This polyphonic, interdisciplinary project explores East-Central Europe as "a state of mind"; it examines its works of art, thought and literature as expressions of a sophisticated culture of survival and endurance.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Angelaki: The Journal of the Theoretical Humanties.

Costica Bradatan is Assistant Professor in the Honors College at Texas Tech University, USA. He has also taught at Cornell University and Miami University, as well as several universities in Europe and Asia. He has authored or edited several books, including In Marx's Shadow: Knowledge, Power and Intellectuals in Eastern Europe and Russia (2010, co-edited with Serguei Alex Oushakine) and The Other Bishop Berkeley: An Exercise in Re-enchantment (2006).

1. Introduction: Philosophy, Geography, Fragility Costica Bradatan Part I: UNCOMFORTABLE IDENTITIES 2. Interwar Southeastern Europe Confronts the West. The New Generation: Cioran, Yanev, Popovic Keith Hitchins 3. Poststructuralism in Georgia: The Phenomenology of the "Objects-Centaurs" of Merab Mamardashvili Slobodanka Vladiv-Glover 4. What is Eastern Europe? A Philosophical Approach Julia Sushytska Part II: GEOGRAPHIES OF PAIN 5. On the Meaning of Life in the Age of the Most Meaningless Death Costica Bradatan 6. Apocalyptic Writing, Trauma and Community in Imre Kertész's Fateless Magdalena Zolkos 7. On Happiness in Unusual Places: N. Steinhardt's Uplifting Lesson Aurelian Craiutu Part III: SERVING THE MUSES UNDER STRESS 8. The Fragility of It All Krzysztof Michalski 9. Familiar affairs: Tracing Croatian Theoretical Normality Aleksandar Mijatovic and AljoSa Puzar 10. Latin as a sign of life? The reception of the ancient tradition as a marker in the analysis of the Sovietization process in Poland Jerzy Axer Part IV: 1989 11. The Revolutions of 1989: Twenty Years Later Michael Bernhard 12. Marx on 1989 G. M. Tamás 13. Jamming the Critical Barrels: The Legacies of Totalitarian Thinking Aviezer Tucker Part V: THE NEW EUROPE 14. Voices from Central Europe: Bauman, Kertész and Zizek in Search of Europe Mare van den Eeden 15. Europe in the Mode of As If: Józef Tischner's Góral Philosophy Anita Starosta 16. Europe Speaks: Linguistic Diversity and Politics Jan Sokol