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The Future of (Post)Socialism
If socialism did not end as abruptly as is sometimes perceived, what remnants of it linger today and will continue to linger? Moreover, if postsocialism is an umbrella term for the uncertain times of various transitions that followed in socialism's wake, how might the "post" be rendered complicated by the notion that the unfinished business of socialism continues to influence the trajectory of the future? The Future of (Post)Socialism examines this unfinished business through various disciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches that seek to illuminate the postsocialist future as a cultural and social fact. Drawn from the fields of history, ethnology, anthropology, sociology, economics, political science, education, linguistics, literature, and cultural studies, contributors analyze various cultural forms and practices of the formerly socialist cultural spaces of Eastern Europe. In so doing, they question the teleology of linear transitional narratives and of assumptions about postsocialist linear progress, concluding that things operate more as continued interruptions of a perpetually liminal state rather than as neat endings and new beginnings.
The Cultural Life of Capitalism in Yugoslavia
This edited volume explores the cultural life of capitalism during socialist and post-socialist times within the geopolitical context of the former Yugoslavia. Through a variety of cutting edge essays at the intersections of critical cultural studies, material culture, visual culture, neo-Marxist theories and situated critiques of neoliberalism, the volume rethinks the relationship between capitalism and socialism. Rather than treating capitalism and socialism as mutually exclusive systems of political, social and economic order, the volume puts forth the idea that in the context of the former Yugoslavia, they are marked by a mutually intertwined existence not only on the economic level, but also on the level of cultural production and consumption. It argues that culture—although very often treated as secondary in the analyses of either socialism, capitalism or their relationship—has an important role in defining, negotiating, and resisting the social, political and economic values of both systems.
Survival of a Perverse Nation
In Survival of a Perverse Nation, Tamar R. Shirinian traces two widespread rhetorics of perversion—sexual and moral—in postsocialist Armenia, showing how they are tied to anxieties about the nation’s survival. In her fieldwork with Armenians, Shirinian found that right-wing nationalists’ focus on sexual perversion centers the figure of the homosexual, while questions of moral perversion surround oligarchs and other members of the political economic elite. While the homosexual is seen as non- or improperly reproductive, the oligarch’s moral deviations from the caring and paternalistic expectations associated with national leadership also endanger Armenia’s survival. Shirinian shows how both figures threaten the nation’s proper social reproduction, a source of great anxiety for a nation whose primary point of identity is surviving genocide. In the existential threat posed by these forms of perversion Shirinian finds paths where nonsurvival might mean the creation of futures that are queerer and more just. Detailing how the language of perversion offers trenchant critiques of capitalism as a perversion of life, Shirinian presents a new queer theory of political economy.
Underground Barbie
As the frequency of air raid sirens sending an apartment building's residents to the basement increases, the neighbor children block out reality with the toys at hand-- some imported from Western Europe and North America, others regional knockoffs or questionably improvised. Mas a Kolanovic's Underground Barbie brilliantly captures the vagaries of childhood as innocence gives way to the horrors of the news and the intrigues of sexual curiosity. The idealized glamour of Barbie and Ken on an endless perfect honeymoon morphs into make-believe scenarios that reflect the splintering social structure brought about by the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s: politicians campaigning to define what it means to be a " real" Croatian, a refugee ball with " disgusting" dolls lesser than " genuine" Barbie products, the discovery of a mass grave filled with the headless corpses thought to be Ken's mistresses. Underground Barbie wonderfully renders the power of imagination to overcome hardship alongside a sharp critique of consumer culture, made even more stark against the shredded backdrop of a great socialist experiment.
A Special Day
A young boy enjoys a visit with his grandparents at their house in the woods, where he meets a friendly, hungry bear.
Endless Endings
"Endless endings is an unusual literary work which combines poetry and fiction, contemporaneity and tradition. Some of the themes have been intertwined throughout Neva Lukic's work ever since she started writing: questioning the possibility of communication between people and the tendency towards fantasy. The author plays with the traditional genres such as fairy tale, myth, story and poem, and contemplates the issues of contemporary everyday life in the unusual frames of fantasy." (Vesna Solar) Neva Lukic (Zagreb, 1982) has published four books in the Croatian language (poetry & short stories) and a children's picture book. The collection of poems Haljina obscura received a prize for young poets from Matrix Croatica cultural society (2010). Endless Endings is the translation of a collection of short stories entitled More i zaustavljene priče, published by the Croatian Writers' Society (Zagreb, 2016) and republished by Treci Trg (Belgrade, 2018). Since 2011 Lukic has lived in the Netherlands, and Endless Endings in a certain way reflects her expat experience.
Self Portrait in Green
'NDiaye is a hypnotic storyteller with an unflinching understanding of the rock-bottom reality of most people's life.' New York Times ' One of France's most exciting prose stylists.' The Guardian. Obsessed by her encounters with the mysterious green women, and haunted by the Garonne River, a nameless narrator seeks them out in La Roele, Paris, Marseille, and Ouagadougou. Each encounter reveals different aspects of the women; real or imagined, dead or alive, seductive or suicidal, driving the narrator deeper into her obsession, in this unsettling exploration of identity, memory and paranoia. Self Portrait in Green is the multi-prize winning, Marie NDiaye's brilliant subversion of the memoir. Written in diary entries, with lyrical prose and dreamlike imagery, we start with and return to the river, which mirrors the narrative by posing more questions than it answers.
They Would Never Hurt A Fly
Slavenka Drakulic attended the Serbian war crimes trial in the Hague. This important book is about how ordinary people commit terrible crimes in wartime. With extraordinary story-telling skill Drakulic draws us in to this difficult subject. We cannot turn away from her subject matter because her writing is so engaging, lively and compelling. From the monstrous Slobodan Milosevich and his evil Lady Macbeth of a wife to humble Serb soldiers who claim they were 'just obeying orders', Drakulic brilliantly enters the minds of the killers. There are also great stories of bravery and survival, both from those who helped Bosnians escape from the Serbs and from those who risked their lives to help them.
Forgotten Journey
"The world is ready for her blend of insane Angela Carter with the originality of Clarice Lispector."—Mariana Enriquez, LitHub Delicately crafted, intensely visual, deeply personal stories explore the nature of memory, family ties, and the difficult imbalances of love. "Both her debut story collection, Forgotten Journey, and her only novel, The Promise, are strikingly 20th-century texts, written in a high-modernist mode rarely found in contemporary fiction."—Lily Meyer, NPR "Silvina Ocampo is one of our best writers. Her stories have no equal in our literature."––Jorge Luis Borges "I don't know of another writer who better captures the magic inside everyday rituals, the forbidden or ...
A Country for Dying
An exquisite novel of North Africans in Paris by "one of the most original and necessary voices in world literature" WINNER OF THE 2021 PEN TRANSLATION PRIZE Paris, Summer 2010. Zahira is 40 years old, Moroccan, a prostitute, traumatized by her father's suicide decades prior, and in love with a man who no longer loves her. Zannouba, Zahira's friend and protege, formerly known as Aziz, prepares for gender confirmation surgery and reflects on the reoccuring trauma of loss, including the loss of her pre-transition male persona. Mojtaba is a gay Iranian revolutionary who, having fled to Paris, seeks refuge with Zahira for the month of Ramadan. Meanwhile, Allal, Zahira's first love back in Morocco, travels to Paris to find Zahira. Through swirling, perpendicular narratives, A Country for Dying follows the inner lives of emigrants as they contend with the space between their dreams and their realities, a schism of a postcolonial world where, as Taïa writes, "So many people find themselves in the same situation. It is our destiny: To pay with our bodies for other people's future."
