Spectrum of Communism — Symposium at Blinken OSA

Spectrum of Communism

Symposium at Blinken OSA on November 16-17, 2017

The two-day symposium addresses left wing political thought and artistic practice in a transnational context. It explores the shifts in historiography that affected knowledge production in humanities and social sciences, as well as developments in the field of arts. The symposium pays special attention to some of the fundamental aspects of 20th century globalization: the transmission, circulation and reception of values, cultures, and beliefs. The symposium is organized by the Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives (Blinken OSA) at Central European University —  a repository of important collections related to the history of the Cold War and of grave international human rights violations, as well as a laboratory of archival experiments on new ways of assessing, contextualizing, presenting, and making use of archival documents. The symposium is accompanied by film screenings within the framework of Verzio International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival.

Program

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16

9:30 Registration

10:00 Opening Speech

10:30–13:00 Panel 1

Transnational Communism

Chair: Anna Mazanik (Blinken OSA, CEU)

Jiří Hudeček (Charles University, Prague), Scientific Exchange Among Revolutionaries: Czechoslovakia and China in the 1950s and 1960s

Viviana Iacob (New Europe College, Bucharest), Caragiale in Calcutta: Romania—India Cultural Exchanges during the Cold War

Nemanja Radonjic (University of Belgrade), A Socialist Shaping of the Postcolonial Elite. Students from Africa in Socialist Yugoslavia

Péter Apor (MTA BTK, Budapest), Goulash Socialism in the Jungle: Hungary and the Export of Socialist Economy

Discussant: Bogdan C. Iacob (New Europe College, Bucharest)

Break

15:00–17:30 Panel 2

Factory of Facts

Chair: Marsha Siefert (CEU)

István Rév (Blinken OSA, CEU), Episodes in the History of “The Makers of Facts”

John MacKay (Yale University), Vertov's allegories of revolutionary change

Oksana Sarkisova (Blinken OSA, CEU), Facts and Little Facts: Anti-Documentarist Campaign and the Birth of Soviet Documentary

Peter Bagrov (Gosfilmofond, Moscow), The Judgement of History: Fridrikh Ermler’s reconstructions of the past

Discussant: Yuri Tsivian (University of Chicago)

Break

18:00 Film screening:

Storming of the Winter Palace (Nikolai Evreinov, 1920, 90’) with introduction by Yuri Tsivian (University of Chicago) and Daria Khitrova (Harvard University) 

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17

10:00–12:30 Panel 3

What is Left from Marxism? Post-Communist Critical Thinking on the Left

Chair: Iván Székely (Blinken OSA)

Florin Poenaru (Criticatac), Resisting Left-Wing Melancholia

Ágnes Gagyi (University of Gothenburg), Class and Intellectual Politics: Some Notes on the Contexts of a New Intellectual Left in Hungary and Romania

Ioana Macrea-Toma (Blinken OSA), Killing a Chinese Mandarin in Romania. On the Aporias of Leftist Interpretations of the “Anti-corruption” Protests

Ilya Budraitskis (OpenLeft, LeftEast), Heritage without Heirs? The 1917th Anniversary, Kremlin’s Historical Politics and the Conservative Appropriation of the Revolution.

Discussant: Mihai Dan Cirjan (CEU)

Break

14:00–16:30 Panel 4

The Culture of Labor / The Labor of Culture: Artists at Work

Chair & Discussant: Katalin Timár (PTE, Pécs; Ludwig Museum, Budapest)

Péter György (ELTE, Budapest, Hidden Values - The Price of Art in Different Cold War Contexts

Kristóf Nagy (Artpool Art Research Center, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest): Thinking in the Market: Changing Attitudes Towards the Commodification of Art in the 1980’s Hungary

Katalin Székely (Blinken OSA, CEU), The Value of Work – Volunteering Art Workers

Pascal Gielen (Universtity of Antwerp), Commonism – The Aesthetics of a New Ideology

Break

17:00 Film screening

1917 – The Real October (Katrin Rothe / Switzerland, France, Germany / 90’)

Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives (Blinken OSA)

1051 Budapest Arany János utca 32.

Registration: To register, send your name, email address and institutional affiliation to Julianna Lendvai (LendvaiJ@ceu.edu) before November 12, 2017.