Writing a Global History of Soviet Socialism: Geopolitics, Knowledge, Experience

The collapse of socialist regimes during 1989-1991 profoundly affected the conditions of knowledge production about the former socialist countries. The “transition to liberal democracy and capitalism” substituted the “know-your-enemy” paradigm, but hardly rescued the scholarship on the Soviet Union and other socialist countries from the area-studies model of knowledge production and had little impact on the core, “universal” disciplines focused on the West. At the same time, the epistemological subordination of the former socialist countries to the West- and capitalism-centered ideological consensus, introduced a neat division of labor: local scholars received acknowledgement for the soundness or meticulousness of their empirical research, but their locally embedded knowledge was rarely credited with novel ideas and perspectives, deemed the purview of the “neutral” experts with positions in Western academic institutions. Over the course of the last decade, however, the situation has changed dramatically. The politically motivated interest in the socialist past has been on the rise, the paradigm of “transition” has been questioned, and new cohorts of scholars from the post-socialist space have taken advantage of the possibilities for academic mobility, getting degrees in prestigious Anglo-American institutions, while maintaining the connection of their research to their place of origin and life experience. Starting from the assumption that the pursuit of global historiography entails not simply a distinct methodology, but also a set of different and truly global experiences and points of view, the symposium seeks to reflect on this new epistemological situation and analytical possibilities it opens for understanding historical lives of socialism. By bringing together historians, anthropologists, literary scholars, art historians, and philosophers with global academic careers and personal backgrounds in the former socialist countries, this event aims to create a space where a more pluralized form of academic knowledge – aware of its limitations and skeptical of claims to singularity – is both theorized and practiced.

Session 1 will run from 11 am to 1 pm. Session 2 will run from 2 pm to 4 pm. 

Visit our website for the zoom link: https://jordanrussiacenter.org/. 

PARTICIPANTS

Session One: 11 am to 1 pm

Serguei Oushakin, Professor of Anthropology and Slavic Languages and Literatures at Princeton University

Zinaida Vasilyeva, Postdoctoral Researcher, Munich Center for Technology in Society, Technical University of Munich 

Zukhra Kasimova, Ph.D. candidate at University of Illinois at Chicago, Jordan Center Visiting Scholar 

Artemy Magun, Director of the “Stasis” Center for Practical Philosophy, European University in St. Petersburg 

Galin Tihanov, George Steiner Professor of Comparative Literature at Queen Mary University of London

Session Two: 2 pm to 4 pm

Elidor Mëhilli, Associate Professor of History and Public Policy at Hunter College, City University of New York

Ivana Bago, Independent Scholar and Writer based in Zagreb, Co-Founder of Institute for Duration, Loation and Variables (Delve)

Alexey Golubev, Joy Foundation Fellow at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute

Botakoz Kassymbekova, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Liverpool John Moores University

Kate Brown, Professor of Science, Technology and Society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology