Why Should We Study Socialist Commercials?

This article looks at television\xe2\x80\x99s so far neglected contribution as a relay and interpretive framework\xc2\xa0at the intersection of postsocialist memory and history studies. It zooms in on postsocialist nostalgia as a\xc2\xa0relational expression of a heterogeneous set of desires that operate in an intercultural network. Televisual\xc2\xa0nostalgia also implicates Western Europe and makes explicit a Western European longing for the divided\xc2\xa0Europe of the Cold War. This longing, in turn, shores up Europe\xe2\x80\x99s repressed imperial history. Television\xe2\x80\x99s\xc2\xa0role at the pressure points of postsocialist institutional and economic policy, consumption and narrative\xc2\xa0concerns makes it an indispensable window into the intertwined workings of nostalgia and nationalism within a\xc2\xa0postcolonial Europe