Dr Barton Hronesova awarded UCL Critical Area Studies research grant

Dr Jessie Barton Hronesova, Lecturer in Political Sociology, has been awarded a UCL Critical Area Studies research grant, which will be used to curate a workshop on Portrayals of “the West” in Eastern Europe. The workshop will take place 7 June at UCL SSEES.

The aim of this workshop is to tease out the complicated facets of various contemporary understandings, imaginations, and meanings of the West in the realms beyond its imagined boundaries in Eastern Europe. While much ink has been spilled on debating the western imaginings of the East, this workshop will re-focus the discussion on the West as a political, cultural, and historical entity in eastern imaginations. In a discussion with scholars, artists and media experts, the workshop aims to trace the origins, contents, and changes in the imaginings and representations of the West in Eastern Europe in general, and in the former Yugoslavia in particular. It will also explore the idea of “disillusionment” with the West and ponder over the two dominant portrayals of the West: as a value-driven beacon of prosperity and democracy and a neo-colonial, interest-driven, interventionist hegemon to problematize these binary and myopic portrayals. The aim is to discuss the political currency of these representations and explore how integrating scholarly critiques and creative practices can capture both progressive and regressive aspects of Western political interventions.