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Centre for the Study of the Balkans Events Archive

Archived events from the Centre for the Study of the Balkans.

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The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Central Europe, ed. Nada Zecevic and Daniel Ziemann (OUP, 2022) - book presentation

March 28, 6.30pm GMT (online)

The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Central Europe summarizes the political, social, and cultural history of medieval Central Europe (c. 800-1600 CE), a region long considered a "forgotten" area of the European past. The 25 cutting-edge chapters present up-to-date research about the region's core medieval kingdoms — Hungary, Poland, and Bohemia — and their dynamic interactions with neighbouring areas. From the Baltic to the Adriatic, the handbook includes reflections on modern conceptions and uses of the region's shared medieval traditions. The volume's thematic organization reveals rarely compared knowledge about the region's medieval resources: its peoples and structures of power; its social life and economy; its religion and culture; and images of its past.

In this book presentation, three world-renown medievalists discuss about what constituted medieval Central Europe, giving special attention to this region’s peripheries and their place in the region’s medieval and modern conceptions.

Speakers:

Prof. Piotr Górecki, Department  of History, University of California, Riverside, CA

Dr. Damir Karbić, Department of Historical Research in the Institute of Historical and Social Research,Croatian Academy of Sciences

Doz. Mag. Dr. Mihailo Popović, Institute for Medieval Research (IMAFO) - Division of Byzantine Research (ABF), Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna

Respondents:

Dr. Daniel Ziemann, Department of History, Central European University, Vienna

Dr. Nada Zečević, Department of History, Goldsmiths University of London (event moderator)

Register for the event

"The Greek Revolution of 1821 and ... Race? Stories of Black Greeks and Doubts about the Racial Paradigm"

Online 15 March, 2023 BST, 6.30 pm Public lecture by Prof Yannis Kotsonis

The Greek Revolution and War for Independence (1821-1830) was fought largely on a confessional axis, and it produced a state of Christians alone. It is right to ask whether a new awareness of race should inform these events, but this does not mean that we should accept the centrality of race. This talk will focus on some stories of Greeks and revolutionaries and propose that, of the many categories that were adopted from the west, race was not among them. We will ask why.

Yanni Kotsonis is professor of history at New York University. He is trained as a Russian specialist and recently has expanded into imperial history with a focus on the Greeks as imperial creatures and the Greek Revolution and as an imperial event. He is currently writing a book, The Greek Revolution: A New History.

To attend the lecture, please book here. The registration will be open until March 14 at 11 pm; the link to the session will be provided after the closure of the registration.

Sava - film screening and discussion with director Matthew Somerville

November 30, 6:30 pm, BPB Lecture Theatre, Goldsmiths University of London

Sava is a river movie, a documentary film and a journey down what was once the longest river in Yugoslavia

An ancient river tells us her story, conversing with inhabitants along her flow. Corseted by man, she is an artery not a barrier, taking the viewer on a 990 km journey through divided lands she seeks to understand. She is Sava (Mira Furlan).

Her ethereal voice acts as a guide between people who share stories, memories and visions of the future which navigate an innate connection to nature, a relationship with borders and the construct of nationhood.

For millennia Sava has been a witness to human history; a conduit between East and West, the dividing line of great empires and a common thread between nations. Sava's journey connecting these young nation states begins in Slovenia taking us through the entire country and into Croatia where she eventually forms the border with Bosnia and that of the European Union frontier, finally we enter Western Serbia where she flows to the heart of Belgrade and joins the Danube.

Old Steelworkers ruminate on what their communities have lost and gained by the fall of heavy industry, musicians and drag queens and new ways to talk about their own and regional identity, ferrymen deliberate on hydropower shifting the rivers ow, war veterans question what independence was for and anarchists who seek to escape the ever invasive and controlling machinations of the state.

With the river as the protagonist, voiced by former-Yugoslav actress Mira Furlan. Speaking on behalf of Sava her voice transcends borders and ideology stimulating a discourse between humanity, nationhood and nature.

The film will be presented by its director, Matthew Somerville.

Discussion moderator: Dr Nada Zecevic, Centre for the Study of the Balkans, Goldsmiths University of London


21 September, 10am-4pm

Letters: modelling and analysis with Mag. Dr Thomas J.J. Wallnig, Privatdoz, Institute of Austrian Historical Research and Department of History, University of Vienna, Austria

Letters are historical sources relevant across centuries and continents. But what would be the technical preconditions for comprehensive queries, in-depth analyses, and the re-use of letter data? The workshop will address these problems from the perspective of data management, before proceeding to the interaction between data modelling and analysis. Two hands-on sessions will include basic TEI XML and the use of selected online tools.  

