Anthropology of postsocialism

fakultatywne

- Knowledge of English on the B2 level, both written and oral.

The painful process of leaving the socialist past behind in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) now have been going on for almost 30 years already. This distance in time allows us to draw some conclusions about dynamic social and cultural changes that took place during that time. Even though socialist period might seem to be just a remote past, its legacy still affects lives of hundreds of millions of people across Eurasia.

The course is dedicated for both Polish and international students willing to get to know better the social transformations in CEE. It will comprise perspectives of social anthropology, history, and economics.

To paraphrase Katherine Verdery, what was socialism and what came next? Both issues are far from being obvious. In the class, we will adopt an anthropological approach to transformation processes. We will look at them from both the grassroots and bird-eye perspectives, trying to reconstruct connections between economic and political changes in macro scale and social actions responding and reshaping those changes in a micro scale.

Thus, to give example of such method, is it possible to pay the bill for electricity with milk? How many kilogram of potatoes eats the average Russian a year and why is the expensive Swedish margarine better than the cheap and fresh Estonian butter? Questions like those will accompany us during our classes. We will link them to questions that concern international politics and economic development.

Boym S., Common Places. Mythologies of Everyday Life in Russia, Cambridge-London 1994: Harvard University Press.

Dunn E., Privatizing Poland: Baby Food, Big Business, and the Remaking of Labor, Ithaca, NY and London 2004: Cornell University Press.

Hann Ch. (ed.), Postsocialism: Ideas, Ideologies and Practices in Eurasia, London 2002: Routledge.

Humphrey C, The Unmaking on Soviet Life: Everyday Economies after Socialism, Ithaca, NY 2002: Cornell University Press.

Snyder, T., Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569 - 1999, New Haven 2003: Yale Univ. Press.

Verdery K., What was socialism, and what comes next?, Princeton 1996: PUP.

Wedel J. R., Private Poland, New York 1986: Facts on File.

Yurchak A., Everything was forever, until it was not more, Princeton 2006: PUP.

a. Knowledge:

- has basic knowledge of academic terminology in the field of cultural anthropology, history and sociology; (K_W04)

- has sufficient knowledge and understanding of relationships between various disciplines of humanities and social sciences to enable trans-disciplinary cooperation with representatives of these disciplines; (K_W14)

- is aware of dynamic development of cultural processes and new research methods and the need for constant updating of already obtained knowledge (K_W10)

b. Skills:

- is able to analyse, interpret and use information from various written and iconographic sources; (K_U01)

- knows the advantages of interdisciplinary workshop and is able to use knowledge and methods appropriate to different disciplines of social sciences and humanities; (K_U05)

- is able to formulate research questions and hypotheses, to present research results in the form of argumentation in favour of a particular thesis and summarize it with conclusions using the literature on the subject. (K_U08)

- in case of non-native English speakers: knows a foreign language on a B2 level and is able to present their analytical skills and research in this language (K_U11, K_U12)

c. Social competences:

- is open to new ideas and willing to change opinion in the light of the available data and arguments;

- independently formulates proposals for solution of new situations and problems on the basis of creative analysis; (K_K02)

- understands the principles of tolerance and cultural differences. (K_K05)