Lecture | CMGI Brown Bag Seminar
The Art of Cold War Globalism: A Visual History of Post-Migration and Minority Alliances after 1945
- Date
- Friday 25 April 2025
- Time
- Serie
- CMGI Brown Bag Seminars 2024-2025
- Address
-
Johan Huizinga
Doelensteeg 16
2311 VL Leiden - Room
- Conference room (2.60)
The period of the Cold War is associated with bloc thinking on the one hand and the emergence of globalism on the other. In addition, decolonization led to the creation of new countries complicating post-war debates on the definition and application of Human Rights. Yet, the first decades after World War II also were a time in which former refugees and displaced persons built new homes, developed a new political consciousness and sought alliances. This seminar talk is concerned with the question of how the Cold War discourse of globalism and global solidarity can be connected to debates on the legacies and memories of refuge and displacement. At the center of it are a series of artistic – particularly photographic – exhibitions and publications that were aimed at bridging cultural divides through messages of commonality and unity. Many of these were targeted in particular at children and spoke a language of liberal values.
The talk asks for the stories behind these publications and explores their origins and expected impact. Which broader climate did they reflect? How long did this trend last and how did it change? What can we learn about experiences of (post-) migration by looking at former migrants’ political activism? I argue that the cultural debates these publications and exhibitions prompted allows for a new look at refugee history beyond the experience of refuge. I look forward to your feedback.