ONLINE: The Cold War from the Margins: Socialist Bulgaria on the Global Cultural Scene

press release: AREA STUDIES SHOWCASE LECTURE SERIES: RUSSIA, EASTERN EUROPE, AND CENTRAL ASIA

(All lectures will be streamed virtually – free and open to the public.)

“The Cold War from the Margins: Socialist Bulgaria on the Global Cultural Scene”

with Theodora Dragostinova, associate professor of history, The Ohio State University

In the 1970s, officials and intellectuals in communist Bulgaria launched an ambitious program of international cultural outreach. Paris, Vienna, London, Munich, and New York City all hosted spectacular exhibitions of Bulgarian ancient treasures and medieval icons, but Bulgarian cultural ambassadors also sponsored concerts, film showings, and book readings in regional centers and rural areas throughout Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Focusing on Bulgarian cultural events in India, Mexico, and Nigeria, this talk highlights the role of culture in a small state’s foreign policy choices. By interrogating the unique notions of development that emerged out of these encounters, it explores the role of cultural diplomacy in the relationship between the Second and the Third Worlds during the later years of the Cold War.

Presented by the 2018-2021 U.S. Department of Education Title VI National Resource Center and Foreign Language and Area Studies grant recipients for Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia. Follow this link for the full lineup of lectures. 

This lecture series is a collaborative effort to showcase an area studies specialist from each center focusing on the Russian, East European, and Central Asian world region. The series is sponsored by the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University; the Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley; the Russian, East European & Eurasian Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; the Russian and East European Institute at Indiana University; the Center for Russian, East European, & Eurasian Studies at the University of Michigan; the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies at The University of Texas at Austin; the Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center at Indiana University; the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies at the University of Pittsburgh; the Center for Russia, East Europe, and Central Asia at the University of Wisconsin – Madison; the Center for East European and Russian/Eurasian Studies at The University of Chicago; and the Center for Slavic and East European Studies at The Ohio State University.

The U.S. Department of Education International and Foreign Language Education (IFLE) office administers Title VI (domestic) and Fulbright-Hays (overseas) grant and fellowship programs that strengthen foreign language instruction, area/international studies teaching and research, professional development for educators, and curriculum development at the K-12, graduate, and postsecondary levels.

The National Resource Centers (NRC) program provides grants to establish, strengthen, and operate language and area or international studies centers that will be national resources for teaching any modern foreign language. Grants support: instruction in fields needed to provide full understanding of areas, regions or countries; research and training in international studies; work in the language aspects of professional and other fields of study; and instruction and research on issues in world affairs.

The Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowships program provides allocations of academic year and summer fellowships to institutions of higher education or consortia of institutions of higher education to assist meritorious undergraduate students and graduate students undergoing training in modern foreign languages and related area or international studies. Eligible students apply for fellowships directly to an institution that has received an allocation of fellowships from the U.S. Department of Education.