Displaced Life-Worlds: From Émigré to "Relocant"? Making Sense of Fifth Wave After 2022

May 5, 2023 (All day) to May 6, 2023 (All day)

hybrid; Posvar Hall, Room 4130

Remote guests must register in advance here.

Full schedule of events available here.

The symposium includes 6 roundtables (hybrid), a digital art exhibit (in person only), and Sergei Loznitsa’s 2022 film The Natural History of Destruction (in person only).  Participants include Ilya Budraitskis, Tikhon Dzyadko, Volodymyr Ishchenko, Ekaterine Kotrikadze, Mark Lipovetsky, Anatoli Ulyanov, and others. In-person guests may reserve hotel room at the nearby Wyndham Pittsburgh University Center (877-999-3223). 

The post-2022 displacement is the largest relocation since World War II, profoundly affecting the configuration of Eurasian networks. The New East Symposium’s two-day event Displaced Life-Worlds examines the dynamic profile of the new diaspora, displaced to Almaty and Antalya; Berlin and Baku; Israel and Istanbul, Tallinn and Tbilisi. Is this the “Fifth Wave,” the “Ukrainian emigration,” the “Putin emigration,” the “disenchanted emigration”?  As for “relokanty” (the “relocated ones”), is it disrespectful or descriptive?  How do the older waves—1917, 1945, the 1970s, the (unrecognized) 1990s—invite comparisons with today: if the Fourth Wave’s internet was still an uncertain thing; the Fifth Wave’s internet might be more central than central heating.  What are the diasporas’ commonalities, diversities, and future solidarities at this historical turn? 

Roundtable topics include:

  • Post 2014 Wave: How is it different?
  • The Nobel Prize: Belarus, Ukraine, Memorial-in-Exile (Model for a New Solidarity?)
  • Censure in Flux: Impact and Limits of Cultural Boycott
  • Rain & Echo: Independent Broadcasting and Its Challenges
  • What Kinds of Collective Action Are Possible?

 We hope you will join us in examining the catastrophic aftermaths of February-March 2014 and 24 February 2022, their challenges and consequences.

We thank our sponsors: Pitt’s University Center for International Studies (Hewlett International), Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences, Film & Media Studies, Slavic Department, REEES (Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies), and GOSECA (Graduate Organization for the Study of Europe and Central Asia).

https://neweastcinema.pitt.edu/