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Click the image to the left or follow the link below for a full listing of events at the Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia this semester.

WCEE Winter Events

Culture, History, and Politics Workshop

Agata Zysiak, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University
Tuesday, March 27, 2018
3:30-5:00 PM
4147 LSA Building Map
Abstract:
In Eastern Europe, postwar changes paved the way for the building of a socialistic university, something seen as one of many possible solutions to a rising need for university reform
and education for the working classes. My research does not only address how we think about a particular university, or even universities in general in communist-ruled Poland within their
historical and sociological contexts. It contributes to our broader sense of the place of universities in social change – especially in the 20th century – and how we understand intellectuals and academics
in their own fields of power and competition. My argument challenges the totalitarian interpretation of postwar history. In general, it disagrees with the Sovietization notion and claims that the postwar
reforms did not solely mean a ruthless convergence of Eastern Europe with the USSR model. I examine university reforms as a try to open higher education for working classes and trace its
results, that is upward mobility and educational trajectories in postwar Poland. Finally, I claim that the narrative about the political field’s domination of the research and science field is challenged by
tracing the reproduction of prewar traditions and structures. If one considers state socialism as a modernizing system, with all contradictions and difficulties, then one might also gain a better understanding of the intended aims of the postwar reality.
Short bio: Agata Zysiak is a historical sociologist working on postwar Poland, modernization, and industrial cities. Her recent prize-winning book "Point of social origin" examines project of a socialist university.
Building: LSA Building
Event Type: Workshop / Seminar
Tags: Sociology
Source: Happening @ Michigan from Department of Sociology, International Institute, Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, Copernicus Center for Polish Studies, Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia

Videos of programs organized by WCEE affiliates are posted on the CES, CCPS, and CREES websites.

Videos of select events are also available on the University of Michigan's YouTube Channel.