Postcolonial Perspectives on Postcommunism in Central and Eastern Europe

Postcolonial Perspectives on Postcommunism in Central and Eastern Europe

Author: Dorota Ko?odziejczyk

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-10-02

Total Pages: 231

ISBN-13: 1317285999

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A quarter of a century after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and from the vantage point of a post-Cold War, globalised, world, there is a need to address the relative neglect of postcommunism in analysis of postcolonial and neo-colonial configurations of power and influence. This book proposes new critical perspectives on several themes and concepts that have emerged within, or been propagated by, postcolonial studies. These themes include structures of exclusion/ inclusion; formations of nationalism, structures of othering, and representations of difference; forms and historical realisations of anti-colonial/anti-imperial struggle; the experience of trauma (involving issues of collective memory/amnesia and the re-writing of history); resistance as a complex of cultural practices; and concepts such as alterity, ambivalence, self-colonisation, dislocation, hegemonic discourse, minority, and subaltern cultures.? Taken together, this volume suggests that some of the methodological instruments of postcolonial criticism can be fruitfully applied to the study of postcommunist cultures and, conversely, that the experience of the Soviet brand of imperialist rule in the form of communism in East-Central Europe can function as an ideological moderator in Third-World oriented, Marxist-inspired, postcolonial discourses. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Postcolonial Writing.


New Donors on the Postcolonial Crossroads

New Donors on the Postcolonial Crossroads

Author: Profant, Tomáš

Publisher: kassel university press GmbH

Published: 2020-01-20

Total Pages: 5

ISBN-13: 3737650039

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After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Eastern European countries were said to be playing catch up with the West, and in the field of development cooperation, they were classified as ‘new donors.’ This book aims to problematize this distinction between old and new development donors, applying an East–West dimension to global Orientalism discourse. The book uses a novel double postcolonial perspective, examining North – South relations and East–West relations simultaneously, and problematizing these distinctions. In particular, the book deploys an empirical analysis of a ‘new’ Eastern European donor (Slovakia), compared with an ‘old’ donor (Austria), in order to explore questions around hierarchization, depoliticization and the legitimization of development. This book’s innovative approach to the East–West dimension of global Orientalism will be of interest to researchers in postcolonial studies, Eastern European studies, and critical development studies.


Postcolonial Europe? Essays on Post-Communist Literatures and Cultures

Postcolonial Europe? Essays on Post-Communist Literatures and Cultures

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2015-07-28

Total Pages: 405

ISBN-13: 9004303855

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This collective monograph analyzes post-1989 Central and Eastern Europe through the paradigm of postcoloniality. Based on the assumption that both Western and Soviet imperialism emerged from European modernity, the book is a contribution to the development of a global postcolonial discourse based on a more extensive and nuanced geohistorical comparativism. It suggests that the inclusion of East-Central Europe in European identity might help resolve postcolonialism’s difficulties in coming to terms with both postcolonial and neo-colonial dimensions of contemporary Europe. Analyzing post-communist identity reconstructions under the impact of transformative political, economic and cultural experiences such as changes in perception of time and space (landscapes, cityscapes), migration and displacement, collective memory and trauma, objectifying gaze, cultural self-colonization, and language as a form of power, the book facilitates a mutually productive dialogue between postcolonialism and post-communism. Together the studies map the rich terrain of contemporary East-Central European creative writing and visual art, the latter highlighted through accompanying illustrations.


Alternative Globalizations

Alternative Globalizations

Author: James Mark

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2020-02-11

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 025304653X

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Globalization has become synonymous with the seemingly unfettered spread of capitalist multinationals, but this focus on the West and western economies ignores the wide variety of globalizing projects that sprang up in the socialist world as a consequence of the end of the European empires. This collection is the first to explore alternative forms of globalization across the socialist world during the Cold War. Gathering the work of established and upcoming scholars of the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and China, Alternative Globalizations addresses the new relationships and interconnections which emerged between a decolonizing world in the postwar period and an increasingly internationalist eastern bloc after the death of Stalin. In many cases, the legacies of these former globalizing impulses from the socialist world still exist today. Divided into four sections, the works gathered examine the economic, political, developmental, and cultural aspects of this exchange. In doing so, the authors break new ground in exploring this understudied history of globalization and provide a multifaceted study of an increasing postwar interconnectedness across a socialist world.


Deconstructing Europe

Deconstructing Europe

Author: Sandra Ponzanesi

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-07-09

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 131799518X

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This book engages with the question of what makes Europe postcolonial and how memory, whiteness and religion figure in representations and manifestations of European ‘identity’ and self-perception. To deconstruct Europe is necessary as its definition is now contested more than ever, both internally (through the proliferation of ethnic, religious, regional differences) and externally (Europe expanding its boundaries but closing its borders). This edited volume explores a number of theoretical discussions on the meaning of Europe and proposes analyzing some of the deeds committed, both today and in the past, in the name of Europe by foregrounding a postcolonial approach. To deconstruct Europe as a postcolonial place does not imply that Europe’s imperial past is over, but on the contrary that Europe’s idea of self, and of its polity, is still struggling with the continuing hold of colonialist and imperialist attitudes. The objective of this volume is to account for historical legacies which have been denied, forgotten or silenced, such as the histories of minor and peripheral colonialisms (Nordic colonialisms or Austrian, Spanish and Italian colonialism) and to account for the realities of geographical margins within Europe, such as the Mediterranean and the Eastern border while tracing alternative models for solidarity and conviviality. The chapters deal with social and political formations as well as cultural and artistic practices drawing from different disciplinary backgrounds and methodological traditions. As such it creates an innovative space for comparative and cross-disciplinary exchanges. This book was previously published as a special issue of the journal Social Identities.


