American representations of post-communism: television, travel sites, and post-Cold War narratives

224 Pages·2014·0.832 MB·English

by  Andaluna Borcila

American Representations
of Post-Communism
“ American Representations of Post-Communism provides a valuable close
reading of an extensive archive of American media and travel writing
sources and the way they interact with each other in their depiction and
creation of ‘Eastern Europe’ in transition. Borcila skilfully traces how these
representations feed off each other and tautologically produce an Eastern
Europe entirely of the American mind. This book is an important inquiry
into the Western notion of a homogeneous Eastern Europe, of Balkanist
ascriptions, and yet another attestation to the persistence of Cold War
legacies in our post–Cold War world.”
— Kathleen Starck, University of Koblenz-Landau, Germany
“Original in its conception, exhaustively researched, and incisive in its
overall arguments, A merican Representations of Post-Communism offers
a remarkably lucid analysis of the impact and representation of the 1989
anti-communist revolutions and their aftermath on both sides of the
Atlantic.”
— Marcel Cornis-Pope, Virginia Commonwealth University, USA
With the televised events of 1989, territories of Eastern and Central Europe
that had been marked as impenetrable and inaccessible to the Western gaze
exploded into visibility. As the narratives of the Cold War crumbled, new
narratives emerged and new geographies were produced on and by American
television. Using an understudied archive of American news broadcasts,
and tracing their flashes and echoes through travel guides and narratives
of return written by Eastern European Americans, this book explores
American ways of seeing and mapping communism’s disintegration and
the narratives articulated around post-communist sites and subjects.
Andaluna Borcila is associate professor of comparative cultures and politics
and humanities, culture and writing at James Madison College, Michigan State
University, USA.
Routledge Research in Cultural and Media Studies
For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com
34 Science Fiction Film, Television, 41 Cultural Technologies
and Adaptation The Shaping of Culture in Media
Across the Screens and Society
Edited by J. P. Telotte and Gerald Edited by Göran Bolin
Duchovnay
42 Violence and the Pornographic
35 Art Platforms and Cultural Imaginary
Production on the Internet The Politics of Sex, Gender, and
Olga Goriunova Aggression in Hardcore Pornography
Natalie Purcell
36 Queer Representation, Visibility,
and Race in American Film and 43 Ambiguities of Activism
Television Alter-Globalism and the
Melanie E.S. Kohnen Imperatives of Speed
Ingrid M. Hoofd
37 Artificial Culture
Identity, Technology, and Bodies 44 Generation X Goes Global
Tama Leaver Mapping a Youth Culture in Motion
Christine Henseler
38 Global Perspectives on Tarzan
From King of the Jungle to 45 Forensic Science in
International Icon Contemporary American
Edited by Annette Wannamaker Popular Culture
and Michelle Ann Abate Gender, Crime, and Science
Lindsay Steenberg
39 Studying Mobile Media
Cultural Technologies, Mobile 46 Moral Panics, Social Fears, and
Communication, and the iPhone the Media
Edited by Larissa Hjorth, Jean Historical Perspectives
Burgess, and Ingrid Richardson Edited by Siân Nicholas and
Tom O’Malley
40 Sport Beyond Television
The Internet, Digital Media and the 47 De-convergence in Global Media
Rise of Networked Media Sport Industries
Brett Hutchins and David Rowe Dal Yong Jin
48 Performing Memory in Art and 57 Comics and the Senses
Popular Culture A Multisensory Approach to
Edited by Liedeke Plate and Comics and Graphic Novels
Anneke Smelik Ian Hague
49 Reading Beyond the Book 58 Popular Culture in Africa
The Social Practices of The Episteme of the Everyday
Contemporary Literary Culture Edited by Stephanie Newell and
Danielle Fuller and DeNel Onookome Okome
Rehberg Sedo
59 Transgender Experience
50 A Social History of Contemporary Place, Ethnicity, and Visibility
Democratic Media Edited by Chantal Zabus and
Jesse Drew David Coad
51 Digital Media Sport 60 Radio’s Digital Dilemma
Technology, Power and Culture in Broadcasting in the Twenty-First
the Network Society Century
Edited by Brett Hutchins and John Nathan Anderson
David Rowe
61 Documentary’s Awkward Turn
Cringe Comedy and Media
52 Barthes’ Mythologies Today
Spectatorship
Readings of Contemporary Culture
Jason Middleton
Edited by Pete Bennett and Julian
McDougall
62 Serialization and Popular Culture
Edited by Rob Allen and Thijs van
53 Beauty, Violence, Representation
den Berg
