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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.
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