The collapse of communist rule and transformation towards liberal democracy and the free market in Eastern Europe has been studied from a variety of perspectives. This course will focus on how this process has been captured in popular cinema of the late 1980s and 1990s. Students will learn to approach popular culture as a useful historical source for investigating the expectations, stereotypes, and imaginaries associated with the introduction of the free market in Central and Eastern Europe after 1989. Focusing on films from four countries (Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Germany), students will analyse how filmmakers interpreted the changing economic, social and political conditions of the 1990s, covering areas such as the rise of private enterprise, criminality, social inequalities, consumer culture and the gendered aspects of transformation.
- Teacher: Veronika Pehe