Transformative Podcast

Is the era of neoliberal globalism over? In this episode moderated by Prof. Dr. Jannis Panagiotidis (Scientific Director, RECET), our guest Assoc. Prof. Dr. Quinn Slobodian (Wellesley College) considers the history and current state of global capitalist governance and asks what directions it may take in the future. Quinn Slobodian is a historian of modern German and international history with a focus on North-South politics, social movements, and the intellectual history of neoliberalism. His most recent book is "Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism" (Harvard University Press, 2018). 

Is the legacy of dissidence, rather than the legacy of communism, driving the current illiberal turn in some East Central European states' politics? In this episode moderated by Rosamund Johnston (RECET), our guest Michal Kopeček (Institute of Contemporary History, Prague/ Imre Kertész Kolleg, Jena) discusses how dissidents shaped political discourse in the region both before and after the revolutions of 1989. Following the "legacies of dissidence" to the present, Kopeček considers how dissident ideas provide the fuel for culture wars ongoing in East Central Europe today.   Michal Kopeček is a historian, co-director of Imre Kertész Kolleg in Jena and, since 2003, the head of the Late- and Post-Socialism Studies Department at the Institute for Contemporary History in Prague. He is the co-author of A History of Modern Political Thought in East Central Europe (Oxford, 2018).

Governments in East Central Europe have long relied on radical neoliberal reforms as a strategy to leave socialism behind. In this episode, moderated by RECET's founding director Philipp Ther, our guest Prof. Dr. Dorothee Bohle discusses how neoliberalism became resilient once again. She examines the relationship between authoritarianism and neoliberalism and argues for a gendered perspective on the topic.   Dorothee Bohle is a professor at the Department of Political and Social Sciences of the European University Institute. She is co-author of Capitalist Diversity on Europe's Periphery (2012), for which she won the Stein Rokkan Prize for Comparative Social Science Research.

Milan is a city that is synonymous with industry, as well as with style. In this episode, moderated by Dean Vuletic (RECET), we take a tour of Milan with Prof. Anne-Marie Jeannet as we discuss her research on de-industrializing societies and the political consequences. From the glamorous square of the city centre to the industrial chic of other neighbourhoods, Prof. Jeannet explains how Milan has been transformed by de-industrialization, while still remaining an industrial powerhouse. Anne-Marie Jeannet is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Milan. She studies how changes in the social structure, such as deindustrialization or immigration, alter political life. She is the principal investigator of "Deindustrializing Societies and the Political Consequences" (DESPO), a project funded by an ERC Starting Grant (2020-2025).

Which factors play a leading role in the transformation and collapse of modern autocracies? In this episode, moderated by Anastassiya Schacht (RECET), our guest Prof. Sergei Guriev (Sciences Po) talks about the methods used by modern autocracies to convince their voters, their relationship with the economy and economic crises, and about what it takes to co-opt the country's elites.    Sergei Guriev is professor and Scientific Director of the Master and PhD programmes in Economics at SciencePo (Paris). He received his Dr. Sc. (habilitation degree) in Economics and PhD in Applied Math from the Russian Academy of Science. His research interests include political economics, labor mobility, corporate governance and contract theory.

What can translations tell us about the societies in which they are published? In this episode, moderated by Rosamund Johnston (RECET), Dr. Eva Spišiaková (University of Vienna) reflects upon one hundred years of Shakespeare's sonnets in Czech and Slovak translation. Spišiaková uses the "love poems of all love poems" to uncover shifting attitudes towards gender and sexuality in Czechoslovakia, and measure changes accompanying the country's Velvet Revolution in 1989. Eva Spišiaková is a REWIRE postdoctoral fellow at the University of Vienna's Center for Translation Studies. She is the author of Queering Translation History: Shakespeare's Sonnets in Czech and Slovak Transformations (Routledge, 2021). Her current research explores how disability has historically been represented in translation.

Talking about sex and educating young people about the challenges and questions related to human sexuality is a sensitive and often controversial topic. In this episode, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Agnieszka Kościańska (University of Warsaw) talks to Lukas Becht (RECET) about the rich and fascinating history of sex education in the XX. century with a focus on Poland. It is a story of transformations and conflicts that requires us to rethink linear, teleological and progressivist concepts of transformative historical change. Agnieszka Kościańska is an anthropologist, an Associate Professor in the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Warsaw, and recently Leverhulme Visiting Professor, University of Oxford. Her latest book, published by Berghahn Books in 2021, is "To see a Moose! The History of Polish Sex Education".

