2016 Summer School Courses

2016 Jelisaveta Blagojevic

In dominant political and ideological discourses, contemporary Serbian society is most often characterized as a society “in transition”, colloquially referred to as “Serbia after democratic changes”. In such discourses, everything in Serbia in the past 15 years is “in transition”: the justice system, the economy and culture, but also our lives, our freedoms and our rights. Our recent historical trans experience generally refers to the path from communism and socialism to capitalism and liberal democracy, recognized as synonymous with European Union (EU) integration. At the same time, while “transiting” from one ideology to another, Serbian society is carrying the heavy burden of recent historical events: wars, ethnic cleansing, isolation and the collapse of all institutions, among others.

Course themes

The course will be organized around four concepts:

a) community; b) friend/enemy; c) minorities and d) popular culture.

The aim of this course is to understand the transition from the dominant Yugoslav ideology to what came after in Serbia through the analysis of changes in the discourses that organize the four concepts above. Discussion will focus on Serbia as well as on comparisons with the other successor states of the former Yugoslavia. 

Course Structure

  • Background and introduction to the breakup of Yugoslavia
  • Post-Milosevic Serbia
  • Serbia in transition: community
  • Serbia in transition: concepts of friend/enemy
  • Serbia in transition: minorities
  • Serbia in transition: popular culture

 


 

jelisaveta blagojevicDr. Jelisaveta Blagojević received her Ph.D. in gender studies from the University of Novi Sad, Association of the Centers for Interdisciplinary and Multidisciplinary Studies and Research. Her dissertation was entitled “Theoretical Contribution to Gender Studies: Discourses on Identity, Difference and Otherness” (2006). She received an M.Phil in gender and culture studies from Open University London and a B.A. in philosophy from the Faculty of Philosophy, Belgrade University.

Dr. Blagojević teaches at the Faculty of Media and Communications, Singidunum University, and has served as the university’s dean of academic affairs since 2006. She also has worked at the Belgrade Women’s Studies and Gender Research Center as a coordinator and lecturer since 2001. Since 2003 she has been a visiting lecturer at the gender and politics program at the Political Science Faculty, Belgrade University. She has taught as a visiting lecturer at universities across Southeast Europe. Her research interests include contemporary (political) philosophy, media studies, queer studies, and gender studies. She was born and currently lives in Belgrade.

Her publications include: Politics of Unthinkable: introduction into anti-fascist life, FMK, 2014, Belgrade; "Between Walls. Provincialisms, human rights, sexualities and Serbian public discourses on EU integration" in De-Centring Western Sexualities - Central and Eastern European Perspectives, Robert Kulpa, Birkbeck College, London and Joanna Mizieliñska (eds.), Ashgate, UK, 2011.; "Kultura koja dolazi" ("Culture to Come") in Kultura, Drugi, Žene (Culture, Others, Women) eds. Svenka Savić, Jasenka Kodrnja and Svetlana Slapšak, Institut za društvena istraživanja, Hrvatsko filozofsko društvo and Plejada, Croatia, 2010; Hieroglyphs of Jealousy, Research Center in Gender Studies, Euro-Balkan Institute Skopje, 2008; Zajednica onih koji nemaju zajednicu (Community Without Community), FMK, Belgrade, 2008; Gender and Identity, ed. Collection: See Theories in Gender Studies, (Skopje, Ljubljana, Belgrade) in 2006.


 

CONTACT US


  • Karadjordjeva 65
    11000 Belgrade, Serbia

 

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