Eastern European Engagements with Africa and Blackness from the Cold War to Postsocialism

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

This panel analyzes Eastern European engagements with Africa and Blackness from the Polish involvement at the University of Ghana in the 1960s to the Bulgarian participation in Nigerian cultural and educational projects in the 1970s to the competing (post-) Yugoslav ideas of Blackness in the context of both the Nonalignment Movement and the contemporary Yugoslav successor states (with a focus on Serbia). The three analyses critically interrogate notions of imperial legacy, “civilizing missions,” race and racialization, and the endurance of empire, examining colonial discourses and postcolonial theories in the study of Eastern Europe’s encounters with Africa and the world. Methodologically, the contributions span the history of development, international history, cultural history, cultural studies, and critical race studies.

Sub Unit

• History: Central and Southeast Europe, Since 1918

Chair

• Malgorzata Fidelis, U of Illinois at Chicago

Papers

• Agents of Africanization?: University of Ghana, Eastern Europeans, and the Power of Imperial Legacy - Małgorzata Mazurek, Columbia U

• Fighting 'Backwardness' and 'Foreign Domination': Bulgaria in Post-Civil War Nigeria - Theodora Dragostinova, Ohio State U

• Blackness in Yugoslavia and the Post-Yugoslav Space: From the Non-Aligned Movement to 'Serbia in the World' - Sunnie Trine'e Rucker-Chang, U of Cincinnati

Discussant

• Maria N. Todorova, U of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign