The Spectrum of Communism

The two-day symposium addresses left wing political thought and artistic practice in a transnational context. It explores the shifts in historiography that affected knowledge production in humanities and social sciences, as well as developments in the field of arts. The symposium pays special attention to some of the fundamental aspects of 20th century globalization: the transmission, circulation and reception of values, cultures, and beliefs. The symposium is accompanied by film screenings within the framework of Verzio International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival.

PROGRAM
November 16, 2017, Thursday
9:30 a.m. Registration

10:00 a.m. Opening Speech

10:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m., Panel 1 ,“Transnational Communism”
Chair: Anna Mazanik (Blinken OSA, CEU)
Jiří Hudeček (Charles University, Prague), “Scientific Exchange Among Revolutionaries: Czechoslovakia and China in the 1950s and 1960s”
Viviana Iacob (New Europe College, Bucharest), “Caragiale in Calcutta: Romania—India Cultural Exchanges during the Cold War”
Nemanja Radonjic (University of Belgrade), “A Socialist Shaping of the Postcolonial Elite. Students from Africa in Socialist Yugoslavia”
Péter Apor (MTA BTK, Budapest), “Goulash Socialism in the Jungle: Hungary and the Export of Socialist Economy”
Discussant: Bogdan C. Iacob (New Europe College, Bucharest)

Break

3:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m., Panel 2, “Factory of Facts”
Chair: Marsha Siefert (CEU)
István Rév (Blinken OSA, CEU), “Episodes in the History of ‘The Makers of Facts’”
John MacKay (Yale University), “Vertov’s Allegories of Revolutionary Change”
Oksana Sarkisova (Blinken OSA, CEU), “Facts and Little Facts: Anti-Documentarist Campaign and the Birth of Soviet Documentary”
Peter Bagrov (Gosfilmofond, Moscow), “The Judgement of History: Fridrikh Ermler’s Reconstructions of the Past”
Discussant: Yuri Tsivian (U of Chicago)

Break

6:00 p.m., Film screening: (Part of The Traces of Communism – The Missing Siege program series at Blinken OSA)
Storming of the Winter Palace (Nikolai Evreinov, 1920) with introduction by Yuri Tsivian (University of Chicago) and Daria Khitrova (Harvard University) (program duration 90’)

November 17, 2017, Friday
10:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. Panel 3, “What is Left from Marxism? Post-Communist Critical Thinking on the Left”
Chair: Iván Székely (Blinken OSA)
Florin Poenaru (Criticatac), “Resisting Left-Wing Melancholia”
Ágnes Gagyi (University of Gothenburg), “Class and Intellectual Politics: Some Notes on the Contexts of a New Intellectual Left in Hungary and Romania”
Ioana Macrea-Toma (Blinken OSA), “Killing a Chinese Mandarin in Romania. On the Aporias of Leftist Interpretations of the ‘Anti-corruption’ Protests”
Ilya Budraitskis (OpenLeft, LeftEast), “Heritage without Heirs? The 1917th Anniversary, Kremlin’s Historical Politics and the Conservative Appropriation of the Revolution”
Discussant: Mihai Dan Cirjan (CEU)

Break
2:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m., Panel 4 “The Culture of Labor / The Labor of Culture: Artists at Work”
Chair & Discussant: Katalin Timár (PTE, Pécs; Ludwig Museum, Budapest)
Péter György (ELTE, Budapest), “Hidden Values – The Price of Art in Different Cold War Contexts”
Kristóf Nagy (Artpool Art Research Center, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest): “Thinking in the Market: Changing Attitudes Towards the Commodification of Art in the 1980’s Hungary”
Katalin Székely (Blinken OSA, CEU), “The Value of Work – Volunteering Art Workers”
Pascal Gielen (Universtity of Antwerp), “Commonism – The Aesthetics of a New Ideology”

Break
17:00 Film screening within the framework of Verzio International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival.
1917 – The Real October (Katrin Rothe / Switzerland, France, Germany / 90’)

Registration: To register, send your name, email address and institutional affiliation to Julianna Lendvai (LendvaiJ@ceu.edu) before November 12, 2017.

The program is in English.

In the framework of the “The Traces of the Revolution” program series that is part of the one-year program series “What's Left?”.