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Svetlana Boym’s “Reflective Nostalgia: Conspiracies and Return to Origins” and “Restorative Nostalgia: Virtual Reality and Collective Memory” (from Boym, The Future of Nostalgia, 2002) (available as pdf)
 

Sean Homer’s “Retrieving Emir Kusturica’s Underground” (from Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media, Number 51, spring 2009, http://www.ejumpcut.org) (available as pdf)

 

 

 Narratives of Hungarian cultural identity: Glenn Patterson's Number 5

Lecture description: This lecture considers Glenn Patterson’s Number 5 (2003) as a community biography. In particular it discusses the ways in which Patterson’s novel reconfigures the received socio-cultural identity of Northern Ireland by ‘integrating’ a 1956 Hungarian political exile into its imagined suburban community of Belfast. In doing so Number 5 creates the tragic figure of the Irish community history as a victim of terrorism. Focussing on the cultural conflict between the Hungarian character and his Irish neighbour, I contend that Patterson opens up a space within which to re-negotiating the postcolonial self-definition of Ireland.I also consider how this account represents the refusal and the recognition of cultural differences in terms of Cold-War European history, and in terms of political distinctions between the West and Eastern Europe.

 Seminar focus questions:

1, In her article, ‘post-colonial vs. European,’ Edna Longley suggests that we may draw an analogy between Irish and Hungarian historical experiences. Does Patterson’s story reinforce this assumption? In your view, does the Cold War West-Eastern Europe comparative European context challenge the post-colonial Irish self-image?If yes/no why and how?

2, Patterson’s narrative outlines an Irish-Hungarian relational identity formation.  What stereotypical cultural images of the West vs. Eastern Europe does Patterson deploy in depicting the cultural conflict between McGovern and Hideg? How does Patterson reassert and/or subvert the East-West slope stereotypes?

3, Please find at least one more example of a narrative (short story, novel, film, photograph, etc.) which is engaged in the examination of the cultural differences or similarities between the West and Eastern Europe (or specific WE and EE countries) . Please prepare a short (c. 3- minute) presentation of your example.

Essential reading:
Longley, Edna (2000) ‘Postcolonial versus European (and Post-ukanian) Frameworks for Irish Literature.’The Irish Review, winter/spring 1999-2000, 25:75-94.

Melegh, Attila (2006) ‘I am suspicious of myself. East-West narratives at the turn of the millennium.’On the East-West Slope: Globalization, nationalism, racism and discourses on Central and Eastern Europe. Budapest and New York: Central European University Press, 127-88.

Patterson, Glenn (2003)‘McGovern.’ Number 5. London: Hamish Hamilton, 73-117.

Andrea P. Balogh is an assistant professor at Department of English, University of Szeged, Hungary and a PhD candidate in literature at KatholiekeUniversiteit Leuven, Belgium.  Her research interests include theories and politics of authorship in relation to contemporary British and Irish cultures, constructions of Eastern European identities and gender studies. She is the review editor of the Hungarian e-journal, TNTeF: Interdisciplinary Electronic Journal of Gender Studies (http://tntefjournal.hu/en/index.html).Her course-related publicationsinclude an essay on the sub-versions of Europe in Brian Friel’sFathers and Sons in Sub-versions: Trans-national Readings of Modern Irish Literature (Rodopi, 2010) and an essay on the trope of exile, nationalism, class and gender in Eavan Boland’s autobiography in She’s Leaving Home: Women’s Writing in English in a European Context (Peter Lang, 2011).  She is the co-editor of Queer Visibility in Post-socialist Cultures(Intellect, forthcoming 2012 Winter).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anna Lubecka, Jagiellonian University  

 

 

 

 

Children on the move: Transcultural Identities in Childhood Migrations

 

 

 

 

 

From a State of Nations to a Nation State:

Lecture description: Part academic analysis and part personal journey, this presentation sets out to understand the ‘sounds of migration’, to appreciate the music that accompanied two distinct yet connected groups of American migrants during the interwar years. First, I will discuss the African-American ‘Great Migration’. The 1920s saw a huge mobilization of Black southerners as they set out to northern cities, as they left the degradation and segregation of the Jim Crow south. This movement was accompanied by the tunes of the Delta blues, and by the subsequent integration of that sound into the Jazz Age. Second, I will consider the ‘Oakies’ during the dust-bowl depression of the 1930s. The Oakie migration to the seeming bountiful utopia of the American West was accompanied by American folk music. One musician, Woody Guthrie, captured the politics, sounds and emotions of that movement. His legacy was the folk revival and protest music of the 1960s.

Jack Lala is a senior lecturer at PWSZ w Krosnie where he teaches classes in American History and Culture. He has lived in Krosno, Poland for ten years, and during that time has taught also taught at PWSZ w Tarnowie,  Sefarik University in Kosice, Slovakia and Presov University in Presov, Slovakia.  He has an M.A in American History from Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas, and a B.A in American History from the University of Texas at Austin. His specialty area is American Social and Cultural History of the 20th Century with particular interests in Humor, Radio, Television and Film studies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brian Steinberg received his Ph.D. from New York University and M.A. from the University of Wisconsin in Madison.  He was awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Trainee Fellowship for 3 years and a National Science Foundation Grant for research at the University of Michigan Social Science Research Center.  He conducted his PhD field research in Italy.  He spent a year of special graduate study at MIT.  His specialties are comparative government and international relations, and he directs the award-winning Westfield State International Relations Club.  His present research is Left Center Coalitions in Italy and South Africa.

 

Beatriz Domínguez García. ([email protected])