Postcolonial Slavic Literatures After Communism

Postcolonial Slavic Literatures After Communism

Author: Klavdii︠a︡ Smola

Publisher: Peter Lang Gmbh, Internationaler Verlag Der Wissenschaften

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9783631668566

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The present volume focuses on the postcoloniality of the Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, and Czech literatures from post-communist times and that of the translingual diaspora. The contributions deal with the exploration of literary representation and hence of postcolonial textuality - of poetics, textual structures, rhetoric, and tropes.


Postcolonial Perspectives on Postcommunism in Central and Eastern Europe

Postcolonial Perspectives on Postcommunism in Central and Eastern Europe

Author: Dorota Kołodziejczyk

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-10-02

Total Pages: 120

ISBN-13: 1317286006

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A quarter of a century after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and from the vantage point of a post-Cold War, globalised, world, there is a need to address the relative neglect of postcommunism in analysis of postcolonial and neo-colonial configurations of power and influence. This book proposes new critical perspectives on several themes and concepts that have emerged within, or been propagated by, postcolonial studies. These themes include structures of exclusion/ inclusion; formations of nationalism, structures of othering, and representations of difference; forms and historical realisations of anti-colonial/anti-imperial struggle; the experience of trauma (involving issues of collective memory/amnesia and the re-writing of history); resistance as a complex of cultural practices; and concepts such as alterity, ambivalence, self-colonisation, dislocation, hegemonic discourse, minority, and subaltern cultures. Taken together, this volume suggests that some of the methodological instruments of postcolonial criticism can be fruitfully applied to the study of postcommunist cultures and, conversely, that the experience of the Soviet brand of imperialist rule in the form of communism in East-Central Europe can function as an ideological moderator in Third-World oriented, Marxist-inspired, postcolonial discourses. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Postcolonial Writing.


Cold War Cultures

Cold War Cultures

Author: Annette Vowinckel

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2012-03-01

Total Pages: 395

ISBN-13: 0857452444

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The Cold War was not only about the imperial ambitions of the super powers, their military strategies, and antagonistic ideologies. It was also about conflicting worldviews and their correlates in the daily life of the societies involved. The term “Cold War Culture” is often used in a broad sense to describe media influences, social practices, and symbolic representations as they shape, and are shaped by, international relations. Yet, it remains in question whether — or to what extent — the Cold War Culture model can be applied to European societies, both in the East and the West. While every European country had to adapt to the constraints imposed by the Cold War, individual development was affected by specific conditions as detailed in these chapters. This volume offers an important contribution to the international debate on this issue of the Cold War impact on everyday life by providing a better understanding of its history and legacy in Eastern and Western Europe.


Global Cold War Literature

Global Cold War Literature

Author: Andrew Hammond

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2011-12-21

Total Pages: 303

ISBN-13: 1136511296

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In countries worldwide, the Cold War dominated politics, society and culture during the second half of the twentieth century. Global Cold War Literatures offers a unique look at the multiple ways in which writers from Asia, Africa, Europe and North and South America addressed the military conflicts, revolutions, propaganda wars and ideological debates of the era. While including essays on western European and North American literature, the volume views First World writing, not as central to the period, but as part of an international discussion of Cold War realities in which the most interesting contributions often came from marginal or subordinate cultures. To this end, there is an emphasis on the literatures of the Second and Third Worlds, including essays on Latin American poetry, Soviet travel writing, Chinese autobiography, African theatre, North Korean literature, Cuban and eastern European fiction, and Middle Eastern fiction and poetry. With the post-Cold War era still in a condition of emergence, it is essential that we look back to the 1945-89 period to understand the political and cultural forces that shaped the modern world. The volume’s analysis of those forces and its focus on many of the ‘hot spots’ – Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea – that define the contemporary ‘war on terror’, make this an essential resources for those working in Postcolonial, American and English Literatures, as well as in History, Comparative Literature, European Studies and Cultural Studies. Global Cold War Literatures is a suitable companion volume to Hammond's Cold War Literature: Writing the Global Conflict, also available from Routledge.


Central and Eastern European Literary Theory and the West

Central and Eastern European Literary Theory and the West

Author: Michał Mrugalski

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2022-12-05

Total Pages: 857

ISBN-13: 3110400340

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Literary theory flourished in Central and Eastern Europe throughout the twentieth century, but its relation to Western literary scholarship is complex. This book sheds light on the entangled histories of exchange and influence both within the region known as Central and Eastern Europe, and between the region and the West. The exchange of ideas between scholars in the East and West was facilitated by both personal and institutional relations, both official and informal encounters. For the longest time, however, intellectual exchange was thwarted by political tensions that led to large parts of Central and Eastern Europe being isolated from the West. A few literary theories nevertheless made it into Western scholarly discourses via exiled scholars. Some of these scholars, such as Mikhail Bakhtin, become widely known in the West and their thought was transposed onto new, Western cultural contexts; others, such as Ol’ga Freidenberg, were barely noticed outside of Russian and Poland. This volume draws attention to the schools, circles, and concepts that shaped the development of theory in Central and Eastern Europe as well as the histoire croisée – the history of translations, transformations, and migrations – that conditioned its relationship with the West.