Dr Ana Devic, Faculty of European Legal and Political Studies, EDUCONS University, Serbia - to University of Glasgow: 20 - 31 October 2015
Published: 15 December 2016
• Research Seminar: Wednesday 28 October 16.00 Memory Constructions through a Cinematic Eye: From Yugoslavia to Its Successor States • Masterclass: Thursday 19 October 12.00 - 14.00 What Nationalist Amnesia Buries: Discontent, Powerlessness and Collective Identity in Socialist Yugoslavia
What Nationalist Amnesia Buries: Discontent, Powerlessness and Collective Identity in Socialist Yugoslavia
The seminar focuses on the collective discontents and grievances in Yugoslavia between the late 1960s and late 1980s, based on the studies conducted by Yugoslav social and political scientists during the period. The findings of point to the pervasive sense of social and political powerlessness and marginalization that was experienced by the working class population, the unemployed, and the youth. The lack of attention paid to these aspects of the crisis of socialism contributed to the uncritical acceptance of nationalist explanations of Yugoslavia’s breakdown.
The aim of the first of my seminars was to discuss one segment of my research with the CEES faculty and PhD students. While the topic was the construction and evaluations of memory in the cinema in Yugoslavia and its successor states, which preceded and accompanied the 1991-1999 wars of Yugoslavia’s disintegration, the discussion that followed the presentation involved drawing comparisons with the literature/ biographical genre and film in Poland, the USSR, and post-Soviet states. I was particularly satisfied with the questions coming form doctoral students.
The second seminar was held with the group of international students of the IMRCEES Master Mundus, and it dealt with the issues of socio-economic stratification and developmental crisis in Yugoslavia in the a1980s as an often neglected subject in the comparative studies of socialism and its collapse. As the students are still in the process of formulating their thesis topics, I was glad to answer their concrete questions about the construction of their arguments and methodology.
I was glad to have been able to visit the University of Glasgow’s CEES, and would only wish that the visit may have lasted a bit longer. I hope that I would be able to start preparing a collaborative project with one of the faculty members. My suggestion is to also open a possibility for visiting (‘Third Country’) scholars acting as external supervisors of the students’ theses
First published: 15 December 2016