by Terry Orr In 1963, the magazine Bulgaria Today, published by the communist government, surprisingly published an article showing a small selection of ancient Bulgarian Christian icons. At that time a large number of icons from as early as the tenth century through the seventeenth century were being displayed in the National Art Museum, the […]
Art/Architecture
Free Healthcare with a Price
By Lera Toropin In flipping through old issues of Soviet Life, one finds a wide array of articles that present only the best that life in the USSR could offer: fashion, recipes, sports success stories, film reviews, detailed descriptions of beautiful travel destinations in Kislovodsk, Zheleznovodsk, and Naryan-Mar, all paired with colorful, enticing photographs. An […]
Yugoslavia in the Third World: Not a New Bloc but Unity of Action in the Interest of Peace
by Samantha Farmer In July 1956, Gamel Nasser of Egypt (then the United Arab Republic), Jawaharlal Nehru of India, and Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia met in the Croatian coastal city of Pula to reaffirm the Bandung Principles, a platform for decolonization established the previous year in Indonesia. [1] In doing so, Tito formally threw […]
Littlefield Lectures With Jack E. Davis
Jack E. Davis is a professor of history and Rothman Family Chair in the Humanities specializing in environmental history and sustainability studies and the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea (2017). Before joining the faculty at UF in 2003, he taught at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Eckerd College, and in […]
Presenting Prague Spring to the West: Czechoslovak Life and Socialism with a Human Face
by Cullan Bendig In January 1968, Alexander Dubček became the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, replacing the unpopular communist hardliner Antonín Novotný. The following months of 1968, known as the Prague Spring, brought Czechoslovakia to the attention of the international community. Dubček’s goal was to create “socialism with a human face” through […]
Photography, Film Criticism, and Left Politics
By Jessica Werneke Each year, a group of artists, art historians, and visual theorists meet at a conference to discuss the intersections of the visual, art, aesthetics, activism, and politics. Among many other important contributions, the conference is designed to involve individuals from a variety of institutions and backgrounds to unite scholars whose critical approach […]
Three-year-olds on the world stage
By Nathan Stone When I was very small, I lived six blocks from the Santa Fe Opera. Our home was in the Tesuque Village, which is really just a country road that runs alongside the Tesuque Creek just north of Santa Fe, with twenty tiny cul-de-sacs stretching up into the alluvial crannies of the southern […]
Monumental Reinterpretation
by Karen Kincaid Brady On the west side of the Denver Capital building stands a soldier atop a stone monument. The soldier is easily recognizable as a Civil War soldier with his rifle ready, sword at his side, his distinctive hat, and the gaze of a vigilant soldier, saddened to be fighting his brother and countrymen. […]
Civil War and Daily Life: Snapshots of the Early War in Guatemala
by Vasken Markarian (All photos here are published with the permission of the photographer.) Two young Guatemalan soldiers abruptly pose for the camera. They rush to stand upright with rifles at their sides. On a dirt road overlooking an ominous Guatemala City, they stand on guard duty. This snapshot formed the title page of an exhibit […]
Miss O’Keeffe
by Nathan Stone I remember Georgia O’Keeffe. I couldn’t have been but three, first time I met her. She was already an older woman by then, or late middle age, at least. She was tall and perfectly centered, with a slender frame and grey hair pulled back in a tight bun. She wore long sleeves […]