This book explores post-communist thresholds as materializations of a specific crisis of modern European identity that was caused by the existence and sudden breakdown of Soviet-type communism. It shows how post-communist thresholds emerge where relics from the communist experience continue disrupting the routines and rhythms of a modern life and confront Europeans with cultural experiences, affects and material realities of the 'enlightened world' which they usually seek to repress or ignore. In exploring and writing through art projects which engage with the psychosocial fabric of such post-communist thresholds, this book finds ways of speaking and thinking through these transitory and paradox sites, and asks what we can say about other or new worlds, about new beginnings and endings as well as about decolonial and ethical ways of relating to the other when assessing the status quo of European modernity from within its liminal and crisis-driven sphere.

Shortlisted for the British Sociological Association's Philip Abrams Memorial Prize Advances a new understanding of the post-communist threshold Discusses how art and aesthetic experiences allow for a knowledge of the crisis of European modernity Identifies an aesthetic form of memory bringing to life the contradictions at the heart of European history

Autorentext

Magda Schmukalla is a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck College, University of London. Her work advances a decolonial, feminist and artistic study of social life. She has been awarded an ESRC post-doctoral research grant and is co-initiator of the Communist Hauntings project.

Inhalt

Chapter 1: Prologue - Trying to speak from a place that never was .- Chapter 2: Introduction: Post-communist Thresholds.- Chapter 3: Artistic Ruptures.- Chapter 4: Unthought Places.- Chapter 5: Uncanny Encounters.- Chapter 6: Missed Awakenings.- Chapter 7: Conclusion - about storks and other migrating people.