An international conference on the cultural production of the ‘Long Perestroika’ (1985–2000) across the socialist and postsocialist world.
Convened by: Juliane Fürst (ZZF Potsdam), Bradley Gorski, Veronika Pehe, and Kathleen Smith.
The Long Perestroika (1985–2000) was an era of profound transformation, characterised by instability, fragmentation, and new opportunities for cultural expression. This conference, held at Georgetown University on March 7–8, 2025, examines new insights into how artists, intellectuals, and citizens navigated these turbulent times. Through panels on topics ranging from nationalism, print culture, and queer identities to the rise of capitalism and political networks, the conference aims to explore the diverse ways in which the lived experiences of the period were shaped and represented across the socialist and postsocialist world.
Program
Friday, March 7 (Alumni House, 3600 O St. NW)
9:30 am | Light Breakfast & Welcome
9:45 am–11:15 am
Representing the Nation
Klavdia Smola (U of Dresden), “Soviet Literatures, Perestroika, and Global Imagination”
Erik Scott (U of Kansas), “Perestroika and the Fragmentation of the Soviet Sports Empire”
Corinna Kuhr-Korolev (ZZF Potsdam), “Emergency Bloom? The Brief Perestroika of Soviet Museums”
Discussant: Kateryna Chernii (ZZF Potsdam)
11:15 AM–11:30 am | Coffee Break
11:30 AM–1:00 pm
Periodicals & Print
Madeleine Reeves (Cambridge), “Ephemeral Ink: ‘Wild Capitalism,’ the Print Crisis, and the Fragmentation of the Public Sphere in Early 1990s Kyrgyzstan”
Yoonmin Kim (Yale), “A Battle for Post-Soviet Poetry: The Literary Intelligentsia and Digital Graphomania”
Philip Tuxbury-Gleissner (Ohio State), “Perestroika Queer Periodicals: The Two Exceptional Decades of Lesbian and Gay Publishing in Russia”
Discussant: Serguei Oushakine (Princeton)
1:00 pm–2:00 pm | Lunch
2:00 pm–3:30 pm
Sexualities
Anna Dobrowolska (U of Basel), “Happy People of the World Unite!: Nude Activists Making Sense of the Crisis in 1980s and 1990s Poland”
Ioana Zamfir (Oxford), “Reconsidering Identity Formation and ‘Post-Soviet’ Transition in Belarus: Liminal Queer Identities, Resistance, and Power”
Roman Utkin (Wesleyan), “Outcasts: The Last Queer Soviet Generation”
Discussant: Thomas Keenan (Princeton)
3:30 pm–4:00 pm | Coffee Break
4:00 PM–5:30 pm
Presenting Capitalism
Alexis Peri (Boston U), “Miss USSR, 1989: Sexual Liberation and Exploitation during Perestroika”
Verenika Pehe (Czech Academy of Sciences), “Learning to do Business on TV: Small-Scale Enterprise and Spatial Transformation on Czechoslovak Television, 1987–1995”
Francis Kirk (ZZF Potsdam), “The ‘Crisis of Capitalism’ Comes Home: Crime Narratives and Ideological Fragmentation in Southern Ukraine, 1985–1991”
Discussant: Juliane Fürst (ZZF Potsdam)
6:00 PM–7:00 pm
Keynote by Nancy Ries (Colgate)
“Rupturous Discourse: The Sounds of Societal Unraveling in Late-Perestroika Moscow”
7:00 pm | Dinner (Riggs Library, Healy Hall, 3rd Fl)
SATURDAY, MARCH 8 (Location TBD)
9:00 am | Light Breakfast
9:30 am–11:00 am
Other Worlds
Milla Fedorova (Georgetown), “Back to the Past: Soviet Sci-Fi Cinematic Journeys in the Perestroika Era”
Elena Gapova (Western Michigan), “Apocalypse Then: Imagining Nuclear Winters During the Cold War”
Sasha Senderovich (U of Washington), “Tevye the Glasnost Man: The Figure of the Jew as a Cipher for Soviet Collapse”
Discussant: Bradley Gorski (Georgetown)
11:00 am–11:30 am | Coffee Break
11:30 am–12:30 pm
The Post-Soviet Sourcebook
The Post-Soviet Public Sphere Sourcebook, presented by Maya Vinokour, Courtney Doucette, Thomas Keenan, and Bradley Gorski
12:30 pm–1:30 pm | Lunch
1:30 pm–3:00 pm
Networks, Knowledge, Politics
Kristóf Nagy (Central European U), “Exploiting Fragmentation: The Cultural Production of the New Right in Post-Socialist Hungary”
Mark Lipovetsky (Columbia), “The Last Soviet Trickster: Vladimir Zhirinovsky and the Birth of Illiberal Populism”
Alexey Golubev (U of Houston), “From Soviet Knowledge Propaganda to Post-Soviet Political Technology: The Znanie Society During and After Perestroika”
Discussant: Kathleen Smith (Georgetown)
The Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies (CERES) at Georgetown University thanks the Carnegie Corporation of New York for generous support of our programming. Co-organized by The Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam (ZZF) and co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. Additional sponsorship from a Georgetown University Global Engagement Grant and the Czech Academy of Sciences.