This workshop will contribute to a growing counter-commentary that reckons with ‘outmoded’ motifs in the built landscapes of East and Central Europe. Socialist building projects are too often savored as ruins and filed away as elegies to utopian chimeras. Signatures of moved and dispersed populations in the topography of these regions are often memorialized in a discourse of nostalgia forecloses on the future. Are there other stories to tell about buildings and spaces that have outlived their original ideological assignments? Can we swap out a forensic account of obsolescence for a discussion of how these environments were lived in and made use of? What options exist today for repurposing, preserving and re-inhabiting these time-stamped sites: how can we accommodate their particularities, and how can they once again accommodate us? Throughout two days of conversations, we will reflect on these questions and voice some strategies for enlivening and caring for the heterogeneous landscapes of today’s East and Central Europe.
Please note this conference will take place at the following locations and times:
- Friday, Oct. 23: International Affairs Building, Room 1512, Columbia University. No ID required.
- Saturday, Oct. 24: Heyman Center for the Humanities, Second Floor Common Room. ID required for entry.
This event is sponsored by the East Central European Center at Columbia University. It is part of the Campus Project organized by Culture.pl.
October 23, 2015 Friday
5:30pm - 8:00pm EDT
Alan Timberlake
Professor of Slavic Languages; Director of East Central European Center
Jana Berankova
PhD Student
Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation
Andrzej Szczerski
Professor
Institute of Art History, Jagiellonian University
Markian Prokopovych
Lecturer
Institute for East European History, University of Vienna
October 24, 2015 Saturday
9:30am - 10:00am EDT
10:00am - 12:30pm EDT
Tarik Amar
Assistant Professor of History
Columbia University
Michael Meng
Assistant Professor of History
Clemson University
Erica Lehrer
Canada Research Chair in Post-Conflict Memory, Ethnography, and Museology
Concordia University
Sofia Dyak
Director
The Center for Urban History of East Central Europe
Eagle Glassheim
Associate Professor of History
Department of History, University of British Columbia
Anna Kats
Architecture and Design Editor
Blouin Artinfo
12:30pm - 2:30pm EDT
2:30pm - 4:00pm EDT
Małgorzata Mazurek
Associate Professor of Polish Studies
Columbia University
Lukasz Stanek
Lecturer
School of Environment, Education and Development, University of Manchester
Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Columbia University
4:00pm - 6:30pm EDT
Eliza Rose
PhD Student, Slavic Languages and Literatures Program, Columbia University
David Crowley
Professor and Head of Critical Writing in Art & Design
School of Humanities, Royal College of Art
Adam Mazur
Lecturer
University of Arts in Poznań
Vladimir Kulić
Associate Professor of Architectural History and Theory
School of Architecture, Florida Atlantic University
Juliet Koss
Associate Professor of Art History, Director of the Humanities Institute
Scripps College