Join us on a literary world trip!

Subscribe to read the full book or read the first pages for free!

I want to read the book!

All characters reduced

The Greengrocer and His TV - The Culture of Communism after the 1968 Prague Spring - cover

The Greengrocer and His TV - The Culture of Communism after the 1968 Prague Spring

Paulina Bren

Publisher: Cornell University Press

0
0
0

Summary

Winner, 2012 Council for European Studies Book AwardWinner, 2012 Center for Austrian Studies Book PrizeShortlist, 2011 Wayne S. Vucinich Book Prize (ASEEES)The 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia brought an end to the Prague Spring and its promise of "socialism with a human face." Before the invasion, Czech reformers had made unexpected use of television to advance political and social change. In its aftermath, Communist Party leaders employed the medium to achieve "normalization," pitching television stars against political dissidents in a televised spectacle that defined the times.The Greengrocer and His TV offers a new cultural history of communism from the Prague Spring to the Velvet Revolution that reveals how state-endorsed ideologies were played out on television, particularly through soap opera-like serials. In focusing on the small screen, Paulina Bren looks to the "normal" of normalization, to the everyday experience of late communism. The figure central to this book is the greengrocer who, in a seminal essay by Václav Havel, symbolized the ordinary citizen who acquiesced to the communist regime out of fear.Bren challenges simplistic dichotomies of fearful acquiescence and courageous dissent to dramatically reconfigure what we know, or think we know, about everyday life under communism in the 1970s and 1980s. Deftly moving between the small screen, the street, and the Central Committee (and imaginatively drawing on a wide range of sources that include television shows, TV viewers' letters, newspapers, radio programs, the underground press, and the Communist Party archives), Bren shows how Havel's greengrocer actually experienced "normalization" and the ways in which popular television serials framed this experience.Now back by popular demand, socialist-era serials, such as The Woman Behind the Counter and The Thirty Adventures of Major Zeman, provide, Bren contends, a way of seeing—literally and figuratively—Czechoslovakia's normalization and Eastern Europe's real socialism.

Available since: 03/25/2010.

Other books that might interest you

Women's Songs from West Africa - cover

Women's Songs from West Africa

Thomas A. Hale, Aissata G. Sidikou

0
0
0

Exploring the origins, organization, subject matter, and performance contexts of singers and singing, Women's Songs from West Africa expands our understanding of the world of women in West Africa and their complex and subtle roles as verbal artists. Covering Côte d'Ivoire, the Gambia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, and beyond, the essays attest to the importance of women's contributions to the most widespread form of verbal art in Africa.

Flying Falling Catching - An Unlikely Story of Finding Freedom - cover

Flying Falling Catching - An...

Henri J. M. Nouwen, Carolyn...

0
0
0

Henri Nouwen’s never-before-published story of his surprising friendship with a traveling trapeze troupe. 
During the last five years of his life, best-selling spiritual author Henri J. M. Nouwen became close to The Flying Rodleighs, a trapeze troupe in a traveling circus. Like Nouwen’s own life, a trapeze act is full of artistry, exhilarating successes, crushing failures and continual forgiveness. He wrote about his experience in a genre new to him: creative non-fiction.  
 In Flying, Falling, Catching, Nouwen's colleague and friend Carolyn Whitney-Brown presents his unpublished trapeze writings framed by the true story of his rescue through a hotel window by paramedics during his first heart attack. Readers will meet Nouwen as a spiritual risk taker who was transformed through his engagement with these trapeze artists, as well as his participation in the Civil Rights movement, his life in community with people with intellectual disabilities, his personal growth through friendships during the 1990s AIDS pandemic, and other unexpected encounters. 
What will we do with our lives, and with whom will we do it? In this story of flying and catching, Nouwen invites us all to let go and fly, even when we are afraid of falling.

Lochs and Legends: A Scotsman's Guide to the Heart of Scotland - cover

Lochs and Legends: A Scotsman's...

Andy the Highlander, Lilly Hurd

0
0
0

A Scotsman’s guide to the extraordinary tapestry of the land, history, folklore and stories of his homeland.  
From the majestic beauty of the wild Scottish landscape to the hidden traces of its history waiting to be uncovered in every town and village, Andrew McAlindon is enthralled by the country he is lucky enough to call home. As one of Scotland’s busiest tour guides in real life and online, Andy travels around the country to ancient sites such as castles, cemeteries, burial chambers and prisons, celebrating the history, folklore, superstitions and the fascinating people that make Scotland so unique. 
Lochs and Legends is Andy’s love letter to Scotland, a love that began when he landed a part on the worldwide phenomenon Outlander, and led to him dedicating his life to learning more about the true star of the show – Scotland. A social media sensation as Andy the Highlander, his first book opens up Scotland’s secrets to anyone, even if they can only explore it from the comfort of their armchair. It invites you to time travel with Andy, walking in the footsteps of kings and queens, lairds and ladies, murderers, farmers, poets, invading armies, and everyday folks like himself. It is Scotland as you’ve never seen it before. 
HarperCollins 2024

Abbott and Costello: Running a Newspaper - cover

Abbott and Costello: Running a...

Bud Abbott, Lou Costello

0
0
0

An excellent story about the last voyage of an old freighter, her sick captain, and the strange Dr. Percival. You are trapped aboard an ill-fated ocean liner, captained by a dying man, whilst a mysterious stranger, haunting you, menacing you, seems intent on sending you to destruction...

Chanting: The Sound of Spirit - cover

Chanting: The Sound of Spirit

Robert Gass

0
0
0

The magic of chanting has a calming, awakening and sometimes even consciousness-altering mystery about it.  From singing hymns together in church to learning nursery songs in kindergarten, we’ve all experienced the joy and resonance chanting can bring.  In his early days as a rock musician, Robert Gass tapped into "the tribal music of the collective," and went on to become the founder of Spring Hill Music.

Movies Are Prayers - How Films Voice Our Deepest Longings - cover

Movies Are Prayers - How Films...

Josh Larsen

0
0
0

"Movies are our way of telling God what we think about this world and our place in it. . . . Movies can be many things: escapist experiences, historical artifacts, business ventures, and artistic expressions, to name a few. I'd like to suggest that they can also be prayers." Movies do more than tell a good story. They are expressions of raw emotion, naked vulnerability, and unbridled rage. They often function in the same way as prayers, communicating our deepest longings and joys to a God who hears each and every one. In this captivating book, Filmspotting co-host Josh Larsen brings a critic's unique perspective to how movies function as expressions to God of lament, praise, joy, confession, and more. His clear expertise and passion for the art of film, along with his thoughtful reflections on the nature of prayer, will bring you a better understanding of both. God's omnipresence means that you can find him whether you're sitting on your sofa at home or in the seats at the theater. You can talk to him wherever movies are shown. And when words fail, the perfect film might be just what you need to jump-start your conversations with the Almighty.