24 September, 10am–4pm

Digital Memoryscape with Professor Nevena Daković, Theory and History Department, Faculty of Drama Arts, University of Belgrade, Serbia.

Belgrade memory narratives, in themselves rich in identity, projected onto the digital memoryscape and connecting real and virtual topography, reflect the multicultural identity of the Balkan metropolis. The capital of the succeeding states, placed at the intersection of Europe and the Balkans, the East and the West, a bridge between cultures and civilizations of Orient and Occident, Belgrade is paradigmatic noeud de mémoire et d`histoire. Furthermore, BDM becomes a space of the interplay of urban/national memory and identity that contributes to their promotion and visibility in the global digital world.

How do we model and plan digital memoryscape of the chosen city or of one its lieux de memoire? How do you decide about the place and topic? What are the research and archival sources? What type of media and narratives do we employ (fiction, faction, history, literature, films, music, oral testimonies)?

29 September, 10am–4 pm

Would you rather…?: The ups, downs, uses and dilemmas of digitising history with Dayna Miller, Kingston University Archives and Special Collections  Library and Learning Services 

This session will discuss the approach that Kingston University Archives and Special Collections has taken to digitisation. From decisions about digitisation priorities to lessons learned from the Coronavirus Lockdown, participants will hear about practical challenges that funding, staffing, and moving premises can pose to a digitisation programme.

In addition, the session will raise questions over why archives digitise at all. Looking at ethical as well as pragmatic concerns, participants will have a chance to consider the benefits of digitisation for researchers and for archives, but also the disadvantages, and the fine balance that archives must strike for one to outweigh the other.

The session will also provide an opportunity to engage with material from a number of the Archive’s collections. This includes a 15th Century Serbo-Croat Armorial from the Vane Ivanovic Library as well as more recent historical items; all of which can be viewed in a wider context than might first appear. Participants will work through a series of ‘archive dilemmas’ represented by these items and will be asked to apply to them a methodology presented during the session along with their own ideas about what it means to digitise history.

Please apply via eventbrite or CHASE.

9 June , 10am-4pm

Access to Archives, Digitization, Digital Preservation and the Concept of Record Trustworthiness in a Digital Environment. The Experience of the Blinken Open Society as the Archival Laboratory of Digital Records 

Session Trainer: Robert Parnica, Senior Reference Archivist, Open Society Archives (OSA), Budapest (Hungary)

16 June, 10am-4pm

Approaches in Object-based DH Research, Reconstruction and Visualisation 

Session trainer: Dr Kateřina Horníčková, Researcher / DH Projects Coordinator, Institute of Applied Informatics, University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice  (Czech Republic)

21 June, 10am-4pm

Separating the Wheat from the Chaff: On the Use and Usefulness of Digital Humanities in History and Beyond 

Session trainer: Dr Mihailo Popović, Project Leader TIB Balkans, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Institute for Medieval Research - Division of Byzantine Research, Vienna (Austria)

For eligibility criteria and applications, see  CHASE/ Training and Development Opportunities or at Eventbrite.

The series is made possible by the generous support of CHASE, Doctoral Training Partnership.

February 10, 7 pm 

Diagnosing and Treating Disease in Byzantine Hospitals

Public Lecture by Petros-Bouras Vallianatos
Introduction: Dr Nada Zecevic, Goldsmiths University of London, Department of History
Moderation: Dr Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim, Goldsmiths University of London, Department of History  

This talk focuses on the diagnosis and treatment of disease in Byzantine hospitals (xenōnes). It uses evidence from the corpus of surviving Byzantine hospital recipe books (xenōnika), including all the edited and unedited examples.

It also considers important non-medical sources, such as charters of medical institutions, legal sources, epistolography, and archaeological evidence. In this venture, particular attention will be paid to the role of uroscopy whether in conjunction with the examination of the pulse or not, in the diagnosis and prognostication of disease. 

In the field of therapeutics, importance will be given to drug therapy, whether allied with dietetics and surgery or not, the impact of Arabic versus classical pharmacology, the introduction of expensive exotic substances, and the development of existing and new composite drugs in response to epidemic diseases, such as the Black Death. Finally, recipes for women’s diseases will be studied closely in an attempt to shed light on the level of the individualisation of the patient. 

