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UID:a10f19f8-1fa4-4700-a7ba-fa73f0361c9b@nexttoyou
DTSTAMP:20261105T155812Z
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DTEND:20261106T020000Z
SUMMARY:Barbie in the Bunker: Childhood\, War\, and Imagination | Maša Kol
 anović
LOCATION:Alienated Majesty Books\, 613 W 29th Street
DESCRIPTION:Join us for a conversation with Croatian author Maša Kolanović
  about her novel Underground Barbie\, moderated by Dr. Mary Neuburger\, a
  historian of modern Eastern Europe and Director of UT Austin’s Center fo
 r Russian\, East European\, and Eurasian Studies. Maša will also be joine
 d by local writer Taisia Kitaiskaia for a short reading.\n\nSet in Zagreb
  in the early 1990s\, Underground Barbie follows a generation of children
  coming of age as the socialist world they had inherited was collapsing b
 efore their eyes\, while a new Croatia and capitalist consumer culture wa
 s rapidly taking over. At the center of the book is Barbie: an emblem of 
 American popular culture that enters a child’s imagination just as war en
 ters everyday life.\n\nThe conversation will explore the novel’s intersec
 tions of socialism and emerging capitalism\, the appropriation and transf
 ormation of American popular culture\, gender roles\, and the experience 
 of war through a child’s perspective. We will also discuss Underground Ba
 rbie as a work of anti-war literature\, and the ways humor\, play\, fanta
 sy\, and subversive imagination can become forms of resistance in times o
 f violence.\n\nAt its heart\, the novel asks what happens when the intima
 te world of childhood collides with the “big stories” of history. What ca
 n dolls\, games\, friendships\, and small acts of imagination tell us tha
 t official political narratives cannot? And how might these seemingly min
 or\, personal stories challenge the grand narratives through which war an
 d \n\nhttp://next-to-u.app/events/a10f19f8-1fa4-4700-a7ba-fa73f0361c9b
URL:http://next-to-u.app/events/a10f19f8-1fa4-4700-a7ba-fa73f0361c9b
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