Surface Terrains: Politics of Humor, Mediation, and Scale in Sofia

Department of Social Science and Cultural Studies Pratt Institute Presents: Surface Terrains: Politics of Humor, Mediation, and Scale in Sofia

A talk by Neda Genova
Wednesday, April 5, 2023, 5-7 PM
Main Building 212, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn Campus

This talk deals with political and aesthetic articulations through urban surfaces in post-communist Sofia, examining the vernacular creation of a humorous vocabulary and imaginary that rework instances of infrastructural breakdown. The discussion will center on a series of Internet memes and urban jokes on Bulgarian-language social media made in response to failed refurbishment works in 2018-2019. This exploration invites an inquiry into the capacity of humorous interventions to mediate between scales and their contribution to the formation of a “minor geometry” on the terrain of Sofia.

Dr. Neda Genova is a Leverhulme Research Fellow at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies at the University of Warwick. She works at the intersection of cultural, media and post-communist studies, and is currently working on a book titled “Politics of Surfaces.”