Contact
Email:
slebovic@gmu.edu
Website:
https://historyarthistory.gmu.edu/people/slebovic
Further Information
Fellow during the summer term 2022
Project: Unequal Exchange: The Politics of Cultural Globalization in the Wake of World War II
I am writing a political history of cultural globalization in the immediate aftermath of World War II. The book seeks to understand how international policy-makers struggled to influence and manage cultural exchanges as they were constructing the postwar order. It is particularly focused on the self-interested role of the U.S. in shaping the institutional landscape of international cultural flows, and is based on new archival research into a variety of forgotten debates over the circulation of culture in the 1940s – visa and passport policy; embassy construction; educational exchange; the flow of news; the creation of international institutions like UNESCO. By reconstructing the history of these neglected subjects, the book rethinks the history of postwar global politics, critically analyzes the contradictions of America's commitment to internationalism, and models the importance of studying cultural globalization through the lenses of political, diplomatic, and legal history.