The balkans between history and imagination

The course's main objective is to offer the following cometences to the students:
- understanding the basic concepts related to Balkan studies; understanding the ways representations and discourses on the Balkans help creating and maintaining symbolic, social, political and economic hierarchies;
- ability to collect relevant material and a multiperspective analysis of a particualar phenomenon;
- ability to recognize and analyse power relations in historiography, popular culture, media and political discourses and practices
- presenting results of their own research that reflect ability of independent and conceptual thinking and critical judgement
- ability to recognize effects of stereotypes in cultural patterns in the past and the present.

The successful integration in the study course is connected with the knowledge of other cultural historical formations in the field of culture and history and with other courses in the programme.

The course will offer an overview of historical facts and prevalent representations of the Balkans. Its principal aim is to present students with critical tools understand the ways historical interpretations, representations mediated through literature, art and popular culture, as well as political discourses and actions intertwine and affect each other.
Lectures and seminars will familiarize students with most important concepts used to describe and understand social, political, economic and cultural reality of Balkan societies. The students will be presented with prevalent theoretical approaches to culutral history of the Balkans and will analize representations of the Balkans in literature, popular culture and political discourses.
Lectures:
Part 1: Basic concepts (1-8)
- genealogy of notions the Balkans, Europe, Southeast Europe, Western Balkans
- historical legacies and their role in the symbolic geography of the Balkans
- orientalism, balkanis
- the Balkans and post-colonial/decolonial perspectives
Part 2: Representations (9-20)
- the Balkans as European other
- the Balkans and representations of otherness in literature, art, and popular culture
Part 3: Representations of the Balkans in Slovenia (21-25)
Part 4: From representations to power relations (26-35)
- economic relations of the European periphery
- conditions of production of knowledge on the Balkan region
- race, class, ethnicity in the Balkan context
- contemporary political uses of the Balkans and »Balkanness«
The seminar:
In the framework of the seminar meetings there will be directed discussions related to particular topics addressed during the lectures. We will also discuss shorter texts and fragments from historiographic sources.
Students will also prepare and present analyses of selected phenomena/discourses/practices related to topics discussed during the lectures. These analyses will be the base for the essays they are expected to write and submit.

The students are familiarized with the concepts related to cultural history of the Balkans. They understand how representations of the Balkans were being formed and what are their effects in the social, cultural, economic and political spheres – both in the past and today. They are able to collext material related to the specific topic, analyse it and produce an academic and analytical text in the form of an essay or encyclopedia entry.

• Milica Bakić-Hayden in Robert M. Hayden, Orientalistične različice na temo »Balkana«: simbolna geografija v nedavni jugoslovanski politiki kulture. V Zbornik postkolonialnih študij, ur. Nikolai Jeffs, Krtina: Ljubljana, 2007. Catalogue
• Ana Hofman, Music Heritage in Relocation: The "Guča na Krasu" festival, Dve domovini/Two homelands 39, 2014, 73-87. E-version
• Danijela Majstorović, Discourse and Affect in Post-Socialist Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021.
• Tanja Petrović, Dolga pot domov: Reprezentacije zahodnega Balkana v političnem in medijskem diskurzu/A Long Way Home: Representations of the Western Balkans in Political and Media Discourses, Mirovni inštitut. Ljubljana 2009. E-version
• Mirroring Europe: Ideas of Europe and Europeanization in Balkan Societies, ur. Tanja Petrović, Leiden – Boston: Brill, 2014. Catalogue
• Piro Rexepi, The Politics of Postcolonial Erasure in Sarajevo, Interventions, 2018.
• Maria Todorova, Imaginarij Balkana. Predgovor Svetlana Slapšak, spremna beseda Peter Vodopivec (401 strani) : (Prevod dela Imagining the Balkans, Oxford University Press, Inc. 1997). Ljubljana: Institut za civilizacijo in kulturo, 2001. Catalogue
• Maria Todorova, Balkanism and Postcolonialism or on the Beauty of the Airplane View, in: Costica Bradatan/Serguei Alex. Oushakine (ur.), Marx’s Shadow. Power and Intellectuals in Eastern Europe and Russia. Lanham 2010, 175–195. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004382305_007

Tanja Petrović is linguist and anthropologist interested in uses and meanings of socialist and Yugoslav legacies in post-Yugoslav societies, as well as in cultural, linguistic, political, and social procesess that shape reality of these societies. She explores a plethora of issues, encompassing the role of language in forming ideologies, memory and identity, labor and gender histories in post-Yugoslav spaces, the relationship between memory, heritage, and historiographic narratives on Yugoslav socialism. She published numerous articles and monographs in the fields of anthropology of post-socialism, memory studies, masculinity, gender history, heritage studies, linguistic anthropology, and labor history.
In 2005 and 2006 she was a fellow of the Centre for Advanced Studies in Sofia. In the academic year 2010/2011 she was a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, Germany. From September 2013 to February 2014, she was a fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies in Wassenaar, The Netherlands. In October-Novembr 2016 she was a visiting fellow at the Graduate School for East and Southeast European Studies in Regensburg, and in Febuary 2017 at the Centre for Women's Studies, Javalhalal Nehru University, Delhi. She is one of the editors of Etnološka tribina (Zagreb) and editorial board member of Fokloristika (Serbia). She is an Advisory Board member of field of excellence Dimensions of Europeization at the University of Graz, and an Honorary research associate at the Graduate School for East and Southeast European Studies in Regensburg. She regularly teaches courses in cultural studies at the New York institute.