Petros Bouras-Vallianatos is a Wellcome Lecturer in History of Medicine at the University of Edinburgh. He is a specialist in the history of medicine and pharmacology in the medieval Mediterranean, with a particular focus on Byzantium and on the cultural exchanges between the Christian and Islamic worlds.

He has published extensively on medieval medicine and pharmacology, offering editions of previously unpublished texts; the reception of the classical medical tradition in the Middle Ages; and Greek palaeography, including the first descriptive catalogue of the Greek manuscripts at the Wellcome Library.

His recently published monograph, Innovation in Byzantine Medicine: The Writings of John Zacharias Aktouarios (c. 1275-c. 1330) (Oxford University Press, 2020), highlights the late Byzantine innovative contributions to the fields of physiology, diagnosis, and therapeutics. He has also produced three edited volumes, including Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Galen. He is the PI of a five-year Wellcome funded project “Making and Consuming Drugs in the Italian and Byzantine Worlds (12th-15th c.)”.

 

Discussion on the film Homecoming: Marina Abramovic and Her Children (2020) with Boris Miljkovic, director and Jovana Karaulic, producer

Moderation: Dr Nada Zecevic, Department of History/Centre for the Study of the Balkans, Goldsmiths University of London

Panellist: Dr Aleksandar Brkic, Institute for Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship, Goldsmiths, University of London The screening of the film will be enabled to all attendees who register here before March 20 via a password protected link, so they can see the film prior to the discussion. The details of the access to the film and the discussion will be sent to the registered attendees via a separate email 22-23 March.

Discussion on the film Exil/Exile (2020) with Visar Morina, film director

Moderation: Dr Nada Zecevic, Department of History/Centre for the Study of the Balkans, Goldsmiths University of London

The screening of the film will be enabled to all attendees who register here before March 20 via a password protected link, so they can see the film prior to the discussion. The details of the access to the film and the discussion will be sent to the registered attendees via a separate email 21-22 March. Watch the trailer here.

Reform and Renewal in Medieval East and Central Europe:  Politics, Law and Society

Edited by Alexandru Simon, Éva B. Halász and Suzana Miljan (Cluj-Napoca – Zagreb – London: Romanian Academy – Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts – School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, 2019) – book presentation followed by a discussion on “The Balkans, The South-East Europe, the European East – the entangled histories of a concept?”

Discussion participants

Editors

  • Prof. Alexandru Simon (Romanian Academy, Center for Transylvanian Studies, Cluj-Napoca)
  • Dr Éva B. Halász (Eötvös Loránd Research Network – Institute of Military History, Budapest – National Archives of Hungary Research Group for Medievistics)
  • Dr Suzana Miljan (Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts), editors

Respondents

  • Professor Damir Karbić, Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts
  • Dr Ljubica Perinić, Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts
  • Dr Teodora Artimon, Trivent Publishing, Budapest

Moderation

  •  Professor Martyn Rady, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London

Reform and Renewal in Medieval East and Central Europe: Politics, Law and Society represents a collection of papers authored by 30 scholars focusing on the history of medieval Central, East and South-east Europe.

By comparatively focusing on the development and transformation of the region’s medieval polities, their socio-legal interactions, and their urban development as a paradigm of the region’s convergences, the edition reflects a variety of historiographic experiences, all leading to the question of how we can approach the European East as a field of entangled medieval histories.

After we Burnt Villages – Reading Film as History

Discussion on film Pretty Village, Pretty Flame (dir. by Srdjan Dragojević, 1995) by Dr Milja Radović, University of St. Andrews
Respondent: Fedja Štukan, actor, Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina 
Special guest: Srdjan Dragojević, film director, Belgrade, Serbia

In this Lecture, we will explore the ways in which we can read film as history. The overarching question that we seek to answer is: How can we understand the context [off-screen space] through the film?

In order to answer this question, we shall focus on the films produced during the 1990s conflict on the territory of former Yugoslavia. Through an analysis of film language [mise-en-scene, symbols, images, montage, sound and music, camera movement] we will assess the representations of the films’ ideological context.

Before we turn to the analysis of the films, the historical development of the Yugoslav cinema will be presented. Then, we will look at the selected films/scenes and analyse the film language, to finally discuss the relationship between the on-screen [what we see in the film] and off-screen space [what we do not see, the surrounding political context].

