This autumn the LSE Language Centre, itself celebrating ten years, will be marking the 20th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution in November 1989, by hosting a number of events around the School.
The Velvet Revolution in 1989 is an area of interest central to LSE, both in terms of research (The Cold War studies programme) and the Degree Options in Literature and Language and Society which are popular with undergraduates.
This series of public events will trace some of the ways in which the arts not only provided a response to the unfolding political events of that time but in many cases inspired the political protests and ultimate revolutionary change, culminating in Czechoslovakia with the election of a former imprisoned dissident playwright, Vaclav Havel, as President.
Velvet revolution quiz night
Staff against students
Day: Wednesday, 14 October 2009
Time: 6:30pm
Venue: Quad Bar, East Building
A quiz matching innocent current LSE undergraduates against LSE staff whose academic specialisation (not to mention age) should give them an unfair advantage, and accompanied by press footage from the 1989-1990 period. Explore the high (and low, and even kitsch) culture of the 1980s.
For more information, please contact Olga Sobolev, o.sobolev@lse.ac.uk
How the arts made the velvet revolution
Date: Wednesday, 21 October 2009
Time: 6.30-8:00pm
Venue: Shaw Library, Old Building
An evening event, including a reading by the award-winning Hungarian émigré poet George Szirtes, together with performances of one act plays by Beckett and Havel, will be presented in the Shaw Library. Samuel Beckett, who died in December 1989, served as a key inspiration for Vaclav Havel during his period as a dissident and political prisoner, and Catastrophe, one of his last plays, which is being presented on this evening, was dedicated to Havel.
George Szirtes is a leading British poet (winner of the 2006 T S Eliot Prize) as well as prolific translator of works from his native Hungarian. Born in Budapest he emigrated to Britain with his family as a child in 1956 as a refugee from the failed uprising against communism. A fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he was awarded the T S Eliot Prize for his collection Reel in 2005.
For more information, please contact Olga Sobolev, o.sobolev@lse.ac.uk
Film screening: comrade couture
Marco Wilms, 84 minutes, English subtitles
Day: Wednesday, 28 October 2009
Time: 6:30-8:30pm
Location: Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building
A journey into the amazing parallel universe of East Berlin's fashion designers and experts in the art of survival. In the midst of the constraints of life in GDR, there existed a fantasy world where it was possible to be individual and follow your own drummer. The most important characteristic of this bohemian scene was one's personal style. But this was not something that could be purchased off the rack in the GDR. It was up to you to create your own image - to create your style with your own hands. In Comrade Couture we observe the desires, the passion and the dreams that were tried and tested, lived and performed in the shadow of the Berlin Wall.
Marco Wilms is director and producer of HELDENFILM. he grew up in the former German Democratic Republic and was spotted by a talent scout as a potential model when he was a student. Hence his own personal experience of the politicised alternative fashion scene of East Germany in the 1980s. He studied directing at the University of Potsdam Babelsberg. He has taught film-making in Vietnam and Thailand (for DAAD), in Russia (for GOETHE INSTITUT), in Berlin Germany (for HDK) and taught pitching in Lisbon (for EDN).
This screening will be followed by a discussion between Marco Wilms and Nick Byrne, Director of the Language Centre, LSE.
For more information, please contact Nick Byrne, n.byrne@lse.ac.uk