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SUMMARY:Beyond Nationalism? Opera and Decoloniality in East  Central Europ
 e - Tereza Havelkovà (Associate Professor\, Charles University Prague)
DTSTART:20260218T130000Z
DTEND:20260218T140000Z
UID:TALK243469@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Lindsay Friday
DESCRIPTION:The relationship between opera and nationalism has mainly been
  studied within the context of the long nineteenth century\, and it has be
 en a key focus of opera research in East Central Europe. In this talk\, I 
 seek to rethink this relationship in the twentieth and twenty-first centur
 ies\, building on contemporary scholarship that develops postcolonial and 
 decolonial theory for the study of socialism and post-socialism. On the on
 e hand\, this approach helps challenge reductive understandings of East Ce
 ntral European culture and politics in terms of nationalism—as opposed t
 o the presumably “post-nationalist” West—as well as the “methodolo
 gical nationalism” prevalent in opera and music studies of the region. O
 n the other hand\, it is vital to recognize opera’s continual role as a 
 prime site for the expression of national imaginaries\, which have been de
 ployed for varied political purposes in changing historical circumstances\
 , ranging from resistance to propaganda.\n\nDrawing on case studies from t
 he former Czechoslovakia and today’s Czech Republic\, I will focus on in
 stances in which national opera repertories were mobilized in times of thr
 eat to state sovereignty. I will also pay attention to how national imagin
 aries were naturalized or neutralized to serve the cultural politics of st
 ate socialism\, and how they were challenged after the “Velvet Revolutio
 n” of 1989. A close examination of the complex intersection of decolonia
 lity and national identity will offer insights into the ambivalent conditi
 on of “non-obvious nationhood” ascribed to the region\, as well as the
  productivity of the concept of nationalism for approaching its cultural p
 roduction.
LOCATION:Lecture Room 2\, Faculty of Music\, West Road
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