TOPICS IN EASTERN EUROPEAN HISTORY: COMMUNISM IN EASTERN EUROPE
| HIS G8380 Spring 2000 |
W 2:10-4:00 |
| East Central European Center Columbia University 1230 International Affairs Building 420 West 118th Street, MC 3336 New York, NY 10027 |
Tel:
212.854.6287 |
19 January. Introduction.
26 January. Is There a Balkans and, If So, What Does It Mean?
Maria Todorova. Imagining the Balkans. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1997.
Suggested Reading: Larry Wolff. Inventing Eastern Europe. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1994.
2 February. What Was There Before Communism?
Ivan Berend. Decades of Crisis. Berkeley: University of California, 1998.
Suggested Reading: Joseph Rothschild. East Central Europe between the Two World Wars. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1973.
9 February. Nation-Building in Interwar Eastern Europe.
Irina Livezeanu. Cultural Politics in Greater Romania. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1995.
Strongly suggested reading: Rogers Brubaker. Nationalism Reframed. Cambridge: CUP, 1996. Chapters 1 and 3 (theoretical and interwar Poland).
16 February. Problems of the Imposition of Communism I: The Workers.
Padraic Kenney. Rebuilding Poland. Workers and Communists 1945-1950. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1997.
Suggested reading for weeks two and three: R. W. Seton-Watson. The East European Revolution. NY: Praeger, 1951 and/or Zbigniew Brzezinski. The Soviet Bloc. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1961.
23 February. Problems of the Imposition of Communism II: The Intellectuals.
Bradley Abrams. "The Struggle for the Soul of the Nation’: Czech Culture and Socialism 1945-1948." Unpublished Ph. D. Dissertation. Stanford University, 1997.
1 March. Stalinism and the Problem of Class in Eastern European History.
György Konrád and Ivan Szelényi. The Intellectuals on the Road to Class Power. A Sociological Study of the Role of the Intelligentsia in Socialism. NY/London: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1979.
Suggested Reading: Milovan Djilas. The New Class. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1957.
8 March. The Prague Spring.
Kieran Williams. The Prague Spring and Its Aftermath. Cambridge: CUP, 1997.
Suggested Reading: H. Gordon Skilling. Czechoslovakia’s Interrupted Revolution. Princeton: PUP, 1976.
15 March. Spring Break.
22 March. Solidarity.
Roman Laba. The Roots of Solidarity. A Political Sociology of Poland’s Working-Class Democratization. Princeton: PUP, 1991.
Background: David Ost. Solidarity and the Politics of Anti-Politics. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1990.
N.B. Readings here not finalized.
29 March. Rethinking the Results of Crisis.
Grzrgorz Ekiert. The State Against Society. Political Crises and Their Aftermath in East Central Europe. Princeton: PUP, 1996.
Background: György Litván. The Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Reform, Revolt and Repression 1953-1956. London/NY: Longman, 1996.
5 April . The Problem of the Economy.
János Kornai. The Socialist System. The Political Economy of Communism. Princeton: PUP, 1992.
Valerie Bunce. "The Empire Strikes Back: The Evolution of the Eastern Bloc from a Soviet Asset to a Soviet Liability." International Organization 39 (1985) 1-46.
12 April: The Problem of Nationalism.
Katherine Verdery. National Ideology Under Socialism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.
19 April. The Problem of the Intellectuals.
Tony Judt. "The Dilemmas of Dissidence: The Politics of Opposition in Eastern Europe." East European Politics and Societies 2 (1988) 184-240.
Other readings shortly TBD.
Suggested Reading: Vladimir Tismaneanu. The Crisis of Marxist Ideology in Eastern Europe. The Poverty of Utopia. London/NY: Routledge, 1988.
26 April. The Problem of Interpreting the Fall of Communism.
Leslie Holmes. "Theories and Approaches." In: Leslie Holmes. Post-Communism. Durham: Duke UP, 1997. 1-62.
Daniel Chirot. "What Happened in Eastern Europe in 1989?" In: Daniel Chirot, ed. The Crisis of Leninism and the Decline of the Left. Seattle: UWP, 1991. 3-32.
Ken Jowitt. "The Leninist Extinction," "The Leninist Legacy" and "A World Without Leninism." In: Ken Jowitt. New World Disorder. The Leninist Extinction. Berkeley: UCP, 1992. 249-331.
Background: Gale Stokes. And The Walls Came Tumbling Down. Oxford: OUP, 1993.
3 May. The Problems of Communism and Post-Communism.
Katherine Verdery. What Was Socialism and What Comes Next? Princeton: PUP, 1996.
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The course is designed as a standard colloquium. It will introduce students to the problems of communism in Eastern Europe, and particularly to the most recent scholarship on, and debates over, particular facets of the history of communist Eastern Europe and the nature of communism in the region. It is designed to address specific points – the coming of communism to the region, the re-evaluation of the crises of the communist regimes, understandings of communism’s collapse – that have become points of contention since the opening of archives in the region after 1989. Further, it is designed to raise broader questions – the role of class, nationalism, etc. – the answering of which has caused scholars to employ new theoretical approaches and look at different actors. By balancing these two concerns of specific issues and broader theorizing attempts, the course will bring to light the most recent evidence and expose students to the new ways in which scholars are thinking about the problem of communism in the region.The course requirements are two five-seven page critiques/reviews of the book for the week. In addition to this, the students will be required to write a two-page review for a professional journal and a ten-page review essay (in the style of the New York Review of Books) on the same book. The rationale for this is to train the students in how to write for different audiences. They need to learn already now how to write for educated non-professionals and to economize on space for true professionals, because they will (whether as professors or outside of academia) be forced to write to such audiences later in life. Finally, students will be asked to present and lead discussion on readings at least one week in the semester.
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