Final Report Summary - YUGOSLAVIA REVISITED (Yugoslavia Revisited: Post-Yugoslav Literature and Art as Curators of the Socialist Past)
The cultural memory of the multinational socialist Yugoslavia, of its utopian/revolutionary potential as well as of its violent breakdown, has broad repercussions that strongly resonate with the endeavour of the European Union to create a shared European (transnational) identity based on a common understanding of the (European) past.
This interdisciplinary project investigated how post-Yugoslav literature and art remembers the heydays of socialist Yugoslavia (1950s-1970s). Focusing on a number of selected cases from prose fiction, film, and visual art, this project not only scrutinized how the arts ‘archive’, ‘document’ or ‘recall’ the everyday life and memory of socialist Yugoslavia, but also examined how critical cultural practices and the memories they mediate help envision a better future and open up new avenues to cosmopolitanism.
Utilizing a dynamic understanding of cultural memory as a performative engagement with the past, the project focused on the following questions: (1) How do post-Yugoslav artistic practices act as curators of the socialist past in opposition to the dominant ideologies of nationalism and neoliberalism? (2) How does post-Yugoslav literature and culture acknowledge the mediated character of memory? (3) How do the ways in which the arts shape and circulate the cultural memory of Yugoslavia help transcend national and ethnic boundaries and imagine new forms of solidarity? (4) How do literature and art deal with (the identity politics of) Europe and ideas of transnational identity, and how is this reflected in their reception?
Through an analysis of post-Yugoslav artistic practices of cultural remembering, the project not only tried to shed new light on post-Yugoslav memory culture and provide a theoretical contribution to memory studies, but also to contribute to the contemporary debate on a common European cultural memory and transnational identity today.
Research results:
The aim of the IEF was to publish several articles in international peer-reviewed top journals; because the project was foreshortened (and lasted 11 months instead of the planned 24), the research output specifically related to the project was less than envisaged.
I submitted 1 article to the journal Memory Studies, the leading journal in the field. As promised in Annex I of the Grant Agreement, the article (“Revisiting-Yugoslavia, Re-Signifying Europe: The Memory of Socialism in Post-Yugoslav Critical Cultural Practices,” 8,300 words) is a contribution to Post-Yugoslav studies, memory studies, and European studies.
In February-March-April 2015, I wrote and submitted 2 articles to edited volumes (both accepted, forthcoming Spring 2016):
- “On Comics, Flea Markets, Collecting, and Cultural Memory: Aleksandar Zograf’s Second-Hand World and Leonid Sejka’s Integral Painting” In: Ana Martinoska et al. (eds): Popular Culture: Reading from Below. Skopje: Institute for Macedonian Literature. [8,000 words]
- “Ugresic, Hemon, and the Paradoxes of Literary Cosmopolitanism: Or How to “World” (Post-) Yugoslav Literature in the Age of Globalization” In: Adrijana Marcetic et al. (eds): Komparativna knjizevnost: teorija, tumacenja, perspektive. Belgrade: Belgrade University Press [3,700 words].
In May-June 2015, I wrote and submitted a book proposal for a monograph related to my previous research project on Holocaust memory. The book proposal has been accepted by the academic publisher Ashgate, with which I signed a contract in July 2015.
In July, I revised a book chapter related to my earlier research on Habsburg Bosnia titled “A Janus-Faced Modernity? Narratives of Austro-Hungarian Rule (1878–1918) in Bosnian Literature,” which will be published in: Vladimir Biti et al. (eds): Broken Narratives. Vienna: Vienna University Press - Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht [14,300 words].
In two stages, in Spring and in Autumn, I finished the editorial work on the co-edited volume Post-Yugoslav Constellations (with Vlad Beronja, DeGruyter, forthcoming January 2016).
I participated in four international conferences (Lund, Tokyo, Vienna, Frankfurt), gave an invited talk (Vienna University), and took part in the research seminars of the Utrecht Forum for Memory Studies.
Results of training activities:
One of the long-term objectives of the training – obtaining a permanent academic position – has been fully realized; for this reason, I did not write an application for a VIDI grant that was mentioned in the career development plan. As part of my training, I contributed to the planning and organizing of the Utrecht Forum for Memory Studies’ monthly seminar and to the writing of a major collaborative grant.
Because the project was foreshortened, some training objectives, such as supervision training, public outreach activities at BAK in Utrecht, and the organization of an international conference in Utrecht were cancelled, while others, such as teaching training, have been fulfilled partly.
