Emotions and the Disintegration of Communism in Europe, 1970-2010

U Münchenu se 3. i 4. studenog 2017. održava znanstveni skup o dezintegraciji komunizma u Europi iz perspektive povijesti emocija.

 

 

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Bibliothek der Graduiertenschule für Ost- und Südosteuropastudien, Maria-Theresia-Straße 21, 81675 München

 

 

03.11.2017 – 04.11.2017

 

Graduate School for East and Southeast European Studies, Abteilung für Geschichte Ost- und Südosteuropas am Historischen Seminar der LMU München

 

 

Few would dispute the fact that the revolutions of 1989/91 which brought about the downfall of communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe were emotionally charged events. Historical studies of the events of 1989/91, however, have focused mostly on presumably “rational” politics rather than the role of emotions. While historians are gradually claiming the revolutions of 1989/91 as a field of study long dominated by the social and political sciences, they still do so primarily with a focus on political interests. This workshop aims to amplify existing research on the political history of 1989/1991 by taking up a perspective inspired by recent work in the history of emotion and adjacent fields such as the history of subjectivities and the body.

 

We explore such issues as the emotional vocabulary of revolutionary rhetorics, the role of emotions as a contagious force of political mobilization, embodied practices and emotional displays of resistance etc. We are also interested in the emotionally charged perceptions of revolutionary change in communist Europe in the “West”.

 

The workshop aims to explore longer term perspectives on the changes in emotional regimes leading up to and resulting from the events of 1989/91. We therefore study “transformations before transformation” beginning approximately in the 1970s as well as post-socialist developments up to the present. In sum, the workshop aims to explore ways in which a perspective on emotional dynamics may enrich our understanding of the events of 1989/91 and the post-communist era in Europe.

 

 

Programm

 

 

 

Friday, November 3, 2017

 

 

13:00 Registration of Participants

 

 

13:30 – 14:00 Welcome and introduction
Jan Arend and Franziska Davies (both LMU Munich)

 

 

14:00 – 16:00 Panel I: The Transformation of emotional regimes in the Soviet Union during Perestroika

Courtney Doucette (Conneticut College): “The Emotional Regime of the Soviet Public Sphere”

Aleksey Tikhomirov (Goethe-University of Frankfurt am Main): “Stigmatized Identities, the Quest for Dignity and Tearing Off the Mask during Perestroika”

Commentary: Jan Plamper (Goldsmiths University of London)

Chair: Franziska Davies (LMU Munich)

 

 

16:00-16:30 Coffee break

 

 

16:00 – 18:00 Panel II: Emotions and the breakdown of Communist regimes in Europe

James Krapfl (McGill University): “On This Holy Emotion We Must Found the Future of the ČSSR”: Emotion, Sacrality, and Narrativity in Revolutionary Czechoslovakia, 1989-92

Valerij Gretchko (University of Tokyo): “Subversive Laughter: The Role of Political Humor in the Collapse of the USSR”

Commentary: Walter Sperling (Ruhr-University Bochum)

Chair: Jan Arend (LMU Munich)

 

 

19:00 Joint dinner

 

 

Saturday, November 4, 2017

 

 

9:30 – 11:30 Panel III: Emotions before and after communism

Konrad Sziedat (LMU Munich): “Cross-bloc Emotional Communities: Western Solidarity with Eastern Dissidence, ca 1980-1994”

Jan Arend (LMU Munich): “Stress in East-Central Europe, 1970-2000. How (post-)socialist societies dealt with tension and strain”

Kathrin Zöller (Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam): “Do I have to fear the future? Teenagers in Saxony, 1987-1995“

Commentary: Joachim Häberlen (University of Warwick) and Malte Rolf (Otto-Friedrich-University Bamberg)

Chair: Jana Osterkamp (Collegium Carolinum Munich)

 

 

12:00 – 13:00 lunch

 

 

13:30 – 15:00 Concluding discussion

 

 

http://www.hsozkult.de/event/id/termine-35448