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:
Popular Culture under Socialism: Continuities and Nostalgic Revisiting
The class draws attention to the mass culture before 1989 with its major figures and emblematic performances in music, dance, art and sports. Many of these are still remembered as holding high symbolic and aesthetic value for the generations before 1989, yet some of the figures continue to be productive after the end of the regime. Taking this as a launching point, the discussion in the class aims to focus on the “communist” component in the artistic and cultural practices in the period and on its conceptualization as heritage beyond the end of the regime.
Texts for discussion:
- Buchanan, D., Sonic Nostalgia: Music, Memory, and Mythology in Bulgaria, 1990-2005. In: Todorova, M. and Zs. Gille, eds., Post-Communist Nostalgia-Berghahn Books, 2010, 129-154.
- Jovanovic, Z., “This Is a Country for You”: Yugonostalgia and Antinationalism in the Rock-Music Culture of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In: Raudvere, C., еd., Nostalgia, Loss and Creativity in South-East Europe. Political and Cultural Representations of the Past. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018, 125-150.
Additional readings:
- Cooke, P., Re-exoticizing the Normal: The Ostalgie Industry and German Television. In: Cooke, P., Representing East Germany since Unification from Colonization to Nostalgia. Oxford, New York: Berg, 2005, 141-176.
- Еленков, И., Културният фронт. Българската култура през епохата на комунизма – политическо управление, идеологически основания, институционални режими. София, 2008. [Elenkov, I., The Culture Front. The Bulgarian Culture in the Epoch of Communism – Political Management, Ideological Grounds, Institutional Regimes. Sofia, 2008].