The transformation of society goes hand in hand with the transformation of culture. In moments of accelerated change, culture is a site of both resilience and contestation, of experimentation with and resistance against new impulses, and hence a field where the old and the new intersect and interact in complex ways over longer periods of time. This research area integrates perspectives of new cultural history and cultural studies on diverse phenomena such as literature, music, and smell to trace cultural change in Central and Eastern Europe and beyond after 1989 and in the course of the twentieth century.