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Inštitut za novejšo zgodovino
Visiting Fellowship 2026/27

Lois Kalb

PhD Candidate, European University Institute, Florence

Lois Kalb is a PhD candidate at the European University Institute in Florence and a research affiliate of the partnership project “Deindustrialization and the Politics of our Time” at Concordia University in Montréal. Her work sits at the intersection of urban history and social anthropology and focuses on urban transformations, lived experiences, and urban commons in Soviet-era neighborhoods. Her dissertation examines how residents of Riga’s Soviet-era housing came to inhabit and make sense of their neighborhoods during the Soviet period and the decades that followed. Drawing on oral history interviews, the project traces the generational, gendered, and classed dimensions of Soviet urbanization and post-socialist urban change in Riga. Her research has received support from the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies and the Yerevan Center for International Education.

Statement of interest: 

During her stay, she will connect with the scholars at the institute, working on state socialism and post-1989 market transformations beyond the Soviet space, particularly with historians and anthropologists studying the memory and lived experience of state socialism and its aftermath.

 Selected Publications:

  •  2025 Kalb, L., “Mass Housing, Malfunctioning Infrastructure and Transforming Property Relations in 1990s Kyiv & Riga”, Revue d’études Comparatives Est-Ouest, 56 (1), 55-82.