Lisiak, Agata Anna. Urban Cultures in (Post)Colonial Central Europe Cover Image

Lisiak, Agata Anna. Urban Cultures in (Post)Colonial Central Europe
Lisiak, Agata Anna. Urban Cultures in (Post)Colonial Central Europe

Author(s): Alexander Vari
Subject(s): Review
Published by: AHEA: E-Journal of the American Hungarian Educators Association

Summary/Abstract: Focusing on the post-1989 urban representation of Berlin, Warsaw, Prague, and Budapest and their identity-shaping processes over the past two decades, Agata Anna Lisiak’s book is not just a welcome addition to the field of comparative cultural studies but a book with a strong and innovative theoretical agenda. Lisiak’s main argument is that the history of urban space in the above-mentioned Central European capital cities is best interpreted if read through the lenses of postcolonial theory and Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek’s concept of “in-between peripherality.” Critical of the post-socialist and post-communist labels that have been used to describe developments in the region since 1989, Lisiak instead proposes the concept of the (post)colonial. According to her, after the end of the colonial period which was marked by Sovietization and their belonging to the Eastern Bloc, during the last two decades the four Central European capitals analyzed in the book have experienced the spread of globalization and westernization, which has been equivalent to their entering a new period of coloniality.

  • Issue Year: 2012
  • Issue No: 05
  • Page Range: 1-2
  • Page Count: 2
  • Language: English
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