Description
Book SynopsisThis volume explores how the Cultural Cold War played out in Africa and Asia in the context of decolonization. Both the United States and the Soviet Union as well as East European states undertook significant efforts to influence cultural life in the newly independent, postcolonial world.
The different forms of influence are the subject of this book. The contributions are grouped around four topic headings. Networks and Institutions looks at the various ways Western-style theatre became institutionalized in the decolonial world, especially Africa. Cultural Diplomacy focuses on the activities of the Soviet Union in India in the late 1950s and 1960s in the very different arenas of book publishing and the circus. Artists and Agency explores how West African filmmakers (Ousmane Sembène and Abderrahmane Sissako) and European authors (Brecht and Ibsen) were harnessed for different kinds of Cold War strategies. Finally, Cultures of Things investigates how everyday objects such a
Table of Contents
1. Introduction 2. Aesthetic World-Systems: Mythologies of Modernism and Realism Part 1: Networks and Institutions 3. Cold War Mobilities: Eastern European Theatre Going Global 4. Theatre for Influence: American Cultural and Philanthropic Missions in West Africa During the Early Cold War Part 2: Cultural Diplomacy 5. "Propaganda Was Almost Nil"?: Soviet Books and Publishing in India in the 1960s 6. Indo-Soviet Circus Exchanges During the Cold War: State Propaganda or a People’s Art Form? Part 3: Artists and Agency 7. Narratives of Education and Migration: From La Noire de… (1966) to Octobre (1993) 8. Brecht as a Tool for Cultural Development: East German ITI Events for Theatre Artists from the "Third World" 9. "Clean Tablets to Write Upon": Ibsen’s Brand in Riga and Moscow in the 1970s Part 4: Cultures of Things 10. Soviet Books, Geopolitical Imagination and Eclectic Solidarities in India 11. National Theatres in Africa Between Modular Modernity and Cultural Heritage
