This talk introduces two interlinked theoretical concepts through which to analyze decolonial cultural movements in Central Asia (and potentially beyond), especially those concerned with ecocritical themes. It first proposes the conceptual framework of “retroactive anticolonialism” as a marker of the recent turn in Central Asian cultures towards postcolonial revisionism and activism. Building on ecocriticism and ecomusicology, Tamar Koplatadze further proposes the concept of “post-Soviet ecopoetics” – the ecomusical language of environmental solidarity – as a particularly potent decolonial manifestation of Central Asia’s supraethnic retroactive anticolonialism.

Tamar Koplatadze is Associate Professor of Postsocialist Literature and Culture at the University of Oxford. She is the author of “Postcolonial Identities in Central Asian and Caucasian Literature” (OUP), the first monograph on postcolonial literature from the Caucasus and Central Asia. Her current book, “Post-Soviet Ecopoetics”, examines ecocritical culture from the former post-Soviet space, notably Central Asia and Siberia.

During the talk, a sandwich lunch and coffee will be served. Kindly register to thomasfritz.maier@clutterunibas.ch