with Francesca Rolandi   Cover of  “Arena – Yugoslav magazine of cinema, television and theatre” featuring the Italian actress Gina Lollobrigida, 07.06.1959. During the 1950s and 1960s, Socialist Yugoslavia experienced an opening up to cultural products from Western Europe and the United States. Due to geographic proximity, Italian pop culture propagated by television, cinema, radio … Continue reading #014 – Italian Pop Culture in Yugoslavia: Transfers and Encounters across the Adriatic, 1950s-1960s

with Maurus Reinkowski   A cartoon from “The Daily Express”, 27.09.1922,  just a few days after the Great Fire of Smyrna and one month before the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire The current conflicts and humanitarian crisis in states like Syria and Iraq have raised the question of a dissolving political order in the Middle … Continue reading #013 – The return of the Near East? A perspective on the Arab World, Turkey, and Southeast Europe

with Dobrinka Parusheva   The Bulgarian Council of Ministers in 1897, with Nayden Benev (first on the left side) and prime-minister Constantin Stoilov (in the middle). They married two cousins, were partners in the law office, and provide an illustrative case of patron-clients relationship with Stoilov being the patron Most of Southeast European states such as … Continue reading #012 – National political elites in the late 19th and early 20th century Balkans

with Fernando Zamola   (Victoria Matteucci, “Zastave”, 2012)   A discussion on nationalism, loyalties in flux and state formation. The Croatian question was one of the most debated issues in the process of reorganization and devolution of state power in the Habsburg Monarchy in the late 19th and early 20th century. We approach it by … Continue reading #011 – The Croatian Question in the Late Habsburg Empire and the Road to a Yugoslav State

with Nicole Immig   In this installment we approach the strategies of integration and mobility of Muslims after the end of Ottoman rule in Thessaly and Arta. The shift from imperial to national province implied new challenges and costraints for the Muslim population that has left only a few traces in those areas. However, these territories … Continue reading #010 – Muslims in Greece between Empire and Nation State: The Case of Thessaly and Arta, 1878-1897

with Dana Dolghin     The episode discusses selective memory, forgetting and official memory narratives of communism in Romania. It is in particularly concerned with memory narratives and induced forgetting that occur at the intersection of European memory canons, post-1989 state biography and more recent transnational readings of transitional justice and reconciliation. Although Dana’s research … Continue reading #009 – Beyond the Obligation to Remember: Silence, Transnationalism and Memory Culture in Romania

with Srdjan Radovic     With the breakup of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the governments of the emerging states were concerned about how to reshape a collective identification which was distinctive and – although to different degrees – in contrast with the socialist past. In this framework, changes in toponymy were carried out … Continue reading #008 – Street and Place (re)Naming and Public Memorialization in Former Yugoslav Countries

with Janis Nalbadidacis     Torture was a central element in both the Greek and the Argentine dictatorships. In this context, specific institutions which epitomized the regimes’ policy of violence were established. In Athens, this function was fulfilled by the headquarters of the Police (in Bouboulina and later in Mesogeiou Street), whereas in Buenos Aires torture … Continue reading #007 – Torture Centers in Greece and Argentina during the Military Dictatorships

  The International Conference “Early Cinema in the Balkans and the Near East – Beginnings to Interwar Period” took place from the 5th to the 7th of June in Athens at the Central Building of the National and Kapodistrian University. Among the organisers were Maria Chalkou from the editorial board ofthe journal filmicon, Canan Balan … Continue reading #006 – “EARLY CINEMA IN THE BALKANS AND THE NEAR EAST” – Athens, 05.-07.06.2015: Conference Report

with Fabio Giomi   Muslim women’s streetwear from the interwar period, Sarajevo Since the mid 19th century, the fate of Bosnian Muslims became a subject of interest for both western academics and politicians. Some emphasized the radical otherness of Islam and considered Muslims as intrinsically “Asian” and “non-European”. Others focused on the Bosnian Muslims’ Slavic … Continue reading #005 – Islam, Gender and Civil Society in post-Ottoman Bosnia and Yugoslavia (1878-1941)