Regional Seminar for Excellence in Teaching "Alternative Culture Beyond Borders" (2007-2010)

Regional Seminar for Excellence in Teaching:

"Alternative Culture Beyond Borders: Past and Present of the Arts and Media in the Context of Globalization"

The seminar was a three-year international research and educational project that brought together young scholars, educators, and professionals primarily from the former socialist countries to discuss the problems of alternative culture both in the past and in the current context of globalization. It provided a unique opportunity to discuss and debate alternative forms of arts and media worldwide and included such cross-disciplinary themes as: histories of alternative culture, the spaces and places of alternative culture, art and new forms of political expression, the politics of memory, collectivity in contemporary culture, feminism as a critical social theory, and from samizdat to bloggings.

Alternative Culture Beyond Borders helped reframe the approach to the teaching and research of contemporary culture and resulted in the creation and enrichment of courses in several disciplines.

The project was organized by the International Alternative Culture Center based on support from the Open Society Institute's Higher Education Support Program Regional Seminar for Excellence in Teaching (ReSET) and in collaboration with St. Petersburg State University, McMaster University, and the Archivum.