Thinking from the East? Geographies of Postsocialism and the Geopolitics of Knowledge

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The seminar series “Thinking from the East (?): Postsocialist geographies and the geopolitics of knowledge” is our attempt to challenge a pervasive absence in this university: that of the “postsocialist,” “Eastern European,” “Central Asian,” “Balkan,” “postsoviet,” (etc.) subject. At the epistemic margins of the European project, we see something more than our own peripherality: we see colonial logics at work, ones that seeks to suppress not only certain kinds of knowledge, but also certain kinds of people. This seminar series will engage with the very exciting emerging literature that highlights the colonial logics that sustain a certain kind of Eastern European subject, while erasing (or worse) others (particularly Muslim and Roma Europeans); writing that speaks against ‘colorblindness’ and assimilation in the region; and scholarship that builds bridges and solidarity with other knowledges that are marginalized in the academy. In doing so, we hope to build a network of researchers in and around Cambridge working to challenge epistemic erasure and imagine other worlds.