PETROVIĆ, Tanja. European historical legacies and Balkan studies. V: PROMITZER, Christian (ur.), GRUBER, Siegfried (ur.), HEPPNER, Harald (ur.). Southeast European studies in a globalizing world. Berlin: LIT, cop. 2015. Str. 115-126. Studies on South East Europe, Vol. 16. ISBN 978-3-643-90595-6.

PETROVIĆ, Tanja. On the way to Europe : EU metaphors and political imagination of the Western Balkans. V: HORVAT, Srećko (ur.), ŠTIKS, Igor (ur.). Welcome to the desert of post-socialism : radical politics after Yugoslavia. London; New York: Verso, 2015. Str. 103-121. ISBN 978-1-78168-620-1, ISBN 978-1-78168-621-8, ISBN 978-1-78168-622-5, ISBN 978-1-78168-737-6.

PETROVIĆ, Tanja. Images of Europe and the process of the Western Balkan countries' accession to the European Union. V: GYARFÁŠOVÁ, Ol'ga (ur.), LIEBHART, Karin (ur.). Constructing and communicating Europe. Zürich; Berlin: LIT, cop. 2014. Str. 121-144, ilustr. Cultural patterns of politics, vol. 2. ISBN 978-3-643-90515-4.

PETROVIĆ, Tanja (ur.). Mirroring Europe : ideas of Europe and Europeanization in Balkan societies. Leiden; Boston: Brill, cop. 2014. Balkan studies library, vol. 13. ISBN 978-90-04-27507-2, ISBN 978-90-04-27508-9. ISSN 1877-6272.

PETROVIĆ, Tanja. Europe's new colonialisms. Belgrade journal of media and communications. [Print ed.]. 2013, vol. 2, no. 4, str. 107-125. ISSN 2334-6132.

PETROVIĆ, Tanja. Integracijska politika EU na Zapadnom Balkanu u 3 slike. V: MUJAGIĆ, Nermina (ur.). Politike Evropskih integracija. Sarajevo: [Fondacija Heinrich Böll: Udruženje za političke nauke BiH], 2012. Str. 43-49. ISBN 978-9958-577-05-5.

PETROVIĆ, Tanja. European and Slovenian discourses on "the Western Balkans". V: TAKASHINA, Y. (ur.). Toward hetero-symbiosis and tolerance : lingua-culture contextual studies in ethnic conflicts of the world. Lahore: Sang-e-Meel Publications, cop. 2012. Str. 277-289. ISBN 969-35-2461-6, ISBN 978-969-35-2461-1.

PETROVIĆ, Tanja. "When we were Europe" : socialist workers in Serbia and their nostalgic narratives. V: TODOROVA, Marija Nikolaeva (ur.). Remembering communism : genres of representation. New York: Social Science Research Council, 2010. Str. 127-153. ISBN 978-0-9790772-6-5, ISBN 0-9790772-6-5.

PETROVIĆ, Tanja. The idea of Europe or Europe without ideas? : discourses on the "Western Balkans" as a mirror of modern European identity. V: FASSMANN, Heinz (ur.). Kulturen der Differenz : Transformationsprozesse in Zentraleuropa nach 1989 : Transdisziplinäre Perspektiven. [Göttingen]: V&R unipress, cop. 2009. Str. 137-147. ISBN 978-3-89971-714-3.

PETROVIĆ, Tanja. Gnezdenje kolonializmov : novi in stari obrazci izključevanja na obrobju Evrope. V: BEZNEC, Barbara (ur.). Evroorientalizem ; (Z)nova medicina. Ljubljana: Študentska založba, 2009. Letn. 37, št. 235/236, str. 68-77. Časopis za kritiko znanosti, letn. 37, št. 235/236. ISSN 0351-4285.

PETROVIĆ, Tanja. The "Western Balkans" : legacies, practices, policies and identity strategies vis-à-vis the process of nation building : introduction to the thematic section. Dve domovini : razprave o izseljenstvu. [Tiskana izd.]. 2008, [št.] 27, str. 9-13. ISSN 0353-6777.

PETROVIĆ, Tanja. Yuropa : das jugoslawische Vermächtnis und Zukunftsstrategien in postjugoslawischen Gesellschaften. Erste Aufl. Berlin: Verbrecher, cop. 2015. 255 str., ilustr. ISBN 978-3-95732-018-6.

PETROVIĆ, Tanja. Dolga pot domov : reprezentacije zahodnega Balkana v političnem in medijskem diskurzu. 1. izd. Ljubljana: Mirovni inštitut, 2009. 87, 93 str., ilustr. Zbirka Mediawatch. ISBN 978-961-6455-55-8.

PETROVIĆ, Tanja. Zapadni Balkan je na jugu : diskursi na temu pristupanja zapadnog Balkana Evropskoj uniji. V: 1989-2009. : godine prevrata : početak inkluzije ili ekskluzije? : zbornik radova sa međunarodne konferencije. Sarajevo: Fondacija Heinrich Böll, Ured za Bosnu i Hercegovinu, 2009. Str. 69-76, 177-184. ISBN 978-9958-9889-6-7.

PETROVIĆ, Tanja. Srbi u Beloj Krajini : jezička ideologija u procesu zamene jezika. Beograd: Srpska akademija nauka i umetnosti, Balkanološki institut; Ljubljana: Znanstvenoraziskovalni center Slovenske akademije znanosti in umetnosti, Založba ZRC, 2009. 228 str., ilustr. Posebna izdanja, 109. ISBN 978-86-7179-066-6.