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:
Public Rituals and Memorial Spaces of the Communist Period: Continuities, Disruptions, Heritage Construction
The class is specifically focused on memorial spaces and the accompanying public rituals during the communist period, and aims to discuss the transformations that they went through after 1989, the public debates that surrounded them, and the various projects for their maintenance, museumization and treatment as historical and cultural heritage in the post-communist period. On the basis of abundant photographic materials, the class approaches core issues related to the debates of obliterating or presenting the traces of communism in nowadays’ heritage initiatives.
Texts for discussion:
- Vukov, N. “Refigured Memories, Unchained Representations: Post-Socialist Monumental Discourse in Bulgaria.” – In: Troebst, S., U. Brunnbauer, eds., Zwischen Amnesie und Nostalgie: Die Erinnerung an den Kommunismus in Südosteuropa. Köln, Weimar & Wien: Böhlau, 2008, 71–86.
- Vukov, N. “Remembrance of Communism on the Former Day of Socialist Victory: The 9th of September in Ritual Ceremonies of Post-1989 Bulgaria.” In: Todorova, M., A. Dimou, St. Troebst, eds., Remembering Communism. Private and Public Recollections of Lived Experience in Southeast Europe. Budapest-New York: CEU Press, 2015, 549-565.
Additional readings:
- Boym, S., Common Places: Mythologies of Everyday Life in Russia. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994.
- James, B., Imagining Post-communism. Visual Narratives of Hungary’s 1956 Revolution. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2005.
- Vukov, N. “‘Post-Socialist’ Identities and Their Representations: Monuments and Museums in Bulgaria and Romania after 1989.” Revue des études sud-est europeénnes (Journal of South-East European Studies), Tome XLVII (№ 1-4, Janvier-Décembre), 2009, Bucharest, Editura Academiei Române, 273-292.