All meetings are on Wednesdays, from 12-1:00

Session 1 / April 24 (FAB 4.73)

Second Hand Time reading: “Remarks from an Accomplice” and “Snatches of Street Noise and Kitchen Conversations” pp. 23-68

Supplementary reading: Susan Buck Morss, “Losing the Enemy,” and the first part of “One World…Link opens in a new window” Dreamworld and Catastrophe: The Passing of Mass Utopia in East and West, MIT Press, 2002, pp. 214-251 (ending with “sustain it”) (Nicer scanned version with images available hereLink opens in a new window)

Session 2/ TUESDAY May 7 12-1 (FAB 3.31) Moved because of the train strikes

Second Hand Time reading: “On the Beauty of the Dictatorship and the Mystery of Butterflies Crushed against the Pavement” and “On Brothers and Sisters, Victims and Executioners… and the Electorate” pp. 73-143

Supplementary reading: Lea Ypi, “13. Everyone Wants to Leave” (pp. 174-186), “18. Structural Reforms” (pp. 240-250), “20. Like the Rest of Europe” (pp. 263-273) and “Epilogue” (pp. 205-310) in Free: Coming of Age at the End of History, Penguin, 2022. A pdf of the excerpts is available here. (A copy of the whole book is available here).

Session 3 / May 22 (FAB 5.02)

Second Hand Time reading: “On Cries and Whispers….and Exhilaration” and “On the Lonely Red Marshal and Three Days of Forgotten Revolution” pp. 145-217

Supplementary reading: Xenia Cherkaev, “Introduction: Households and HistoriographiesLink opens in a new window,” Gleaning for Communism: The Soviet Socialist Household in Theory and Practice, Cornell University Press, 2023, pp. 1-29

Session 4 / June 5 (Student Hub)

Second Hand Time reading: “On the Mercy of Memories and the Lust for Meaning” and “On a Different Bible and a Different Kind of Believer” pp. 219-282

Supplementary reading: Dubravka Urgesic, “The Confiscation of MemoryLink opens in a new window,” New Left Review 218 (July/August 1996), pp. 26-39

Session 5 / June 26 (Student Hub)

Second Hand Time reading: “On the Cruelty of the Flames and Salvation from Above” and “On the Sweetness of Suffering and the Trick of the Russian Soul” pp. 285-355

And if time “On a Time When Anyone Who Kills Believes That They are Serving God” and “On the Little Red Flag and the Smile of the Axe” pp. 357-423

Supplementary reading: Volodomyr Ishchenko, “Ukrainian VoicesLink opens in a new window,” New Left Review 138 (Nov-Dec 2022), pp. 1-10