We wish to invite you to another open lecture which is a part of IAS Invited Lecture Series in Materiality of (Post)socialism. The meeting will take part January 24, starting at 6 PM. It'll be online via MS Teams. The lecturer is Agnes Gagyi from the University in Göteborg.
Abstract:
This talk will discuss the different patterns in which energy scarcity after 1973 and housing commodification after 1989 were contested in Hungary and Romania. The analysis contributes to thinking about the materiality of (post)socialism by showing how constructs of political reflection are built from conditions of structural tensions without presuming a transparent relation between the two. Instead, the analysis pinpoints effects of local and transnational political environments, different socio-political alliances, and unreflected influences of structural conditions on the production of political reflection. While such effects are recognized by political theory and social movement studies, the fiction of political reflection as intentional and transparent is a cornerstone of political debates, including those on CEE. In the tradition of materialist analysis, the talk aims to broaden that sphere of contemplation by emphasizing effects of structural transformations that inform politics in ways that remain unconscious and unintentional.
About the lecturer:
Agnes Gagyi obtained her PhD in Social Communication in 2011 at the University of Pécs, Hungary. Since 2017 she is Researcher at the Department of Sociology and Work Science at University of Gothenburg. Before that she worked as Associate Adjunct Professor at Eszterházy Károly University, Hungary, and conducted research projects at New Europe College, Romania, and George Mason University, USA. She is a founding member of the Working Group for Public Sociology “Helyzet” in Budapest. Recent publications: "The Political Economy of Middle Class Politics and the Global Crisis in Eastern Europe" (Palgrave, 2021) and "The Political Economy of Eastern Europe 30 years into the ‘Transition’" (co-edited with Ondrej Slacalek, Palgrave 2021).