Edited by Lisa A. Dickson and
Maryna Romanets
63 Gender and Humor
Interdisciplinary and International
54 Public Media Management for
Perspectives
the Twenty-First Century
Edited by Delia Chiaro and
Creativity, Innovation, and
Raffaella Baccolini
Interaction
Edited by Michał Głowacki and 64 Studies of Video Practices
Lizzie Jackson Video at Work
Edited by Mathias Broth, Eric
55 Transnational Horror Across
Laurier, and Lorenza Mondada
Visual Media
Fragmented Bodies 65 The Memory of Sound
Edited by Dana Och and Kirsten Preserving the Sonic Past
Strayer Seán Street
56 International Perspectives on 66 American Representations of
Chicana/o Studies Post-Communism
“This World is My Place” Television, Travel Sites, and
Edited by Catherine Leen and Post–Cold War Narratives
Niamh Thornton Andaluna Borcila
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American Representations
of Post-Communism
Television, Travel Sites, and
Post–Cold War Narratives
Andaluna Borcila
First published 2015
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group,
an informa business
© 2015 Taylor & Francis
The right of Andaluna Borcila to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Borcila, Andaluna, 1967–
American representations of post-communism : television, travel sites,
and post-cold war narratives / Andaluna Borcila.
pages cm — (Routledge research in cultural and media studies ; 66)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Europe, Eastern—In mass media. 2. Mass media—United
States. 3. Post-communism—Europe, Eastern. I. Title.
P96.E862B68 2014
070.4′332—dc23
2014006628
ISBN: 978-0-415-74138-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-81528-2 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1 Disintegrating Communism: The Normative Site
of the Berlin Wall 22
2 Accessing the Romanian Revolution: Romania’s Journey
from Fringe Zone to Symptomatic Site 45
3 On-Site Encounters and Overexposed Sites:
Post-Communist Televisual Romania 72
4 Desiring, Mapping, and Naming Eastern Europe:
The Discourse of Travel Guides 104
5 With Different Eyes? Self-Seeing and Mapping in
Narratives of Return 138
Conclusions 183
References 193
Index 205
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Acknowledgments
This book has been many years in the making, and so I cannot list here
all the people who have shared ideas, offered support and encouragement,
and helped me to clarify my thinking. But a few specific thanks are in
order. I appreciate the support of my colleagues, Steve Rohs, Allison Berg,
Colleen Tremonte, Linda Racioppi, Anna Pegler-Gordon, Louise Jezierski,
Rita Kiki Edozie, and Gene Burns in particular. I am grateful for the
encouragement I received from Lisa Parks, Aniko Bodroghkozy, and Anikó
Imre at crucial times, when I thought that this project would never come
to fruition. I appreciate the support I received from my dean, Sherman
Garnett, and associate dean, Julia Grant, and in particular the course release
that helped me finish the manuscript. I appreciate the insights that I have
gleaned from my many smart, thoughtful undergraduate students over the
years. I won’t be naming you here, but you haven’t been forgotten.
I very much appreciate the vote of confidence and the time and effort
put into this project by this series’ editor, Felisa Salvago-Keyes, as well as
the prompt answers provided by Nancy Chen to my innumerable questions.
I very much appreciate the time and thoughtful feedback that I received
from the anonymous reviewers of this manuscript. Needless to say, any
errors, omissions, and imperfections belong to me.
I am extremely grateful for the invaluable and underutilized resource
that is the Vanderbilt Television Archive and for the patience and guidance
of John Lynch. The work of transcribing the narrative and visuals of the
news broadcasts was tremendous, and I could not have done it without
the help of my former professorial assistants Varsha Ramakrishnan and
Alicia Kildau. Megan Burnham, my student and professorial assistant,
helped in the final stages of formatting, cross-checking sources, and orga-
nizing the references. Nicole Strobel stepped up in the last months of
completing this book, and her assistance was invaluable. And, I am grateful
for all the assistance I received from Ann Neff-Rohs.
My father, mother, and sister have supported me over the years with
love, and they gave me the confidence to continue to write. I want to thank
my father for his invaluable advice in the last stages of this process. My
husband, Matt, has not only given me the support I need, but he has also
looked at the manuscript with a journalist’s eye, and though he has not