This talk will address the east-central European origins of development concepts that came to dominate the postwar world. Treating social science as a situated phenomenon, shaped by the twentieth century’s violent politics, Dr. Mazurek aims to explain why and how … Read more
For millions of Habsburg citizens, civilians and soldiers alike, the First World War was a war of both mobility and captivity. While soldiers were notoriously paralyzed in trenches on the Western front, the armies of the Central Powers and the Russian … Read more
Popular elections in Russia have often been replaced by some forms of indirect elections or appointments at both regional and municipal level. Scholars have studied various effects such institutional changes have on the characteristics of political leaders. Guzel Garifullina builds … Read more
Using film and sculpture, artist Masha Vlasova will explore the shifting social, political, and historical roles of monuments, public sculptures, and yard art in Central Asia and the United States. Her talk will address three modes of public marking within … Read more
Although Stalinist ideologues and artists highlighted the idea of “new socialist man” in the 1950s, and reform communist scholars critically explored the issues of consumerism and leisure under socialism in the 60s, it was a “consolidated” sociology after 1968 that … Read more
Since 1990 there has been a sharp rise in the Slovak higher education sector. The number of students has increased fourfold, the number of universities has doubled, and new universities have been established in smaller towns. Despite this trend, Slovakia … Read more
Virginia Olmsted McGraw (PhD Candidate, History) will discuss the first chapter of her dissertation: “Soviet by Design: Fashion, Consumption, and International Competition, 1948-1980”. The chapter examines the origins of the All-Union House of Design, the chief state institution of fashion … Read more
Standing at the crossroads of five languages and a matching number of literary traditions (English, French, German, Italian, and Russian), Vladimir Nabokov experienced translation on a level unattainable to the majority of his predecessors, presaging and influencing our modern understanding … Read more
In today's East Central Europe, where former communist states had been successfully transformed into liberal democracies, we see the emergence of populism as a significant political force in the last decade. Hungary has received a special status in this process: … Read more
Immediately after the end of World War II, a wave of violence emerged in most of the former occupied European countries. Ethnic Germans, national traitors, and collaborators were being humiliated, beaten and even killed. The postwar violence was much more … Read more
