Introduction: Post-communist Thresholds

Abstract

This introduction conceptualizes the post-communist threshold as a liminal space on the European continent which allows for a critical experience and examination of the post-1989 crisis of modern European identity. The chapter seeks to identify the creative potential of this crisis and argues that acknowledging and finding ways of speaking from this post-communist state of crisis may allow for a new type of critical theory which breaks with the coloniality of modern thought and life. It argues that post-communist thresholds revive modern affects and experiences in unexpected and contradictory constellations and thus trigger a felt need to engage with and theorize Europe’s pasts and futures differently. The introduction contains a synopsis of the remaining chapters and closes with reflections on transdisciplinarity, art, vulnerability and the psychosocial as the main pillars characterizing the book’s post-communist approach to critical theory.