Across the Gray Zone: US Writers and the Czech Jazz Section

• In Event: New Approaches to Czechoslovak Dissent

Abstract

My paper explores the shifting dynamics of literary exchange, dissent, and human rights activism in the last decade of the Cold War by focusing on the international campaign on behalf of the imprisoned leaders of the Jazz Section of the Czech Musician’s Union. In North American this effort was spearheaded by the novelist Josef Škvorecký, organized by the activists of Helsinki Watch, and publicized by US writers like John Updike and Kurt Vonnegut. In particular, I will examine the Western reception of the concept of the “gray zone": the idea of an alternative cultural and social space for artists, professionals, and everyday citizens who refuse the false choice between resistance and collaboration.

Author

• Brian Kruzick Goodman, Arizona State U