Objects in Between: Cold War, Material Culture, and Emotions

A lecture by Sudha Rajagopalan (University of Amsterdam)

In this talk, Sudha Rajagopalan will speak about how Soviet objects, which were imported, acquired on the flea market, or otherwise gifted during the Cold War, are remembered today in Cuba and India. Objects produced in the Soviet Union were meant to convey ideas of socialist modernization to postcolonial societies. Yet, once acquired, they could become disobedient, in that they were consumed, read, and remembered in ways that did not necessarily adhere to the objects’ original meanings. Memories of these objects (now often replaced or given away) turn the Cold War from a field of ideological certitude into one of personal and affective everyday experience. Using oral history accounts, Rajagopalan will demonstrate how Soviet things also came to cohabit spaces with other things from around the world, allowing interlocutors to undercut simple geopolitical binaries that pitted Soviet against American technopolitics.

$15 General | $12 Seniors | Free for people associated with a college or university, people with museum ID, people with disabilities and caregivers, and BGC members

Image: Soviet-designed Caribe TV in a Havana living room. Photo: Sudha Rajagopalan.