[csaa-forum] [ Seminar ]

[Transforming Cultures]

Special Transforming Cultures Seminar. Friday August 5th, 2005.
Room: 7065 (Building 2)
Time: 4.00 - 5.30pm

Constructions of the "West" in Recent Cultural Debates in Postsocialist 
Hungary

Dr. Anna Szemere
Portland State University USA

Chair: Tony Mitchell

Can one talk of a coherent notion of the West in the discourse of 
postsocialist Europe? The very act of carving out a space between East 
and West and calling it Central Europe by Hungary, the Czech Republic 
and Poland suggests that the West-East mapping of Europe is inadequate 
in the post-Cold War era. Neither has the idea of the West remained 
unchanged in this period. The political controversies of the Bush 
administration with its traditional European allies, France and Germany 
and its unconcealed attempts to re-divide a Europe by mustering support 
from former East European nations are evidence of the cartographic and 
strategic re-configuration of the West.
There is a great deal of semiotic confusion about the signifier 
“Europe” as well. While the West is being reconstrued almost daily, so 
is the East. The new European identity is defining itself not only by 
‘generously’ incorporating much of Central and Eastern Europe but by 
creating the Turkish, the Russian, and the Balkan Other. Are the 
wealthy Western nations seen as civilizers or colonizers of local 
cultures? How such constructions are made and challenged in and through 
the realm of cultural production? My talk will look at the discursive 
construction of the West in Central Europe through using the example of 
recent cultural debates in Hungary.

Bio

Anna Szemere teaches cultural sociology at Portland State University. 
She has published  numerous articles and book chapters on popular 
culture issues and politics in Eastern Europe. Her book Up from the 
Underground: The Culture of Rock Music in Postsocialist Hungary came 
out in 2001. She served on the Executive Committee of the International 
Association of Popular Music (1997-99) and on the International 
Advisory Board of Popular Music (1986-96).

[keri glastonbury]
transforming cultures centre
university of technology sydney
po box 123
broadway nsw 2007
ph +61 2 95142309
www.transforming.cultures.uts.edu.au


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