New Identity Politics on Social Media among Serbian Londoners

Public lecture by Dr Sanja Vico, The London School of Economics and Political Science
Respondent: Professor Eric Gordy, School of Slavonic and East European Studies || University College London
Moderator: Dr Maurice Walsh, Department of History, Goldsmiths University of London
Dr Sanja Vico, LSE and Professor Eric Gordy, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, UCL discuss identity politics on the ‘semi-periphery’

In the age when identity politics is being studied on various grounds, very little is known about the lives and experiences of the subjects on the ‘semi-periphery’. The ones who are neither part of the developed West, nor of developing countries and former colonies in the Global South, but those who occupy the space ‘in-between’.

Studies to date have demonstrated that due to this position of ‘in-betweenness’, sometimes coupled with the experience of discrimination or negative stereotyping, the semi-peripheral position is often fraught with chronic self-insecurity.

On the other hand, most studies of identity politics or politics of differences have looked at subcultures and organised attempts to challenge power and dominant representations, and thereby to redefine identities and one’s position in society. Thus, it has not been explored sufficiently if and how everyday spontaneous tactics of “blending in” and “standing out” can constitute what has been thought of as identity politics.

In her lecture, Dr Vico draws our attention to ordinary unremarkable communication practices of the subjects from the semi-periphery living in a global city – namely, Serbian Londoners. She argues that these almost invisible practices are often manifestations of identity politics aimed at reconstructing their national identity and consequently improving their position in society.

Dr Vico draws an ethnographic study of digital communication practices of Serbian Londoners, to identify a new form of subtle spontaneous identity politics on social media. This form of identity politics seeks to reassert this group’s national identity and presents it as both an “exotic” difference and “cosmopolitan”, i.e. the one that belongs to the world. She combines the analysis of social media affordances as well as diverse social factors, including users’ agency, to look at communication practices of this specific group on social media.

As Dr Vico argues, this form of identity politics has been brought about by social surveillance of the social media, the context of London as a global city, and the particular socio-historical circumstances that shaped the identity of the observed community.

Dr Vico shows that the identity politics of the Serbian Londoners is normatively ambivalent, representing, on the one hand, a source of empowerment, and, tending, on the other hand, to commodify their differences.

Dr Nada Zecevic presents at the International Medieval Congress in Leeds

Between July 6 and 10, Dr Nada Zecevic (History) took part in the International Medieval Congress (IMC). Since 1994, this Congress is organized by the Institute for Medieval Studies (IMS) of the University of Leeds and it represents the largest annual conference in any subject in the UK and the largest conference of its kind in Europe, regularly attracting over 2000 registered participants, and serving as a barometer for trends in Medieval Studies generally. Responding to the global challenges caused by the covid-19 crisis, this year’s Congress was held in a virtual environment, while its special thematic strand dealt with borders, covering a wide range of outlooks on physical boundaries and material borders to dynamic social and spatial relationships. In her paper 'Women with masculine characters'?: The Regencies of Noble Women in the East Adriatic and Latin Greece, 14th and 15th Centuries, Dr Zecevic focused on power relations that challenged gender construction among the elite of the late medieval Balkans. For the full programme of sessions and other events at this year’s v-IMC, see here.

"Making Films in Times of Political and Financial Crises": Workshop with Želimir Žilnik

Making films under financial and political constraints remains an urgent topic in the current social climate. There is perhaps no better European filmmaker to explicate working in this climate than Yugoslav-Serbian director Želimir Žilnik. Žilnik has been active making films since the 1960s, always working with a strong political consciousness and a confrontational attitude to the status quo. From his debut feature film receiving the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1969 to his career retrospective at Centre Pompidou in Paris in 2019, Žilnik has constantly been one of the most vital and celebrated filmmakers on the European continent. On the occasion of his first UK survey program, at Close-Up Film Centre in London, he will lead a workshop at Goldsmiths for doctoral candidates working with the moving image and operating on the boundary between theory and practice. The workshop will consist of two parts; the first section involves a lecture with short screenings and discussions integrated, while the second part is student-led, inviting PhDs to contemplate their own research and projects in dialogue with Žilnik. Particular themes of emphasis include navigating political action and creative work, the ethics of filmmaking, working with fiction/nonfiction, and strategies of fundraising and organising. Food and drinks will be served. Early registration is recommended, as space is limited. This workshop is supported by the Centre for the Studies of the Balkans and offered free of charge.

