Cultures, Borders, Memory

The course:
- offers a broad overview of modern theoretical and conceptual approaches,
- offers a historical overview of the thematization of culture, borders and border studies at the intersection of history, anthropology, cultural studies, philosophy, etc.

Competencies:
Students develop critical assessment of sources and their interpretation
Students develop skills in written and spoken academic debate, argumentative debate, and appreciation for a culture of dialogue.
Students develop an independent selection of research topics, appropriate tools and methodologies.

/

The course investigates the mutual imbrication of three conceptual fields: how borders and memory are entangled in the formation and transmission of cultures; how cultures interpret and utilize memory in the process of negotiating borders; and how borderlands constitute spaces of specific memory and cultural production.
Borders are investigated in their material and symbolic aspects and are approached from different conceptual points of view: the frontier, barrier, boundary, border, borderland, border region, border landscape, process of bordering (border as process: debordering/rebordering), territoriality. Departing from this conceptual and practical entanglement, the course guides students through a theoretical investigation drawing on cultural studies, migration studies, border studies, and memory studies, and a practical investigation of various manifestations and materialities of borders in this region as well as beyond, from a historical perspective.
The course examines how borders are instrumentalized by a politics and practice of memory. The course examines the politics of memory in borderlands in particular as an instrument of both state power and its continuous subversion, focusing on processes that involve a multiplicity of actors whose interests and identities depend on the (geo-)political context and that are constructed through negotiations and conflicts.
Through examples of border and memory, the course introduces a critical approach to study of national identity and culture. Hierarchically established relationships are located in the age of modern colonialism and Nazism, while the concepts difference and cultural relativism as reflected in multiculturalism are shown to have developed as the result of the struggle against monoculturalism and Eurocentrism. Hierarchical and differential models of culture will be presented in a critical manner, emphasizing that cultures are different but equal and that there is no one definition of change. In the course, we deal with heterogeneous, differentiated cultures / societies and with great differences between the identities within it. Neither the individual nor the group level is presented as homogeneous. Critical multiculturalism lays out the concept of culture as fluid and processual, but also conditioned by the political framework of the nation state, citizenship and migration. Therefore, the course examines the dynamics of intra-state, trans-national and cross-border cultural interaction and discusses multiculturalism and intercultural relations.

Themes and topics:
- Memory of borders – traumatic memory v. the "positive" memory of nation-building;
- New borders and their influence on existing sites of memory;
- Borders as ruptures in usually continuous and mixed ethnic and linguistic communities;
- Borders and cultures between different political and cultural centres;
- Digitally enabled memory work on past and present migrations;
- Borders and everyday life, popular culture and mythology;
- Culture and memory in border cities;
- Cultures within a culture, multiculturalism and interculturalism.

Students:
- Gain a thorough understanding of the concepts of culture, borders, and memory in modern society and the historical perspective on these from European and other contexts.
- Write various types of critical texts (seminars, essays) in parallel with the critical reading and analysis of contemporary scientific and other literature.
- Master methods to analyse physical memory sites.

• Agnew, John. “Borders on the Mind: Re-Framing Border Thinking.” Ethics & Global Politics 1, no. 4 (January 1, 2008): 175–91. https://doi.org/10.3402/egp.v1i4.1892. E-version
• Amelina, Anna, Thomas Faist, Nina Glick Schiller, and Devrimsel D. Nergiz. “Methodological Predicaments of Cross-Border Studies.” In Amelina, Anna, Thomas Faist, Nina Glick Schiller, and Devrimsel D. Nergiz. “Methodological Predicaments of Cross-Border Studies.” In Beyond Methodological Nationalism: Research Methodologies for Cross-Border Studies, edited by Amelina et al., 1–19. Routledge, 2012, edited by Amelina et al., 1–19. Routledge, 2012.
• Anderson, Benedict (1998). Zamišljene skupnosti: o izvoru in širjenju nacionalizma. Catalogue
• Bauman, Zygmund (2008). Identiteta: pogovori z Benedettom Vecchijem. Ljubljana: Založba cf. Catalogue
• Benedict, Ruth (2008). Vzorci kulture. Maribor: Aristej.
• Brambilla, Chiara, Jussi Laine, James W. Scott, and Gianluca Bocchi. “Introduction: Thinking, Mapping, Acting and Living Borders under Contemporary Globalisation.” In Borderscaping: Imaginations and Practices of Border Making, edited by Brambilla et. al., 1–9. Routledge, 2016. E-version
• Ellebrecht, Sabrina. “Qualities of Bordering Spaces: A Conceptual Experiment with Reference to Georg Simmel’s Sociology of Space.” edited by Arnaud Lechevalier and Jan Wielgohs. Transcript Verlag, 2013.E-version
• Giroux, Henry E. (1994). Insurgent Multiculturalism and the Promise of Pedagogy. Multiculturalism (ur. D. t. Goldberg). Cambridge: Blackwell, 325-343.
• Hofman, Ana. “Music Heritage in Relocation: Guča na Krasu.” Dve domovini, vol. 39, 2014, pp. 73–87. E-version
• Jurić Pahor, Marija. “Hidden Identities within National Minority Groups: The Case of Slovenes in Carinthia and in the Province of Trieste.” In (Hidden) Minorities: Language and Ethnic Identity between Central Europe and the Balkans, edited by Christian Promitzer, Klaus-Jurgen Hermanik, and Eduard Staudinger, 35–58. Wien & Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2009.
• Lukšič Hacin, Marina (2016). Theorizing the concept of multiculturalism through Taylor's 'politics of recognition'. Dve domovini 44, 79-91 E-version
• Ballinger, Pamela. History in Exile: Memory and Identity at the Borders of the Balkans. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002. Catalogue
• Lukšič Hacin, Marina, Milharčič Hladnik, Mirjam, Sardoč, Mitja (ur.) (2011). Medkulturni odnosi kot aktivno državljanstvo. Ljubljana: Založba ZRC, ZRC SAZU, E-version
• Milharčič Hladnik, Mirjam (2015). From Slovenia to Egypt: Aleksandrinke’s trans-Mediterranean domestic workers’ migration and national imagination. Göttingen: V&R Unipress. Catalogue
• O’Dowd, Liam. “From a ‘Borderless World’ to a ‘World of Borders’: ‘Bringing History Back In.’” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 28, no. 6 (December 1, 2010): 1031–50. https://doi.org/10.1068/d2009.
• Payne, Michael (1996). A dictionary of Cultural and Critical Theory. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
• Pfoser, Alena. “Memory and Everyday Borderwork: Understanding Border Temporalities.” Geopolitics 27, no. 2 (March 15, 2022): 566–83. https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2020.1801647. E-version
• Popescu, Gabriel. “Making Sense of Borders” in Bordering and Ordering the Twenty-First Century: Understanding Borders. Rowman & Littlefield, 2012.
• Sendhardt, Bastian. “Border Types and Bordering Processes: A Theoretical Approach to the EU/Polish-Ukrainian Border as a Multi-Dimensional Phenomenon.” In Borders and Border Regions in Europe: Changes, Challenges and Chances, edited by Arnaud Lechevalier and Jan Wielgohs, 21–43. Transcript Verlag, 2013. E-version
• Širok, Kaja. Kalejdoskop Goriške Preteklosti: Zgodbe o Spominu in Pozabi. Ljubljana: Založba ZRC, 2012. Catalogue E-version
• Vižintin, Marijanca Ajša (2023). The role of teachers in the successful integration and intercultural education of migrant children. Newcastle upon Tyne : Cambridge Scholars Publishing Catalogue
• Wutti, Daniel, Nadja Danglmaier, and Eva Hartmann, eds. Erinnerungskulturen im Grenzraum Spominske kulture v obmejnem območju. Klagenfurt/Celovec: Mohorjeva založba & Hermagoras Verlag, 2020. Catalogue

