Workshop “Industries, Institutions and Everyday Cultures in Transformation”
23 October 2020, Library Reading Room, Institute of Contemporary History, Czech Academy of Sciences, Vlašská 355/9, Prague
The transformation from planned to market economies in Central and Eastern Europe is increasingly becoming a subject of interest not only for economic, but also social and cultural historians. In this workshop, we want to bring historians, sociologists and economists of different disciplines together to ask the simple question: what were the effects of the transformation of the economy on the social and cultural sphere? Looking broadly at industries and institutions – understood both as enterprises and cultural industries – how did the transition to a capitalist model of production affect the work and everyday lives of the actors involved? The aim is to find intersections between the traditional focuses of social and cultural history and to set into conversation scholars working on different national contexts in order to draw comparative conclusions. The workshop will map the field and state of the art of current scholarship. For more information, please contact Veronika Pehe.
Programme
9:30-9:35 Welcome (Veronika Pehe and Vítězslav Sommer)
9:35-10:00 Introductory remarks by Thomas Lindenberger (Hannah-Arendt-Institute for Totalitarianism Studies, Dresden)
10:15-12:00 Panel 1: Changing institutions and values
- Chair & discussant: Vítězslav Sommer (Institute of Contemporary History, Czech Academy of Sciences)
- Martin Babička (University of Oxford), “‘The Future Is in Your Hands’: Privatization in Czechoslovakia and the Making of a Neoliberal Self”
- Joanna Rozmus (University of Vienna), “Lost in Transformation(s)? Postsocialism and New Ruralities in Southeastern Poland, 1991-2004”
- Miroslav Tížik (Institute for Sociology, Slovak Academy of Sciences), “Changing Relations of the State and Churches in Slovakia After 1989 and Transformations of Religiosity”
12:00-13:00 Lunch
13:00-15:00 Panel 2: Privatization and work
- Chair & discussant: Petr Roubal (Institute of Contemporary History, Czech Academy of Sciences)
- Máté Rigó (Yale NUS College, Singapore/Imre Kertesz Kolleg, Jena) “Selling the Socialist Passport: How Hong Kong’s China Crisis and Hungarian Reform Communists’ Financial
Crisis Became Intertwined in 1989” - Eszter Bartha (Hannah-Arendt-Institute for Totalitarianism Studies, Dresden), “‘If I Put My Life Together, these Political Waves Brought Me Several Breaks…’: The Heterogenous
Working-Class Experience of the Transformation of 1989-1991” - Václav Rameš (Charles University) “Between Market without Adjectives and Economic Democracy. The Impact of Different Political Visions on Organizing the Czechoslovak
Privatization” - Eva Schäffler (Institute for Contemporary History, Munich), “The Threat of Insolvency: Czech Enterprises on their Way from Planned to Market Economy”
15:00-15:15 Coffee Break
15:15-17:00 Panel 3: The field of culture and culture industries
- Chair & discussant Jan Mervart (Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences)
- Jindřiška Bláhová (Charles University), “Schizophrenic Pioneers of Late Capitalism: Post- Communist Transformation of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, 1990 – 1995”
- Olga Gontarska (Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History, Polish Academy of Sciences), “A Victim of the Unfinished Transformation. The Ukrainian Film Industry as a Mirror of the
Post-Soviet Absurd” - Veronika Pehe (Institute of Contemporary History, Czech Academy of Sciences), “Postsocialist Cinema Meets the Market: The Case of Czech Republic and Poland”
This workshop has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 749475 and the Hannah-Arendt-Institute for Totalitarianism Studies, TU Dresden.