New Book: In Marx's Shadow. Knowledge, Power and Intellectuals in Eastern Europe and Russia

[Elena Gapova]

Dear list members,

below is information on a very recent book on post-socialist intellectuals.
e.g.

In Marx's Shadow. Knowledge, Power and Intellectuals in Eastern Europe and
Russia.
Edited by Costica Bradatan and  Serguei Alex. Oushakine.
Lexington Books, Lanham (MD), 2010, vi+296 pp, ISBN: 978-0-7391-3624-9
(Hardcover), $80.00

Table of Contents:

Introduction by Costica Bradatan, Serguei Oushakine

I. The Sickle, the Hammer and the Typewriter

1) "Ideas against Ideocracy: The Platonic Drama of Russian Thought" by
Mikhail Epstein
2) "Asking for More: Finding Utopia in the Critical Sociology of the
Budapest School and the Praxis Movement" by Jeffrey Murer
3) "Aesthetics: a Modus Vivendi in East Central Europe?" by Letitia Guran
4) "Changing Perceptions of Pavel Florensky in Russian and Soviet
Scholarship" by Clemena Antonova

II. Heretics

5) "The Totalitarian Languages of Utopia and Dystopia: Fidelius and Havel"
by Veronika Tuckerova
6) "Martyrdom and Philosophy. The Case of Jan Patocka" by Costica Bradatan
7) "Anti-Communist Orientalism: Shifting Boundaries of Europe in Dissident
Writing" by Natasa Kovacevic

III. In Search of a (New) Mission

8) "Vitality Rediscovered: Theorizing Post-Soviet Ethnicity in Russia" by
Serguei Oushakine
9) "Balkanism and postcolonilaism or on the Beauty of the Airplane View" by
Maria Todorova
10) "Anxious Intellectuals: Framing the Nation as a class in Belarus" by
Elena Gapova

IV. Reinventing Hope

11) "The Demise of Leninism and the Future of Liberal Values" by Vladimir
Tismaneanu
12) "'Politics of Authenticity' and/or Civil Society" by Ivars Ijabs
13) "Mihai Sora: A Philosopher of Dialogue and Hope" by Aurelian Craiutu

===================
"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, Walter E. Havighurst Professor of Political
Science and Director of the Havighurst Center for Post-Soviet Studies, Miami
University

"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."-Ronald Grigor Suny, Director, Eisenberg Institute for
Historical Studies, at The University of Michigan



Despite its key role in the intellectual shaping of state socialism,
Communist ideas are often dismissed as mere propaganda or as a rhetorical
exercise aimed at advancing socialist intellectuals on their way to power.
By drawing attention to unknown and unexplored areas, trends and ways of
thinking under socialism, the volume examines Eastern European and Russian
histories of intellectual movements inspired - negatively as well as
positively - by Communist arguments and dogmas. Through an interdisciplinary
dialogue, the collection demonstrates how various bodies of theoretical
knowledge (philosophical, social, political, aesthetic, even theological)
were used not only to justify dominant political views, but also to frame
oppositional and nonofficial discourses and practices.

The examination of the underlying structures of Communism as an intellectual
project provides convincing evidence for questioning a dominant approach
that routinely frames the post-Communist intellectual development as a
"revival" or, at least, as a "return" of the repressed intellectual
traditions. As the book shows, the logic of a radical break, suggested by
this approach, is in contradiction with historical evidence: a significant
number of philosophical, theoretical and ideological debates in
post-Communist world are in fact the logical continuation of intellectual
conversations and confrontations initiated long before 1989.

List of Contributors
Clemena Antonova; Aurelian Craiutu; Mikhail Epstein; Elena Gapova; Letitia
Guran; Ivars Ijabs; Natasa Kovacevic; Jeffrey Murer; Veronika Tuckerova;
Vladimir Tismaneanu; Maria Todorova

Costica Bradatan is assistant professor in the Honors College at Texas Tech
University.

Serguei Alex Oushakine is assistant professor of Slavic Languages and
Literature and associate faculty in the Department of Anthropology at
Princeton University.

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