240511 SE Whither Post-Socialism - Any News from the Former Socialist World? (P3, P4) (2015W)

The anthropology of post-socialism has put several issues on the discipline’s overall agenda. This seminar explores this vast body of literature and tracks several of the contributions stemming from it. Whilst scrutinising issues of power, socio-economic change, time and agency, it asks whether the category 'post-socialist' still makes sense more than 25 years after the fall of Iron Curtain. This seminar will give much space and attention to reading and discussing monographs and articles by prominent post-socialist scholars, including Katherine Verdery, Caroline Humphrey and Elizabeth Dunn. It will also pay special attention the anthropologies of East Germany and Ex-Yugoslavia, and look at more recent theoretical advances by younger scholars. Whilst we will only cover particular aspects of post-socialist anthropology, students will be encouraged to develop a critical stance towards this sub-discipline and its future as well as towards more general theoretical, analytical and methodological problems.