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:
Studying Socialism from a Historical and Anthropological Perspective: Thirty Years after the Political Changes of 1989
The class makes an overview of the main issues and themes related to the study of socialism from historical and anthropological perspective. After a comprehensive presentation of major trends and developments during the communist era in Eastern Europe, an emphasis is made on the political and social processes related to the changes of 1989 and the post-communist transition.
Texts for discussion:
- Hann, Ch., C. Humphrey, K. Verdery, Introduction: Postsocialism as a Topic of Anthropological Investigation (Chris Hann – Farewell to the socialist ‘other’; Caroline Humphrey – Does the category ‘postsocialist’ still make sense?; Katherine Verdery – Whither postsocialism?). In: Hann, Ch. M., ed., Postsocialism: Ideals, Ideologies and Practices in Eurasia. London and New York, 2002, 1-30.
- Kennedy, M. D., Introduction: Cultural Formations of Postcommunism. In: Kennedy, M. D. Cultural Formations of Postcommunism. Emancipation, Transition, Nation, and War. Minneapolis, London: University of Minnesota Press, 2002, 1-43.
Additional readings:
- Barany, Z., I. Volgyes, eds. The Legacies of Communism in Eastern Europe, Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995.
- Berdahl, D., Where the World Ended. Re-Unification and Identity in the German Borderland. University of California Press, 1999.
- Berdahl, D., M. Bunzl, M. Lampland, eds., Altering States: Ethnographies of Transition in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, Ann Arbor, MI, 2000.
- Bridger, S., F. Pine, eds., Surviving Post-socialism: Local Strategies and Regional Responses in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, London: Routledge, 1998.
- Kovács, J., ed., Transition to Capitalism? The Communist Legacy in Eastern Europe, New Brunswick NJ, Transaction, 1994.
- Verdery, K., What Was Socialism and What Comes Next, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996.