 This event is made possible by the generous support of CHASE.

A special programme of Želimir Žilnik's early documentary shorts will be shown at LUX on 17 November, and affiliated public programs include a symposium at Birkbeck on 15 November and a practice-based workshop at Goldsmiths on 13 November.

Little Pioneers
Želimir Žilnik, 1968, 18 min

Kenedi Goes Back Home
Želimir Žilnik, 2003, 75 min

Kenedi is Getting Married
Želimir Žilnik, 2007, 80 min

The Old School of Capitalism
Želimir Žilnik, 2009, 122 min

One Woman - One Century
Želimir Žilnik, 2011, 110 min

Pirika on Film
Želimir Žilnik, 2013, 53 min

Logbook Serbistan
Želimir Žilnik, 2015, 94 min”

For the events' calendar and booking, see here. Booking for the conference available here.

The Centre for the Studies of the Balkans is delighted to support the discussion on the monograph

The Great Cauldron: A History of Southeastern Europe

By Marie-Janine Calic (LMU Munich)

The discussion is hosted by IHR’s seminar on Rethinking Modern Europe and will take place on:

(Basement, IHR-Senate House, Malet Street, London WC 1E 7HU)

Speakers: Marie-Janine Calic (LMU Munich), Catherine Carmichael (UEA), Alex-Drace Francis (Amsterdam) and Dejan Djokic (Goldsmiths University of London).

For further details.

Dr Jasna Dragovic-Soso and Dr Dejan Djokic speak at a conference in New York

Dr Jasna Dragovic-Soso (Politics) and Dr Dejan Djokic (History) spoke at an international conference Ex uno plures: Post-Yugoslav Cultural Spaces and Europe, held at the Harriman Institute, Columbia University on Friday 26 March and Saturday 27 March 2010. The goal of the conference was to explore post-Yugoslav cultural spaces by bringing together and facilitating dialogue between an unprecedented concentration of leading intellectuals, both from the former Yugoslav territories and from the West. Alongside opening questions of difference and commonality, the conference also addressed issues such as how can the post-Yugoslav spaces—and even micro-spaces—respond to the challenges of globalization? Dr Dragovic-Soso’s spoke about ‘Collective Responsibility, International Justice and Public Reckoning with the Past’, while Dr Djokic’s talk was entitled ‘Was the Disintegration of Yugoslavia Inevitable? An Historian’s View’. Read full conference programme.

Seminar

Programme of Events 2018/19

Autumn term

Yanni Kotsonis (NYU)

‘Black, Greek, and Imperial: Greekness, Race, and Religion in the Revolutionary Age, 1797-1830’, organised jointly with the Rethinking Modern Europe seminar, Institute of Historical Research

Date: Wednesday 10 October 2018
Time: 5.30 pm
Venue: RHB 144

Screening of ‘The Legend of the Ugly King’, dir. Hüseyin Tabak (Austria, 2018), 122 mins

Winner: Beyond the Borders Festival prize for best historical documentary, 2018

Synopsis: A young filmmaker sets out to explore the eventful life of the famous Kurdish director, actor, and revolutionary Yilmaz Güney, who achieved international attention by films like Yol (Palme d'Or, 1982) or Sürü (Golden Leopard, 1978). Full details.  

In collaboration with Beyond the Borders: International Documentary Festival, Hellenic History Foundation and Institute of Historical Research, London

Date: Wednesday 10 October 2018
Time: 6.00 pm
Venue: Curzon Goldsmiths
Tickets: £5 student / £7 adults (Tickets may be purchased directly through Curzon Goldsmiths.

Global Yugoslavia: New research on Yugoslavia in transnational

‘Global Yugoslavia: New research on Yugoslavia in transnational, comparative and global perspectives, 1918-2018’, a half-day conference funded byPast&Present, Rethinking Modern Europe seminar (IHR) and CSB.

Date: Wednesday 28 November 2018
Time: 1.30-7.00pm
Venue: RHB 309
Convener: Dejan Djokić

The conference is organised to coincide with the centenary of the formation of Yugoslavia. Nine academics at different career stages working on the history of Yugoslavia and the post-Yugoslav region will present their latest research. The papers have been written especially for the event and will benefit from, and contribute to, a range of methodological and disciplinary approaches. Key research questions underpinning the conference include: can we understand the history of Yugoslavia and the post-Yugoslav region without situating it in a wider, transnational and perhaps even global context? Yugoslavia is usually perceived as unique (or perhaps uniquely unstable) case, an exception that confirms the rule, but does the latest research confirm or challenge such assumptions? What are the current main trends in the historiography of former-Yugoslavia and how do they relate to broader historiographical debates? In other words, how effectively do historians of Yugoslavia speak to scholars working in fields such as global history, transnational history, modern European history, history of the empire, the Holocaust, Cold War, communist and post-communist studies, race and ethnicity, and transitional justice? Free entry, but please register to attend. Full details.

