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The Seminar: Mode d'emploi Impure Spaces in the Light of Late Totalitarianism

The Seminar: Mode d'emploi Impure Spaces in the Light of Late Totalitarianism Theory and terror his essay will address the private/public division in the light of a phenomenon that emerged as a major feature of the last decade of the communist regime in Bulgaria and that came to be designated as “the seminar.” The seminar? In Bulgaria? Over ten years ago? Who would care about this? Yet over and beyond the nostalgia that drives the survivors into incessant squabbling over the fossils of the seminar,1 there is the major mystery that the seminar—from its restricted, elitist inception in the late ’70s to its spilling over from the bursting university auditoriums into street action and clashes with the police in the spring and summer of 1989—was produced as the dominant trajectory of the crumbling of totalitarian power. Thus, if we cannot say that the seminar brought down the totalitarian regime—although what did? there is no definitive answer yet—we can say for certain that the regime in Bulgaria brought along the seminar as the one major symptom of its demise. The seminar makes us face the enigma of an indomitable political, economic, and military machine disintegrated by discourse: by “glasnost,” or—to put Gorbachev’s d – i – f– f– e – r http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies Duke University Press

The Seminar: Mode d'emploi Impure Spaces in the Light of Late Totalitarianism

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Publisher
Duke University Press
Copyright
Copyright 2002 by Brown University and differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies
ISSN
1040-7391
eISSN
1527-1986
DOI
10.1215/10407391-13-1-96
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Theory and terror his essay will address the private/public division in the light of a phenomenon that emerged as a major feature of the last decade of the communist regime in Bulgaria and that came to be designated as “the seminar.” The seminar? In Bulgaria? Over ten years ago? Who would care about this? Yet over and beyond the nostalgia that drives the survivors into incessant squabbling over the fossils of the seminar,1 there is the major mystery that the seminar—from its restricted, elitist inception in the late ’70s to its spilling over from the bursting university auditoriums into street action and clashes with the police in the spring and summer of 1989—was produced as the dominant trajectory of the crumbling of totalitarian power. Thus, if we cannot say that the seminar brought down the totalitarian regime—although what did? there is no definitive answer yet—we can say for certain that the regime in Bulgaria brought along the seminar as the one major symptom of its demise. The seminar makes us face the enigma of an indomitable political, economic, and military machine disintegrated by discourse: by “glasnost,” or—to put Gorbachev’s d – i – f– f– e – r

Journal

differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural StudiesDuke University Press

Published: Jan 1, 2002

There are no references for this article.