite fully.

Kondakov, A. (2019) The Censorship "Propaganda" Legislation in Russia. In: L. Ramon Mendos, State-Sponsored Homophobia 2019, pp. 213-215. Geneva: ILGA. ; The 135-FZ law banning "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations" to minors is a censorship legislation that limits freedom of expression by making neutral and positive information about LGBTQ topics a misdemeanor subjected to penalties. The text of the law is clear, and the procedure of its implementation does not require an actual child to be harmed in any way. The legislation has a variety of other effects, beyond its implementation. One of the most important results of the spread of bigotry it generated is the growth of violence against queer populations in Russia. Since the law is in place, Russia is a less safe location for queer expressions than it has been before. Therefore, the law sends the country backwards on the line of progression to a more inclusive sexual citizenship.