For any queries please contact Daniel Fraser d.fraser (@gold.ac.uk)

Programme of Events 2017/18 

Autumn term

Panel discussion: ‘Revisiting Europe’s Debatable Lands: Hubert Butler and Yugoslavia’

Friday 1 Dec, 5.30pm, Room: RHB 325

Participants: 

  • Roy Foster (Oxford/Queen Mary) 
  • Vesna Goldsworthy (Exeter/UEA)
  • Dejan Djokić (Goldsmiths)

The legacy of the Holocaust in the post-Yugoslav space: a presentation of new multimedia work on regional Jewish history

Thursday 7 Dec, 5.30 Room RHB 304a

Participants: 

  • Milan Ristović (Belgrade), author of 'Yugoslav Jews fleeing the Holocaust, 1941-45' (2016)
  • Christina Pribićević-Zorić (London), translator of Filip David's novel, 'The House of Remembering and Forgetting' (Istros/Peter Owen, 2017)
  • Jonna Rock (Berlin), director of 'A Sarajevo Jewish Story' (2017)

Spring term

'Re-constructing national identities after wars: Croatia and its Homeland War'

Thursday 1 February 5.30pm, Room RHB 304a

Dejan Jović (University of Zagreb/Goldsmiths)

Discussant: Jasna Dragović-Soso (Goldsmiths)

Official opening of the Stevan K. Pavlowitch Collection

Wednesday 7 February, 5.30pm Goldsmiths Library Special Collections Reading Room

Speakers include Leo Appleton, Kosta St. Pavlowitch, Jasna Dragović-Soso, Dejan Djokić. Refreshments will be provided.

Programme of Events 2016/17

Autumn term

Wednesday 26 October 2016, 5:30-7pm

Venue: RHB 143

Carolin Leutloff-Grandits (Graz)

'Cross-border marriages between citizens of Kosovo and Western Europe: Discourses, aspirations and realities'

Spring term

Chair: Dejan Djokić (Goldsmiths)

Wednesday 25 January 2017, 5:30-7pm

Venue: RHB 304a

Tanja Petrović (Slovenian Academy, Ljubljana)

'Military service in socialist Yugoslavia and post-Yugoslav male subjectivities'

Chair: Dejan Djokić

Wednesday 15 March 2017, 5-6:30pm

Venue: RHB 143

Anastasia Stouraiti (Goldsmiths)

'War and religion in the early modern Mediterranean: the Ottoman siege of Corfu (1716)'

(The presentation is part of the Department of History Research Seminar)

Chair: Dejan Djokić

Thursday 16 March 2017, 6-7:30pm

Venue: Humboldt University Berlin

Dejan Djokić (Goldsmiths)

'Serbia in History: early 21st century reflections'

(Public lecture, co-sponsored by Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin & Dept of History, Goldsmiths).

Chair: Hannes Grandits (Humboldt University)

Programme of Events 2014/15

Autumn term

Tuesday, 16 September, 6:00pm

Venue: Small Hall (Cinema), Richard Hoggart Building

Film screening: 'Little Buddho' ('Mali Buda', Serbia, 2014), pre-premiere of the film, in Serbian with English subtitles, followed by Q&A with Danilo Bećković, the director 

Moderator: Dejan Djokić

Spring term

Wednesday, 28 January 2015, 5.30 pm

Venue: Institute of Historical Research, Peter Marshall Room (204)

Panel: 'New research on popular and everyday culture in Eastern Europe in socialist times'

Diana Georgescu (EUI), The Socialist Nerd: Youth, Ideology and Cultured Life in Late Socialist Romania

Radina Vučetić (Belgrade), Coca-cola Socialism in Yugoslavia: How American Popular Culture Worked for Socialism

Dean Vuletić (Vienna), Eurovision and Intervision: The Cold War Song Contests

Chair: Alex Drace-Francis (Amsterdam) 

(In collaboration with the Rethinking Modern Europe IHR seminar) 

Wednesday, 25 February, 4:00pm

Venue: RHB 143

Elissa Helms (CEU), Innocence and Victimhood:  Gender, Nation and Women’s Activism in Post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina

Chair: Sari Wastell

(A talk and book launch hosted by the Department of Anthropology, Goldsmiths) 

Tuesday 12 May, 5.00pm

Venue: Professor Stuart Hall Building, Room 326

Panel: 'Of Love, Death and Migration', a discussion on the literature of Danilo Kiš, the first writer from the Balkans to become a Penguin Modern Classic.

