This book provides an answer to one of the most intriguing questions of the Cold War era: what would have happened if writers in ex-communist Eastern European countries had been free to explore the topics of their choice and express themselves as they saw fit? Bringing into focus the works of three American critics of Romanian origin, who in the 70s chose exile to the U.S. to life under dictatorship, this book unveils how their desire to resist political manipulation and to develop a free system of thinking evolved into an interest to overcome the dualistic polarities embedded in the divided mentality informing both Eastern and Western Europe after the Second World War. As Matei Calinescu, Virgil Nemoianu and Mihai Spariosu create distinctive "American" critical voices, their understanding of the aesthetic evolves into full- fledged theories of modernity, "the secondary," and irenic, non-agonal mentality, thus contributing to the much-desired, post-1989 philosophical re- connection between the ex-communist and the free world.

This book offers a fresh perspective on the Post- Soul aesthetic and its role in re-writing African- American identity-- by focusing explicitly on three contemporary authors: Spike Lee, Tour, and Suzan- Lori Parks. My premise is that Post-Soul art is a direct result of the sweeping changes brought by the post-Civil Rights era in the African-American mentality, which inaugurated a new age in African- American art. Thus, the Post-Soul generation represents blackness as diverse, free to define itself in its own terms; they promote a critical take on black nationalism, and new perspectives on slavery. Most of the Post-Soul artists consider themselves "cultural mulattos," people able to navigate equally in the white and the black worlds, artists who programmatically explore the boundaries of blackness, and use non-traditional black cultural influences in their art works. Determined to (re) Signify on both black and white cultural references, Post-Soul artists challenge both stereotypical images of African-American promoted by mainstream culture and, the sometimes, sentimentalized iconic figureheads of their own community.

Despite its key role in the intellectual shaping of state socialism, Communist ideas are often dismissed as mere propaganda or as a rhetorical exercise aimed at advancing socialist intellectuals on their way to power. By drawing attention to unknown and unexplored areas, trends and ways of thinking under socialism, the volume examines Eastern Europe and Russian histories of intellectual movements inspired - negatively as well as positively - by Communist arguments and dogmas. Through an interdisciplinary dialogue, the collection demonstrates how various bodies of theoretical knowledge (philosophical, social, political, aesthetic, even theological) were used not only to justify dominant political views, but also to frame oppositional and nonofficial discourses and practices. The examination of the underlying structures of Communism as an intellectual project provides convincing evidence for questioning a dominant approach that routinely frames the post-Communist intellectual development as a "revival" or, at least, as a "return" of the repressed intellectual traditions. As the book shows, the logic of a radical break, suggested by this approach, is in contradiction with historical evidence: a significant number of philosophical, theoretical and ideological debates in post-Communist world are in fact the logical continuation of intellectual conversations and confrontations initiated long before 1989.