This talk explores post-communist thresholds as materializations of a specific crisis of modern European identity that was caused by the existence and sudden breakdown of Soviet-type communism. It illustrates along an art project that was installed at the Freud Museum in London how such post-communist thresholds are not placed at the margins of Europe but at its centre, where they disrupt common routines and narratives and like that bring to the fore affects which are usually hidden. The talk is based on the recently published book Communist Ghosts (2021) which weaves together critical theory, psychoanalysis, art, and the personal in order to revive communist spirits against their modern grain.

This book explores post-communist thresholds as materializations of a specific crisis of modern European identity that was caused by the existence and sudden breakdown of Soviet-type communism. It shows how post-communist thresholds emerge where relics from the communist experience continue disrupting the routines and rhythms of a modern life and confront Europeans with cultural experiences, affects and material realities of the ‘enlightened world’ which they usually seek to repress or ignore. In exploring and writing through art projects which engage with the psychosocial fabric of such post-communist thresholds, this book finds ways of speaking and thinking through these transitory and paradox sites, and asks what we can say about other or new worlds, about new beginnings and endings as well as about decolonial and ethical ways of relating to the other when assessing the status quo of European modernity from within its liminal and crisis-driven sphere.

The Speaker

Magda Schmukalla is a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck College, University of London. Her work advances a decolonial, feminist and artistic study of social life. She has been awarded an ESRC post-doctoral research grant and is co-initiator of the Communist Hauntings project.

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