In this episode, RECET's Dr. Anna Calori talks with Tobias Rupprecht, Head of the Junior Research Group "Peripheral Liberalism", about Tobias's recent project on peripheral liberalism, economic reform debates in socialist countries, and the history of globalisation in the 1990s. Dr. Tobias Rupprecht is a global historian with a particular interest in the history of (state) socialism and (neo)liberalism. His research has mostly addressed Soviet and Eastern European encounters with the Global South, and economic reform debates in socialist countries. He taught Russian history in Denmark and the UK before becoming head of the 'Peripheral Liberalism' research group at the cluster of excellence 'Contestations of the Liberal Script' in Berlin.

Free movement of people is a contentious issue. In this episode, moderated by RECET's Scientific Director Jannis Panagiotidis, Cecilia Bruzelius talks about how states deal with the resulting challenges to labor markets and welfare states, what free movement means for European citizenship, and what mass emigration does to East European societies. Prof. Dr. Cecilia Bruzelius is a Junior Professor of Political Science at Tübingen University. In her research, she focuses on free movement in history and the present, with a particular focus on the issues of citizenship and the welfare state.

Not many know that Accra, the capital of Ghana, is home to architecture designed by Eastern Europeans. In this episode, Thuc Linh Nguyen Vu (RECET) talks to Prof. Łukasz Stanek about his award-winning book, in which he examines the role Eastern European experts - architects and engineers - played in supporting newly postcolonial states in their efforts to bring about a social transformation through urbanization. How can architecture contribute to, bring about, and document major changes in the global Cold War dynamic? What lessons can we learn from taking a close look at the entanglements between postcolonialism and socialism?   Łukasz Stanek is Professor of Architectural History at the University of Manchester, UK. Professor Stanek is the author of "Henri Lefebvre on Space: Architecture, Urban Research, and the Production of Theory" (University of Minnesota Press, 2011) and "Architecture in Global Socialism: Eastern Europe, West Africa, and the Middle East in the Cold War" (Princeton University Press, 2020), which won the Alice Davis Hitchcock Medallion by the SAH GB and the RIBA President’s Award for History & Theory Research.

How have technologies, politics, and social expectations transformed the work of journalists in Central Europe over the past three decades? And which journalistic practices and market forces might combine to characterize a “Central European” media environment?   In this episode of the Transformative Podcast, Rosamund Johnston (RECET) speaks to Gerald Schubert, a reporter on Central and Eastern Europe for Austrian newspaper Der Standard. He reflects on a career spanning 20 years in both the Czech Republic and Austria, and on a “worsening” situation for journalists today in both of these states, as well as elsewhere in Europe.

How did the discovery of oil in Persia transform Persian society and British imperialism in the Middle East at the turn of the century? In this episode moderated by Dr. Sheng Peng (RECET), Leonardo Davoudi explores the formal and informal dealings of politicians, investors, civil servants, and intermediaries during the development of the Persian petroleum industry from its uncertain beginnings to becoming one of British Empire’s most valuable pocessions in the Middle East.   Dr. Leonardo Davoudi is an associate member of Oxford University’s History Faculty and a researcher with the Global History of Capitalism project at the Oxford Centre for Global History. He is the author of “Persian Petroleum: Oil, Empire and Revolution in Late Qajar Iran” (Bloomsbury Academic, 2020). His research interests lie at the intersection of imperialism and capitalism.

In the last days of the Habsburg monarchy, Vienna vied with Prague for the title of the largest Czech city. Today, a tiny fraction of the Austrian capital’s population would identify as Czech. Nonetheless, community centers and clubs established during the heyday of Czech migration continue to exist. In this episode of the Transformative Podcast, Rosamund Johnston (RECET) speaks to two of those most involved in their maintenance, Mojmír Stránský (RECET) and Dr. Věra Gregorová. Introducing Czech Vienna’s landmarks and associations, Stránský and Gregorová reflect upon why these spaces continue to be relevant, and indeed upon these sites’ new significance in a city once again characterized by multilingualism and migration.   Mojmír Stránský is completing a dissertation on voluntary organizations in Czechoslovakia and Austria (1980-2000) at the University of Vienna. He also works in the history department at the Komenský Gymnasium. Dr. Věra Gregorová is the director of Vienna’s Hotel Post and the Czech Heart association based in this building.

