Daniela Koleva's Books

Negotiating Normality

Everyday Lives in Socialist Institutions

By: Daniela Koleva

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Negotiating Normality

Everyday Lives in Socialist Institutions

By: Daniela Koleva

This book is about state socialism, not as a political system, but as an "ecosystem" of interactions between the state and the citizens it sought to control. It includes case studies that demonstrate how the major ideological principles of socialism translated into motives guiding people's lives. This unique post-revisionist study focuses on people's lives and experiences rather than political systems. The studies are grouped around three common elements—socialist labor, the new socialist man, and the socialist way of life. Using first-hand accounts, the authors find minute deviations from the norms that eventually lead to renegotiation of the norms themselves. Focusing on routines, not extremes, they present socialism in its "normal" state. The volume demonstrates different national strategies for dealing with the past in the post-socialist world. Studies of the socialist past may strive to be objective, but their messages tend to be complex. Rather than arriving at one truth about the nature of socialism, this volume explores the many ways people have survived the system.

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Page Count

379

Publisher

Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

1351503286

ISBN 13

9781351503280

From Literature to Cultural Literacy

By: Naomi Segal,Daniela Koleva

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From Literature to Cultural Literacy

By: Naomi Segal,Daniela Koleva

Researchers in the new field of literary-and-cultural studies look at social issues – especially issues of change and mobility – through the lens of literary thinking. The essays range from cultural memory and migration to electronic textuality and biopolitics.

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Page Count

380

Publisher

Springer

Published Date

ISBN 10

1137429704

ISBN 13

9781137429704

Ageing, Ritual and Social Change

Comparing the Secular and Religious in Eastern and Western Europe

By: Daniela Koleva

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Ageing, Ritual and Social Change

Comparing the Secular and Religious in Eastern and Western Europe

By: Daniela Koleva

Exploring European changes in religious and secular beliefs and practices related to life passages, this book provides a deeper understanding of the impacts of social change on personal identity and adjustment across the life course, According to latest research, Europeans who consider religious services appropriate to mark life passages significantly outnumber those who declare themselves as believers. Drawing on fascinating oral histories of older people's memories in both Eastern and Western Europe, this book presents illuminating views on peoples' quests for existential meaning in later life. Ageing, Ritual and Social Change presents an invaluable resource for all those exploring issues of ageing, including those looking from perspectives of sociology and psychology of religion, social and oral history and East-Central European studies.

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Page Count

295

Publisher

Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

1317183665

ISBN 13

9781317183662

Memory Archipelago of the Communist Past

Public Narratives and Personal Recollections

By: Daniela Koleva

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Memory Archipelago of the Communist Past

Public Narratives and Personal Recollections

By: Daniela Koleva

This book looks at the memory of the communist past in Central and Eastern Europe, with a particular focus on Bulgaria: its “official” memory, constructed by institutions, its public memory, molded by media, rituals, books and films and the urban environment, and the everyday or ‘vernacular’ memory. It investigates how the recent past is remembered and the circumstances upon which this memory is conditioned - how is communism/socialism construed as a public recollection? Do these processes differ in the distinct post-communist countries? The book’s first part traces the institutional and political dimensions of coping with the communist past and the second part concentrates on personal reminiscences and vernacular memory. The book will be of interest for researchers and students in the fields of memory studies, Central and East European studies, oral history and contemporary history, as well as for specialists at institutions of memory and memory activists and organisations.

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