Course Content
Browse classes:
- Introduction to the course. Heritage and Nostalgia. Theoretical and Methodological Undertakings
- Studying Socialism from a Historical and Anthropological Perspective: Thirty Years after the Political Changes of 1989
- History and Memory of the Communist Period: Traumatic Pasts and Nostalgic Returns
- The Town and the Village – Internal Mobility and Residence Practices. Socialist Transformations and Their Lasting Effects
- Nostalgia of Socialist Everyday Life (1): Work Practices and Labor Organization under Socialism
- Nostalgia of Socialist Everyday Life (2): Free Time, Entertainment, Recreation and Vacations under Socialism
- Consumption under Socialism. Everyday Practices, Memory and Nostalgic Potential
- Living Spaces under Socialism – between Nostalgia and Rejection. The Transformations of Private and Public Spaces after 1989
- Public Rituals and Memorial Spaces of the Communist Period: Continuities, Disruptions, Heritage Construction
- Post-socialism and Post-colonialism: Post-Soviet Nostalgia, Yugonostalgia, Ostnostalgia
- Socialist Heritage and Museum Practices after 1989: between Nostalgia, Denunciation, and Disneyification
- Popular Culture under Socialism: Continuities and Nostalgic Revisiting
- Social Worlds and Transmission of Cultural Experience: Nostalgia and the Issue of Generations
- The Memory of Socialism – between Allergy and Nostalgia, Remembering and Amnesia
- Studying Socialism from the Perspective of Nostalgia and Heritage. Final Presentations and Conclusions
Complete Bibliography:
Nostalgia of Socialist Everyday Life (2): Free Time, Entertainment, Recreation and Vacations under Socialism
In this second class dedicated to the socialist everyday life, the attention falls on the organization of free time, recreation and entertainment during the communist period. Among the topics that are presented and discussed in the class are: the ideological concerns with the spending of free time of its citizens, the restrictions on some entertainments and the introduction of ideologically approved forms, the development of socialist tourism and the recreation policies of the communist regime. These topics are discussed in light of their role as a recurrent point of nostalgia in the period after 1989, as well as in view of their reflection in policies targeted at reconstructing material and immoveable heritage of the communist times.
Texts for discussion:
- Zimmermann, T., The Economy of Nostalgia: Communist Pathos Between Politics and Advertisement. In: Raudvere, Catharina, еd., Nostalgia, Loss and Creativity in South-East Europe. Political and Cultural Representations of the Past. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018, 73-86.
- Luthar, B., Remembering Socialism. On Desire, Consumption and Surveilance. – Journal of Consumer Culture. Volume 6, issue 2, 2006, 229-259.
Additional readings:
- Koleva, D., ed., Negotiating Normality: Everyday Lives in Socialist Institutions (Memory and Narrative). New York: Routledge, 2017.
- Grandits, H., ed., Yugoslavia’s Sunny Side: A History of Tourism in Socialism (1950s-1980s). Budapest and New York: CEU Press. 2010.
- Ghodsee, K., The Red Riviera: Gender, Tourism and Postsocialism on the Black Sea. Duke University Press Books, 2005.
- Crowley, D. and S. Reid, eds., Style and Socialism. Modernity and Material Culture in Post-War Eastern Europe. Oxford, New York: Berg, 2000.
- Crowley, D. and S. Reid, eds., Pleasures in Socialism. Leisure and Luxury in the Eastern Bloc. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 2010.