Speakers: Vesna Goldsworthy (academic and writer), Tena Štivičić (writer) and Mark Thompson (writer)

Moderator: Jasna Dragović-Soso

(The panel is co-sponsored by Penguin and CSB)

Programme of Events 2012/13

Autumn term

Wednesday, 31 October, 5:30 - 7:00pm, Room 143, Richard Hoggart Building

Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers (Roehampton)
‘Ilegalja: An anthropology of the pre-1999-war Albanian militant organisation of resistance in Kosovo and its contemporary legacies’
Chair: Dejan Djokić (Goldsmiths)

Wednesday 14 November, 5:30 - 7:00pm, Holden Room (Room 103), Senate House

Cathie Carmichael (UEA)
‘Imagining Bosnia without Serbs: The Ustaša, the Drina border and exile in Spain’
(Joint CSB / 'Rethinking modern Europe' Institute of Historical Research seminar event)
Chair: Dejan Djokić

Thursday, 22 November, 5:30 - 7:00pm, Great Hall, Richard Hoggart Building

‘The Arhai Project’ – talk and performance by Jovana Backović and Adrian Lever of the London-based Arhai duo. Arhai perform a unique fusion of contemporary electronic music with folk influences from both the UK and the Balkans. The event will mark the 3rd ‘birthday’ of the CSB.
Introduction: Dejan Djokić

Spring term

Wednesday, 20 February, 5:30 - 7:00pm, Cinema (Small Hall), Richard Hoggart Building

Dejan Jović (Chief analyst, Office of the President of Croatia)
‘Croatia, the EU and the Western Balkans’
Chair: Dejan Djokić

Wednesday, 27 February, 5:00-7:30, Cinema (Small Hall), Richard Hoggart Building

Screening of Uspomene 677 - a documentary film which shows the continuing painful legacy of the Bosnian war through the recounting of memories of two generations of Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs trying to come to terms with their experiences. Q&A with Mirko Pincelli, director, and Enrico Tessarin, producer
Chair: Jasna Dragović-Soso (Goldsmiths)

Wednesday, 13 March, 5:30 - 7:00pm, Staff Dining Room, Richard Hoggart Building

‘Revisiting Ruritania’– discussion to mark the publication of the paperback edition of Vesna Goldsworthy’s seminal study Inventing Ruritania: The Imperialism of the Imagination (1998/2013). Speakers include journalist and author Neal Ascherson, Michael Dwyer of Hurst & Co. Publishers, and Vesna Goldsworthy.
Introduction: Dejan Djokić

Tuesday, 19 March, 5:30 - 7:00pm, Room 251, Richard Hoggart Building

Irina Livezeanu (University of Pittsburgh)
'How Can One Write East European History Now?'
Discussant: Alex Drace-Francis (Amsterdam)
Chair: Dejan Djokić

Programme of Events 2011/12

Autumn term

Wednesday, 19 October, 5:30 - 7:00pm, Room 143, Richard Hoggart Building

Conversations about Djilas: A panel discussion commemorating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Milovan Djilas (1911-1995), Yugoslav revolutionary, dissident, and writer.

Speakers:

  • Pat Loughrey (Warden, Goldsmiths), Welcome & Introduction
  • Sumantra Bose (LSE), 'The Wider Significance of Djilas' Critique of Authoritarianism'
  • Dejan Djokić (Goldsmiths), 'Djilas as a Historian and as a Source'
  • Jasna Dragović-Soso (Goldsmiths), 'What Dissidence Meant in Socialist Yugoslavia: The Case of Milovan Djilas'
  • Vesna Goldsworthy (Kingston), 'Djilas as Will and Representation'
  • Stevan K. Pavlowitch (Southampton), 'Remembering Djilas'

