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Transatlantic Central Europe

Jessie Labov

Transatlantic Central Europe

Contesting Geography and Redifining Culture beyond the Nation

While there are still occasional uses of it today, the term "Central Europe" carries little of the charge that it did in the 1980s and early 1990s, and as a political and intellectual project it has receded from the horizon. Proponents of a distinct cultural profile of these countries—all involved now in the process of Transatlantic integration—used "Central European", as a contestation with the geo-political label of Eastern Europe. This book discusses the transnational set of practices connecting journals with other media in the mid-1980s, disseminating the idea of Central Europe simultaneously in East and West. A range of new methodologies, including GIS-mapping visualization, is used, repositing the political-cultural journal as one central node of a much larger cultural system. What has happened to the liberal humanist philosophy that "Central Europe" once evoked? In the early years of the transition era, the liberal humanist perspective shared by Havel, Konrád, Kundera, and Michnik was quickly replaced by an economic liberalism that evolved into neoliberal policies and practices. The author follows the trajectories of the concept into the present day, reading its material and intellectual traces in the postcommunist landscape. She explores how the current use of transnational, web-based media follows the logic and practice of an earlier, 'dissident' generation of writers.
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Author

Jessie Labov

Jessie Labov is a Resident Fellow at the Center for Media, Data, and Society at Central European University, Budapest.

Title
Transatlantic Central Europe
Subtitle
Contesting Geography and Redifining Culture beyond the Nation
Author
Price
€ 122,00 excl. VAT
ISBN
9786155053290
Format
Hardback
Number of pages
246
Language
English
Publication date
Dimensions
15.9 x 23.4 cm
Category
Political Science
Discipline
Social and Political Sciences
Imprint
Also available as
eBook PDF - € 121,99
Table of Contents
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List of Figures
List of Maps
Introduction: Movements of Texts across Borders

PART I: Cross Currents and Its Transatlantic Central European Imaginary
Chapter One: The Political-Cultural Journal: The Case of Cross Currents
Cross Currents: A Yearbook of Central European Culture
Distribution and Diaspora
Why The New York Review of Books?
The Postcolonial Intersection
Cross Currents as Essay and Encyclopedia

Chapter Two: The Debate over Central Europe—from Jews to Yugoslavia
The Domains of Central Europe
Divergent Definitions of Central Europe: Miłosz and Kundera
Flight from Byzantium: Kundera vs. Brodsky on Dostoyevsky
The Lisbon Conference: May 7–8, 1988
The North–South Axis Returns: Central and Southeastern Europe
Two Yugoslav Entries: Vladimir Dedijer and Danilo Kiš

PART II: Further Essays in Contesting Geography and Redefining Culture
Chapter Three: Borders, Editors, and Readers in Motion
The Need for New Geographies
Interwar Hungary beyond Its Borders
Parallel Routes from Independence through War: Giedroyc and Grydzewski, Part I
Polish Émigré Publishing after the Second World War: Giedroyc and Grydzewski, Part II
Reading Kultura from a Distance
Towards an Extra-Territorial Literature

Chapter Four: Transmedial Work-Arounds after 1989
Moving beyond Text and Context
Abuses of the Helsinki Charter in Yugoslavia (1989)
The Case of Radio B92/B2-92: From Analog to Digital Practices (1990s)
Ukraine, Belarus, and beyond Central Europe (2000s): From Online to Offline Work-Arounds

Conclusion: Redefining Transatlantic Central Europe Today

Bibliography
Index

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