Transatlantic Central Europe : : Contesting Geography and Redifining Culture beyond the Nation / / Jessie Labov.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Central European University Press eBook-Package 2019
• VerfasserIn: Labov, Jessie,
• Place / Publishing House: Budapest ;, New York : : Central European University Press, , [2019]; ©2019
• Year of Publication: 2019
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (246 p.)

While there are still occasional uses of it today, the term "Central Europe" carries little of the charge that it did in the 1980s and early 1990s, and as a political and intellectual project it has receded from the horizon. Proponents of a distinct cultural profile of these countries—all involved now in the process of Transatlantic integration—used "Central European", as a contestation with the geo-political label of Eastern Europe. This book discusses the transnational set of practices connecting journals with other media in the mid-1980s, disseminating the idea of Central Europe simultaneously in East and West. A range of new methodologies, including GIS-mapping visualization, is used, repositing the political-cultural journal as one central node of a much larger cultural system. What has happened to the liberal humanist philosophy that "Central Europe" once evoked? In the early years of the transition era, the liberal humanist perspective shared by Havel, Konrád, Kundera, and Michnik was quickly replaced by an economic liberalism that evolved into neoliberal policies and practices. The author follows the trajectories of the concept into the present day, reading its material and intellectual traces in the postcommunist landscape. She explores how the current use of transnational, web-based media follows the logic and practice of an earlier, 'dissident' generation of writers.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Table of Contents -- List of Figures -- List of Maps -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction: Movements of Texts across Borders -- Part One. Cross Currents and Its Transatlantic Central European Imaginary -- Chapter One: The Political-Cultural Journal: The Case of Cross Currents -- Chapter Two: The Debate over Central Europe—from Jews to Yugoslavia -- Part Two. Further Essays in Contesting Geography and Redefining Culture -- Chapter Three: Borders, Editors, and Readers in Motion -- Chapter Four: Transmedial Work-Arounds after 1989 -- Conclusion: Redefining Transatlantic Central Europe Today -- Bibliography -- Index -- Gallery