essay 50 %, presentation 30 %, exam 20 %

Martin Pogačar is a cultural studies scholar with a doctorate in changing memory practices in digital media (University of Nova Gorica) and a master's degree in Central and South-Eastern European Studies (School of Slavonic and East-European Studies, University College London).
His research interests include memory in digital media ecologies, connections between technology and memory, as well as Yugoslav popular culture and industrial heritage. He is particularly interested in the influence of the media on the processes and practices of transmitting, recording, and re-presencing the past and the related social imaginaries that emerge out of the intertwining of technology, media, and memory practices. In addition, he explores the history of the development of technology in socialist Yugoslavia. Dr. Pogačar regularly publishes articles exploring these issues from the perspective of philosophy of technology, post-socialist studies, and popular culture studies.
Dr. Pogačar is a member of the editorial board of the journals Memory Studies and Memory, Mind & Media, and the editor-in-chief of the book series Thought, Society, Culture, Slovenian and South Eastern Perspectives, published in collaboration between ZRC SAZU and Peter Lang.

Jovana Mihajlović Trbovc is a political scientist dealing with political issues from perspective of culture studies. Her primary research field is the politics of the past and public memory of the crimes which happened during the dissolution of Yugoslavia and during the Second World War. She is especially focused on the impact of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on the post-Yugoslav states, as well as the reproduction of the historical narratives in the school textbooks. Anothire line of her work deals with issues of gender equality in academia, position of women scientists from socialism until today and integrating gender dimension into research. She is a member of the Commission for Equal Opportunity in Science, a consultative expert body nominated by the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport of the Republic of Slovenia.

Marijanca Ajša Vižintin is research fellow at the Slovenian Migration Institute ZRC SAZU. Her main research and study interests are the inclusion of migrant students in Slovenian school system and the development of an intercultural education model. Her research subjects also include Slovenian emigration to Germany and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Marijanca Ajša Vižintin was awarded the ZRC Silver Award in 2014 for her PhD thesis “The Inclusion of Immigrant Children of the First Generation and Intercultural Dialogue in Slovene Primary Schoolsˮ. She is involved in a number of domestic and international projects on migration-related issues, she actively participates at Slovenian and international conferences (Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kingdom of Bahrain, Croatia, Italy, Germany, Hungary, Sweden), and coordinates the national programme »Only (with) others are we« (2016-2021), https://lezdrugimismo.si/. She has published several scientific papers and a scientific monograph »Intercultural education: inclusion of migrant children« (2017). She was a co-editor of academic journal Dve domovini / Two Homelands in 2013–2014, http://twohomelands.zrc-sazu.si/. She is a visiting lecturer at the University of Stavanger, Norway (postgraduate international study programme EMMIR, European Master in Migration and Intercultural Relations).

Employments: Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU), Slovenian Migration Institute (2015-, 2011-2014), University of Nova Gorica, School of Humanities (2018–), Intercultural Institute (2015), University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Education, University of Nova Gorica, School of Humanities (2009-2011), DBB Hrpelje-Kozina Primary School (2003–2009).

Fields of interest: intercultural education, integration, inclusion, migrant children, intercultural dialogue, intercultural competence, Slovenian language as a second and foreign language, mother tongue(s) of immigrant children, reading promotion, Slovenian emigrants in Germany, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenian emigrant cultural associations, remedial classes of Slovenian language and culture for Slovenian emigrants.