Review
Bradatan and Oushakine's volume maps out the vast territory of philosophical issues shaped and left behind by decades of state socialism. It is the first attempt of its kind in conditions of post-socialism, and as such it will provide an immense assistance to those seeking to understand what the real, deep, and abiding philosophical conflicts are around the ideas of communism. This is an excellent volume with outstanding contributions from anthropologists, historians, philosophers, and political scientists. -- Karen Dawisha The voices of those who dissented from Communism in Russia and Eastern Europe were heard in distinct ways in the West and faintly at times in their own societies. The editors of this collection have brought leading scholars of culture and discourse to explore analytically the words and images with which dissident intellectuals explained their world of "unfreedom." Some of those thinkers and writers rejected entirely the Leninist enterprise; others hoped to reform it into a humane socialism. Seldom have Western observers listened as attentively to the voices of those within as the participants in this volume. Here we find language and aesthetics as weapons, utopia as hope and despair, and both the enabling power of words and the limits of imagination. -- Suny, Ronald Grigor The variety of views informing this book makes for a rewarding read. The fact that they are often at methodological, if not political, loggerheads increases rather than diminishes its attractiveness. Just as much can be learned from different treatments of the same subject, so there is, for western scholars, ample reason to appreciate the advancement in our terms of discussion brought about by the addition of scholars from the former socialist states to our conferences, publishing outlets, and universities. Where we once ambled about the arid ideoscape of Cold War categories and, then, neoliberal simplicities such as "democratization" and "institution building," we now engage with richer, more promising, and certainly more challenging ways of thought introduced in no small measure by those who used to be over there. Slavic Review
Product Description
The volume draws attention to the unknown and unexplored areas, trends and ways of thinking under the communist regime. It demonstrates how various bodies of knowledge (philosophical, social, political, aesthetic, even theological) were produced, disseminated and used for a wide variety of purposes: from openly justifying dominant political views to framing oppositional and non-official discourses and practices.
