Shadow of the Hegemon: Eastern Europe, Havel, and their Interpreters — Delia Popescu (2.22.18)

The canon of political theory rarely deals with Eastern European political thought, either as a regional category or in relation to particular thinkers. The East-West duality describes and prescribes a hermeneutic relationship that delineates a form of (subaltern) engagement with the East European other. Popescu discusses the implications of this hermeneutic relationship for how the region is conceived, including its much contested variants, like the Balkans, and how it is reflected on the study of political thought coming from the region. To illustrate the argument, she briefly invokes the example of Vaclav Havel's writings and their reception. Popescu uses this case study as a springboard to propose a reconsideration of both the study of political theory (and its canon) and, more specifically, of the East-West duality as an analytical category.