19.10.23 55th Annual ASEEES Convention

Am Donnerstag, den 19.10.23 um 14:30 Uhr (CEST) findet auf dem 55. ASEEES-Jahreskongress unser Panel „Points of Intersection between Postcolonial Theory and Eastern Europe: Discourse, Ideology and Myth“ statt.

Unsere Vorträge:

Alexey Markin: Images of Blacks: Anti-Colonial Struggle in the Cold-War Soviet Union

Jannick Piskorski: Poland A and B in Postcolonial Theory and Pop Culture

Marina Gerber: Myth in the Decolonial Discourse and Eastern Europe after 2022

Discussant: Lea Garcia, U of Hamburg

Link zur Veranstaltung: https://tinyurl.com/2lnr4wmh

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Kurzbeschreibung auf Englisch:

The proposed panel focuses critically on the question of why postcolonial and decolonial thought were appropriated in Eastern Europe. In the context of today’s urgency of Decolonization in Eastern Europe this panel wants to address this question from a historical perspective: What were the main historical points of intersection between postcolonial thought and Eastern Europe and what were the main motivations and ideological reasons for these intersections? We argue that the reasons for these intersections are not primarily to be found in the distinction between colonialism and imperialism, but in certain experiences and ideological thought.

The first point of intersection that will be examined in the panel is the post-II World War Soviet Union and its politics in support of post-colonial struggles during the Cold War, which is expressed in Soviet imagery of black people. The second point of intersection examined in the panel is the postcolonial theory in Poland in the 2000s, which was dominated by the analysis of Poland’s postcolonial relation to its East, and how this was articulated in pop-cultural artifacts in the 2010s. And finally, the third point of intersection to be presented in the panel concerns the specificity of the recent discourse on Decolonization in Eastern Europe, which intensified since February 2022. Here it is particularly the radical and mythical aspects that were appropriated from the postcolonial theory that will be in focus. The proposed panel demonstrates that Decolonization in Eastern Europe should be understood as a history of discourses, motifs and motivations.