To sum up, the training with Ann Rigney as well as the insights I gained from discussions with scholars working in a different context helped me to put my own research in a broader, comparative perspective and make me well-positioned to engage more in depth with key issues of transnational memory in Europe in the future.
This interdisciplinary project investigated how post-Yugoslav literature and art remembers the heydays of socialist Yugoslavia (1950s-1970s). Focusing on a number of selected cases from prose fiction, film, and visual art, this project not only scrutinized how the arts ‘archive’, ‘document’ or ‘recall’ the everyday life and memory of socialist Yugoslavia, but also examined how critical cultural practices and the memories they mediate help envision a better future and open up new avenues to cosmopolitanism.
Utilizing a dynamic understanding of cultural memory as a performative engagement with the past, the project focused on the following questions: (1) How do post-Yugoslav artistic practices act as curators of the socialist past in opposition to the dominant ideologies of nationalism and neoliberalism? (2) How does post-Yugoslav literature and culture acknowledge the mediated character of memory? (3) How do the ways in which the arts shape and circulate the cultural memory of Yugoslavia help transcend national and ethnic boundaries and imagine new forms of solidarity? (4) How do literature and art deal with (the identity politics of) Europe and ideas of transnational identity, and how is this reflected in their reception?
Through an analysis of post-Yugoslav artistic practices of cultural remembering, the project not only tried to shed new light on post-Yugoslav memory culture and provide a theoretical contribution to memory studies, but also to contribute to the contemporary debate on a common European cultural memory and transnational identity today.
Research results:
The aim of the IEF was to publish several articles in international peer-reviewed top journals; because the project was foreshortened (and lasted 11 months instead of the planned 24), the research output specifically related to the project was less than envisaged.
I submitted 1 article to the journal Memory Studies, the leading journal in the field. As promised in Annex I of the Grant Agreement, the article (“Revisiting-Yugoslavia, Re-Signifying Europe: The Memory of Socialism in Post-Yugoslav Critical Cultural Practices,” 8,300 words) is a contribution to Post-Yugoslav studies, memory studies, and European studies.
In February-March-April 2015, I wrote and submitted 2 articles to edited volumes (both accepted, forthcoming Spring 2016):
- “On Comics, Flea Markets, Collecting, and Cultural Memory: Aleksandar Zograf’s Second-Hand World and Leonid Sejka’s Integral Painting” In: Ana Martinoska et al. (eds): Popular Culture: Reading from Below. Skopje: Institute for Macedonian Literature. [8,000 words]
- “Ugresic, Hemon, and the Paradoxes of Literary Cosmopolitanism: Or How to “World” (Post-) Yugoslav Literature in the Age of Globalization” In: Adrijana Marcetic et al. (eds): Komparativna knjizevnost: teorija, tumacenja, perspektive. Belgrade: Belgrade University Press [3,700 words].
In May-June 2015, I wrote and submitted a book proposal for a monograph related to my previous research project on Holocaust memory. The book proposal has been accepted by the academic publisher Ashgate, with which I signed a contract in July 2015.
In July, I revised a book chapter related to my earlier research on Habsburg Bosnia titled “A Janus-Faced Modernity? Narratives of Austro-Hungarian Rule (1878–1918) in Bosnian Literature,” which will be published in: Vladimir Biti et al. (eds): Broken Narratives. Vienna: Vienna University Press - Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht [14,300 words].
In two stages, in Spring and in Autumn, I finished the editorial work on the co-edited volume Post-Yugoslav Constellations (with Vlad Beronja, DeGruyter, forthcoming January 2016).
I participated in four international conferences (Lund, Tokyo, Vienna, Frankfurt), gave an invited talk (Vienna University), and took part in the research seminars of the Utrecht Forum for Memory Studies.
Results of training activities:
One of the long-term objectives of the training – obtaining a permanent academic position – has been fully realized; for this reason, I did not write an application for a VIDI grant that was mentioned in the career development plan. As part of my training, I contributed to the planning and organizing of the Utrecht Forum for Memory Studies’ monthly seminar and to the writing of a major collaborative grant.
Because the project was foreshortened, some training objectives, such as supervision training, public outreach activities at BAK in Utrecht, and the organization of an international conference in Utrecht were cancelled, while others, such as teaching training, have been fulfilled partly.
To sum up, the training with Ann Rigney as well as the insights I gained from discussions with scholars working in a different context helped me to put my own research in a broader, comparative perspective and make me well-positioned to engage more in depth with key issues of transnational memory in Europe in the future.