About the Centre for the Study of the Balkans

Goldsmiths is home to scholars from various disciplinary backgrounds - particularly those based in the departments of History, Politics, Anthropology, Sociology, Media, Communications and Cultural Studies, Law, Visual Cultures, Social, Therapeutic and Community Studies and the Institute for Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship - with research interests relating to the Balkans.

The centre brings together this expertise and provides a platform for inter-departmental collaboration and interdisciplinary dialogue, within Goldsmiths and with other academic institutions, in the UK and abroad.

The Balkans is a peninsula in south-eastern Europe which includes, broadly speaking, the countries of the former Yugoslavia, Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania and Turkey, but the region cannot be understood by geography alone.

Complex historical and cultural legacies - such as those of the Byzantine, Ottoman and Habsburg imperial rules - and interaction of major religions - Eastern Orthodoxy, Sunni Islam and Roman Catholicism - have created a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-confessional mosaic that survives despite numerous ethnic and religious conflicts that have shaped the region, along with numerous examples of coexistence and interaction.

The Balkans provides a fertile ground for further exploration of issues relevant to research carried out across Goldsmiths, such as the study of past and present cultures, societies and identities, nationalism and ethnic conflict, gender, memory and justice, migration and diasporas, multiculturalism and inter-faith relations - issues that are also relevant for an understanding of today’s world and the challenges it is facing.

The CSB currently does not offer any taught or research degrees; for these, please enquire with the relevant department.