Instructor: M. Velikonja
Nostalgia for Socialism in one of the most unexpected social, cultural and political phenomena that appeared in Post-Socialist transition, from Baltics to the Balkans. It acquired very different characteristics in different countries, for different people and for different reasons: for some, it is strictly personal; for others, it is a matter of cultural preferences, for the mass culture of those times; or is question of someone’s political orientation; some other yearn for the social elements of Socialism that are now lost; some use nostalgia just as another commercial niche.
The first part of the course is aimed to students with more theoretical interests in the phenomenon of nostalgia, its general characteristics, dimensions and contradictions, while the second will be focused on some particular elements of this nostalgic culture, like on ostalgie in East Germany, on jugonostalgija in ex-Yugoslav republics, on Soviet nostalgia in Russia etc.
