In the transnational networks of socialism, print periodicals played a vital role. Relying on a number of case studies of leftist magazines between the 1940s and today, this panel explores how the medium was produced by mobilities of ideological coercion, solidarity, and subversion across borders.

In recent years, leftist internationalisms of the 20^th century have received significant scholarly attention, in part because they relate to (or even promise instructive models for) histories of decolonization and anti-racism. Among recent scholarly works on the topic are several books by Katerina Clark and the recent volumes Comintern Aesthetics (Toronto, 2020) and Red Migrations: Transnational Mobility and Leftist Culture after 1917 (Toronto, 2024). This panel combines the study of transnational leftist cultural exchange with periodical studies, raising important questions about the ways in which media are circulated across borders, and the political and cultural impacts these mobilities have. Periodical studies emerged in the last 20 years as a vibrant field that brings together scholars in an interdisciplinary framework, to study magazines and journals as “autonomous objects of study” rather than “containers of discrete bits of information” (Latham and Scholes in PMLA 2/2006). This panel is envisioned also as an opportunity to revisit this scholarly paradigm and explore its potentials for the study of socialist cultures, which has been a secondary concern in the central works of American periodical studies.

Each panelist will be allowed to speak for 12 minutes. 3 minutes between each paper are dedicated to introductions and computer setup. In the end, 15 minutes are dedicated to discussion.

Each of the panelists has taken on a specific case study that focuses on a unique incident of transnational cultural exchange through periodicals. What unites all of them is the focus on ways in which the medium of the periodical is leveraged to build networks of leftist politics across borders. Bozovic focuses on the contemporary journal of poetry and critical theory [Translit] that has been the heart of Russia’s avant-garde revival, 2000–2022. This paper shows how, moving fluidly between print and online platforms, [Translit] reimagines the avant-garde journal for the twenty-first century and reclaims Marxist world culture for contemporary Russia. Cardentey’s contribution reveals how Soviet publications in translation to Spanish played a key role in promoting socialist ideals. However, between 1986 and 1989, the Soviet referential world experienced a radical shift at odds with Fidel Castro’s vision of socialism, and this paper shows how Soviet periodicals emerged as oppositional media in Cuba. Morales discusses the magazine SSSR na stroike, which was published in Russian, German, English, French, and Spanish, and circulated also in the United States, Palestine, and China. The paper centers on the Mayakovsky memorial issue from 1940 to consider how it balances the official propagandistic aim of monumentalizing Mayakovsky as the prototypical proletarian poet and Rodchenko and Stepanova’s private grief for their close friend and collaborator. Gleissner’s paper explores the journal for literature in translation Světová literatura, founded as a Czechoslovak sibling publication to the Moscow-based Inostrannaia literatura. Based on archival sources and close readings of select journal issues, this paper reveals how the periodical provided its own version of Czechoslovak engagement with world literature in a key that was, at times, affirmative of socialist ideology and, at others, created significant space for subversion.

This panel features speakers with expertise in a variety of disciplines (Slavic and East European, Latin American Studies, Comparative Literature) and languages (Czech, Russian, Spanish) at various career levels from graduate student to associate professor.