Annotation
So called “culture wars” have become a feature of populist politics in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in the last ten years. CEE publics regularly polarise in confrontations on moral, identity and memory issues. The course will focus on the interpretation of the phenomenon of what is now openly called “culture wars”.
The course will be opened by a few examples. In the first we will analyze the various meaninfs of the concept, starting with Kulturkampf and culture wars in its original context of Bismark's Germany and the USA of the 1980s. Subsequently, key texts on the concepts of culturalization, civilizationism and identity will be read. In the third part, the course will deal with contemporary manifestations of so-called culture wars in Europe based on texts on the policies of memory, politics of morality and politics of identity. The course will close with a debate about the specifics of Central European manifestations of so-called culture wars.