Transformative Podcast

The first week of January 2022 was largely shaped by news of protests rapidly escalating all across Kazakhstan. In the span of only a few days, the situation changed from nationwide peaceful protests citing economic reasons, over demands for political change, violent rallies and lootings in the country´s largest city, to what appears as a coup, resulting from a power struggle between the former and the current presidents. With the latter calling in the foreign troops, and Russia significantly involved yet again - the week has seen a landslide change in the political landscape of the world´s 9th largest country - and of the whole Central Asian region.

Anastassiya Schacht is an associated researcher at RECET. Here, she speaks with Viktoria Morasch, a journalist working for newspapers Die Zeit and Tageszeitung. 

In the last days of the Habsburg monarchy, Vienna vied with Prague for the title of the largest Czech city. Today, a tiny fraction of the Austrian capital’s population would identify as Czech. Nonetheless, community centers and clubs established during the heyday of Czech migration continue to exist. In this episode of the Transformative Podcast, Rosamund Johnston (RECET) speaks to two of those most involved in their maintenance, Mojmír Stránský (RECET) and Dr. Věra Gregorová. Introducing Czech Vienna’s landmarks and associations, Stránský and Gregorová reflect upon why these spaces continue to be relevant, and indeed upon these sites’ new significance in a city once again characterized by multilingualism and migration.

Mojmír Stránský is completing a dissertation on voluntary organizations in Czechoslovakia and Austria (1980-2000) at the University of Vienna. He also works in the history department at the Komenský Gymnasium.

Dr. Věra Gregorová is the director of Vienna’s Hotel Post and the Czech Heart association based in this building.

How did the discovery of oil in Persia transform Persian society and British imperialism in the Middle East at the turn of the century? In this episode moderated by Dr. Sheng Peng (RECET), Leonardo Davoudi explores the formal and informal dealings of politicians, investors, civil servants, and intermediaries during the development of the Persian petroleum industry from its uncertain beginnings to becoming one of British Empire’s most valuable pocessions in the Middle East.

Dr. Leonardo Davoudi is an associate member of Oxford University’s History Faculty and a researcher with the Global History of Capitalism project at the Oxford Centre for Global History. He is the author of “Persian Petroleum: Oil, Empire and Revolution in Late Qajar Iran” (Bloomsbury Academic, 2020). His research interests lie at the intersection of imperialism and capitalism.

How have technologies, politics, and social expectations transformed the work of journalists in Central Europe over the past three decades? And which journalistic practices and market forces might combine to characterize a “Central European” media environment?

In this episode of the Transformative Podcast, Rosamund Johnston (RECET) speaks to Gerald Schubert, a reporter on Central and Eastern Europe for Austrian newspaper Der Standard. He reflects on a career spanning 20 years in both the Czech Republic and Austria, and on a “worsening” situation for journalists today in both of these states, as well as elsewhere in Europe.

Not many know that Accra, the capital of Ghana, is home to architecture designed by Eastern Europeans. In this episode, Thuc Linh Nguyen Vu (RECET) talks to Prof. Łukasz Stanek about his award-winning book, in which he examines the role Eastern European experts - architects and engineers - played in supporting newly postcolonial states in their efforts to bring about a social transformation through urbanization. How can architecture contribute to, bring about, and document major changes in the global Cold War dynamic? What lessons can we learn from taking a close look at the entanglements between postcolonialism and socialism?

Łukasz Stanek is Professor of Architectural History at the University of Manchester, UK. Professor Stanek is the author of "Henri Lefebvre on Space: Architecture, Urban Research, and the Production of Theory" (University of Minnesota Press, 2011) and "Architecture in Global Socialism: Eastern Europe, West Africa, and the Middle East in the Cold War" (Princeton University Press, 2020), which won the Alice Davis Hitchcock Medallion by the SAH GB and the RIBA President’s Award for History & Theory Research.