MATERIAL CULTURE OF SOCIALISM: CURRENT DEBATES AND NEW PERSPECTIVES – with Julie Deschepper

On 28 April 2020 at 4.30pm – with Julie Deschepper (Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute, Florence)

Zoom Seminar

This seminar proposes to engage a critical reflection on socialist material culture in post-socialist contexts. More broadly, itintends to provide some analytical and methodological tool to tackle issues related to the material persistence of a defeated political regime in the public space.

Indeed, it’s a fact: thirty years after the fall of socialism in Europe, the material remains of this past are still omnipresent. Architecture, monuments, symbols are still visible and tangible everywhere, however these ‘presences’ are extremely different depending on the contexts. This phenomenon has been extensively analyzed by scholars among different disciplines. The seminar proposes an overview of the ways researchers have tackled the issue of this so-called ‘socialist heritage’, insisting on the last transformations of this field of research and on its new research questions. Further, based on several case studies, the seminar will invite participants to reflect on the methodology that can be used to study more generally monumental and urban heritage today.

Julie Deschepper (European University Institute, Florence)

Dr. Julie Deschepper is an historian of Russia. Her scholarly interest is focused on the cultural heritage of the Soviet past, and her research includes Soviet monumental productions, material culture of socialism and historical memory in Russia.

Link to her page on the EUI website