The first week of January 2022 was largely shaped by news of protests rapidly escalating all across Kazakhstan. In the span of only a few days, the situation changed from nationwide peaceful protests citing economic reasons, over demands for political change, violent rallies and lootings in the country´s largest city, to what appears as a coup, resulting from a power struggle between the former and the current presidents. With the latter calling in the foreign troops, and Russia significantly involved yet again - the week has seen a landslide change in the political landscape of the world´s 9th largest country - and of the whole Central Asian region.   Anastassiya Schacht is an associated researcher at RECET. Here, she speaks with Viktoria Morasch, a journalist working for newspapers Die Zeit and Tageszeitung.

The Covid-19 pandemic has shown the world the importance of coordinating health policies at a global level. What can we learn from the history and politics of global health? In this episode, moderated by Anna Calori (RECET), Dora Vargha reflects upon the role of the socialist world in shaping the recent history of medicine, as well as current approaches to global health and epidemics.   Dora Vargha is Professor of History and Medical Humanities at the University of Exeter and at Humboldt University, Berlin. She is principal investigator of the ERC-funded project “Socialist Medicine: an Alternative Global Health History”, and the “Connecting3Worlds” Wellcome Trust collaborative project.

Ukrainians went from being a nation of occasional voters whose rights existed mainly on paper in the 1990’s to a society with strong civil society institutions and a vibrant democracy post Maidan Revolution of 2013/14. In this episode moderated by Irena Remestwenski (RECET), Valeria Korablyova (Charles University in Prague) reflects upon the concept of performative citizenship, the role of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and the new empowered Ukrainian citizen who is willing to make a difference in the political field. Dr. Valeria Korablyova is Senior Research Fellow at Charles University, Department of East European Studies. She received her habilitation in 2015 from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, where she worked as Professor of Philosophy. Her research interests include post-Communist transformations in Ukraine and East Central Europe with a specific focus on mass protests and nation-building.

Die russische Invasion in die Ukraine ist ein Angriff auf ganz Europa. In diesen bestürzenden Zeiten steht das Forschungszentrum RECET unseren ukrainischen KollegInnen bei, die gezwungen sind, sich in Luftschutzkellern zu verstecken und für Ihre Freiheit kämpfen.   In der heutigen Sonderausgabe veröffentlichen wir neu das Interview des preisgekrönten Osteuropa-Historikers und RECET-Gründers Philipp Ther mit Einordnungen zur Lage in der Ukraine, zu den historischen Hintergründen des Konflikts und zu den Ambitionen Russlands. Die Diskussion hat Ulrich Kühn geführt.   Zuerst veröffentlicht bei: "Das Gespräch"| NDR Kultur | 27.02.2022

Putin´s aggression against Ukraine released a landslide change in international politics, economy, academia, and public culture. Within Russia itself, it triggered an avalanche of repressive policies, which are the culmination of Russia's long-term crackdown on any form of opposition to the regime. Russia's ideological program behind the invasion re-appropriates and re-writes history, while the country itself returns to its authoritarian past. In this episode, Anastassiya Schacht (RECET) is talking to Prof. Dr. Sergey Radchenko, Wilson E. Schmidt Distinguished Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a scholar of Cold War and Sino-Soviet security politics.

United Europe has many dimensions. In the history of European unification, liberal projects of economic integration have coexisted and competed with ideas of social justice & solidarity, but also of Europe as a power. In this episode, RECET's Scientific Director Jannis Panagiotidis discusses the book "Europe contre Europe: Entre liberté, solidarité et puissance" with its author Laurent Warlouzet.   Laurent Warlouzet is professor at Paris Sorbonne University, chair of European history. A former postdoctoral fellow at the European University Institute and at the London School of Economics, he has published a book entitled "Governing Europe in a Globalized World. Neolibearlism and its Alternatives after 1973" (Routledge 2018). Based on British, French, German and EU archives, it explores the debate between social-democratic, neoliberal and neomercantilist policies in Western Europe between 1973 and 1986. He has also published on the history of competition and industrial policies.

Overshadowed by the military aggression against Ukraine, "Memorial" was banned and forced to close in Russia. The oldest non-governmental organization in the region, dating back to the late Soviet era and Andrey Sakharov's engagement, "Memorial" has been a prominent actor in Human Rights and memory politics.  Anna Dobrovolskaya is a former Executive Director of the Human Rights Center "Memorial". In this episode, she is talking to RECET's Managing Director Irena Remestwenski on roots, activities, heritage of the movement, and not the least on hope and perspectives for democracy in Russia.