Yet another Europe after 1984 : : rethinking Milan Kundera and the idea of Central Europe / / edited by Leonidas Donskis.

• TeilnehmendeR: Donskis, Leonidas.
• Year of Publication: 2012
• Language: English
• Series: Value inquiry book series ; v. 252; Value Inquiry Book Series 252.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (233 p.)
• Notes: International conference proceedings.

Much of the debates in this book revolves around Milan Kundera and his 1984 essay “The Tragedy of Central Europe.” Kundera wrote his polemical text when the world was pregnant with imminent social and political change, yet that world was still far from realizing that we would enter the last decade of the twentieth century with the Soviet empire and its network of satellite states missing from the political mappages Kundera was challenged by Joseph Brodsky and György Konrád for allegedly excluding Russia from the symbolic space of Europe, something the great author deeply believes he never did. To what extent was Kundera right in assuming that, if to exist means to be present in the eyes of those we love, then Central Europe does not exist anymore, just as Western Europe as we knew it has stopped existing? What were the mental, cultural, and intellectual realities that lay beneath or behind his beautiful and graceful metaphors? Are we justified in rehabilitating political optimism at the beginning of the twenty-first century? Are we able to reconcile the divided memories of Eastern or Central Europe and Western Europe regarding what happened to the world in 1968? And where is Central Europe now?

Table of Contents

Preliminary Material -- WHAT IS “CENTRAL” IN CENTRAL EUROPE? / Zygmunt Bauman -- CENTRAL EUROPE: KUNDERA, INCOMPLETENESS, AND LACK OF AGENCY / George Schöpflin -- I REMEMBER, THEREFORE I AM: MILAN KUNDERA AND THE IDEA OF CENTRAL EUROPE / Leonidas Donskis -- WE ARE ALL CENTRAL EUROPEANS NOW: A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE EUROZONE CRISIS / Stefan Auer -- EUROPE, CENTRAL EUROPE, AND THE SHAPING OF COLLECTIVE EUROPEAN AND CENTRAL EUROPEAN IDENTITIES / Mitja Žagar -- MISSING IN DEMOCRATIC TRANSITION: INTELLECTUALS / Rudi Rizman -- CENTRAL EUROPE AND INTERCULTURALITY: A NEW PARADIGM FOR EUROPEAN UNION INTEGRATION? / Stefano Bianchini -- EUROPEAN LANGUAGE IDEOLOGIES: IS THERE A FUTURE FOR HOMOGENEITY? / Ineta Dabašinskienė -- MASS MEDIA, ALTERNATIVE SPACES, AND THE VALUE OF IMAGINATION IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE / Auksė Balčytienė -- KUNDERA, NÁDAS, AND THE FICTION OF CENTRAL EUROPE / J. D. Mininger -- REINVENTING CENTRAL EUROPE / Krzysztof Czyżewski -- CENTRAL EUROPE: MYTH, INSPIRATION, OR PREMONITION? / Samuel Abrahám -- THE GLOOMIEST OF DESTINIES? INTELLECTUALS AND POWER IN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE / Rein Raud -- ABOUT THE AUTHORS -- INDEX OF NAMES -- VIBS.