Socialist/Postsocialist Studies and the Global Left

This commentary addresses the marginal presense of authors, subjects, and issues focused on former socialist countries in Eastern and Central Europe, the Balkans and the former Soviet Union in "socialist studies" produced in Western English-language based academic journals, as well as the so-called "global political Left" these publications support. The commentary suggests that the gap is epistemological, emotional, and serving to protect conversations about "socialsim" from the deep critique and interogation of socialist theories, utopias, and practices generated in the emerging field of "postsocialist studies" originating in former socialist states and societies assocaited with a geopolitical "East."