Wednesday, 23 November, 7.00 - 9.00pm, TW1.U8, Tower One, Clement's Inn, LSE

'The Long Road Through Balkan History' (2010)
Documentary film screening and Q&A with the film makers (chaired by Dr Dejan Djokic)
Co-organised by Research on South Eastern Europe (LSE), London School of Economics, and Centre for the Study of the Balkans, Goldsmiths, University of London.
This event is free and open to all with no ticket required. Entry is on a first come first served basis.
Finding your way around the LSE Campus

Spring term

Wednesday, 1 February, 5:30 - 7:00pm, Room 274, Richard Hoggart Building

Anastasia Stouraiti (Goldsmiths), 'Marvels of the Levant: Wonder and Empire in Early Modern Venice'

Wednesday, 22 February, 5:30 - 7:00pm, Room 143, Richard Hoggart Building

Dusan Bjelic (University of Southern Maine)
Discussant: Bhaskar Mukhopadhyay (Goldsmiths)
Chair: Dejan Djokic (Goldsmiths)

Wednesday, 14 March, 5:30 - 7:00pm, ST274, Stewart House, 2nd floor (32, Russell Square, London WC1B 5DN)

Mark Cornwall (Southampton) & Hannes Grandits (Humboldt University, Berlin), 'Shifting Allegiances Among the Nationalities in the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires'
Chair: Dejan Djokic (Goldsmiths)

Jointly sponsored by the IHR ‘Rethinking Modern Europe’ seminar and Goldsmiths Centre for the Study of the Balkans.

Centre for the Study of the Balkans webpage

Facebook group page 

Programme of Events 2010/11

Autumn term

Time: Tuesdays, 5:30 pm (unless otherwise stated)

Venue: Room 274, Richard Hoggart Building (unless otherwise stated)

Tuesday 19 October

Vjeran Pavlaković (University of Rijeka)
‘Red Stars, Black Shirts: Croatia’s Commemorative Culture and Contested Histories of the Second World War’

Tuesday 26 October

Pamela Ballinger (University of Michigan)
‘The Right to be a Refugee: Displaced Persons in Venezia Giulia after the Second World War’

Wednesday 10 November

Antonio D’Alessandri (Roma Tre University)
‘The “Eastern Question” and France: Nationalism, Revolution and Exile after 1848-49’
Venue: Germany Room, Institute of Historical Research, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 6BT 
The event is hosted by the Rethinking Modern Europe IHR seminar

Tuesday 16 November

Peter Mackridge (University of Oxford)
‘Language and National Identity among the Greeks and the South Slavs, 1800 to 2000’

Tuesday 30 November

Book launch: Stefanos Katsikas (ed.), Shifting Identities: Bulgaria and Europe (Anthem Press, 2010). Speakers: Vesselin Dimitrov (LSE), Stefanos Katsikas (Goldsmiths) and Vassilis Monastiriotis (LSE).
Venue: Embassy of the Republic of Bulgaria, 186-188 Queen’s Gate, London SW7 5HL
The event is organised jointly by the Bulgarian Embassy and the Goldsmiths Balkans Centre

Spring term

Tuesday 18 January

Dejan Djokić (Goldsmiths)
‘Mapping the Nation in New Europe: The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919-1920’
Discussant: Alan Sharp (University of Ulster)
The event marks the publication of Dejan Djokić, Pašić and Trumbić: The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Haus, 2010), and is co-organised with Haus Publishing.

Tuesday 25 January

Alex Drace-Francis (University of Liverpool)
‘The History Forgotten by Historians: Cultures of Autobiography in Modern Romania'

Thursday 3 February

1pm RHB 306
Jo Shaw and Igor Stiks (University of Edinburgh)
'EU integration and citizenship struggles in Post-Yugoslav States'

Tuesday 15 February

Alice Forbess (Goldsmiths)
‘Founding Fathers: On the Resurrection of Serbian Orthodox Monasteries in Kosovo, Montenegro and Herzegovina’

Tuesday 1st March

Ana Ljubojević (Goldsmiths/University of Lucca)
‘Is Peace Not Just Enough? Transitional Justice and Dealing with the Past in Croatia and Serbia’

Wednesday 9 March

Venue: RHB 256
Richard Clogg (University of Oxford)
‘Defining the Diaspora: The Case of the Greeks’
Event organised jointly with the Rethinking Modern Europe IHR seminar

Tuesday 15 March

Xavier Bougarel (CNRS, Paris)
‘The Political Uses of the Term “Genocide”: The Case of Socialist Yugoslavia’