Class Schedule:

1. Introductory Lecture: general presentation of the course’s structure; questions; discussion of the assignments and the course’s rationale

Required Reading: none

2. Balkan Culture: What do we mean by "Balkan Culture"? Can the Balkans be regarded as a homogeneous cultural space?

- TheBalkansencompasses a variety of cultures and people. Can culture help to understand and explain behaviors and political and social institutions? We will investigate various concepts of culture (normative concept of culture versus neutral, anthropological concept and so on), and the political instrumentalization of an essentialist and monolithic concept of culture which fosters nationalistic feelings and conflicts.

Mandatory Readings:

-Michael Keating, "Culture in Social Sciences", in Donatella Della Porta and Michael Keating (eds.), Approaches and Methodologies in the Social Sciences: A Pluralist Perspective, Cambridge University Press, 2008, pp.99-118

-Boris Kremenliev, "Social and Cultural Changes in Balkan Music", Western Folklore, Vol. 34, No. 2, (April 1975), pp.117-136

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/149909

Additional (advisable) Readings:

-Ivan Colovic, The Balkans: The Terror of Culture: Essay in Political Anthropology, Baden-Baden: Nomos (South East European Integration Perspectives, 5), 2011.

3. Fault Lines: "High" Culture (Elite’s Culture) and Popular (Folk) Culture

Culture is often associated with the terms "high" and "low". In this class we will examine both "high"/elite’s culture and popular culture, in the past and in contemporary contexts. We will focus on the "high" (literary) and popular (folk) culture divide and on the emergence and consolidation of national literature and art; folklore’s role in the formation and development of the national literatures; the creation of a new folklore in the twentieth century under the communist regimes; the manipulation of folklore for political purposes (e.g. "the national folk culture" under communism) versusfolklore as a site of cultural refuge and resistance.

Mandatory Readings:

-Alice Mocanescu, "National Art as Legitimate Art: ‘National between Tradition and Ideology in Ceausescu’s Romania", pp. 1-16,

available at: http://users.ox.ac.uk/~oaces/conference/papers/Alice_Mocanescu.pdf

-Maria Alexe, "The Balkan Post-modern Writers-Between Story Tellers Tradition and Western Patterns", НАУЧНИ ТРУДОВЕ НА РУСЕНСКИЯ УНИВЕРСИТЕТ, том 50, 2011, pp. 132-136, available online at: http://conf.uni-ruse.bg/bg/docs/cp11/6.3/6.3-21.pdf

Additional (advisable) Readings:

-Peter Burke, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe, London: Temple Smith, 1978.

4. The Reassessment of the Balkan Epic in Contemporary Art and Culture: Aesthetic and Political Complexities

The epic traditions have been part of many different cultures from various parts of the world. In this course we will examine epics across the Balkan region, both as a historical and as a contemporary phenomenon. The genre of Modern Literary Epic (as the first stage in the development of modern Balkan literatures) emerged from oral epic. There are various interpretations regarding the functions of these early literary epics. But what is the significance of Balkan epic today? Is contemporary Balkan epic a genre of connections, cultural flows and intersections within and through the region or a source of nationalist imaginaries?

Screening and discussion: Marina Abramovic, "Balkan Baroque" (1997) and "Balkan Erotic Epic" (2005)

Mandatory Readings:

-Margaret Beissinger, "Epic, Gender and Nationalism: The Development of Nineteenth- Century Balkan Literature" in The Epic Traditions in the Contemporary Word: The Poetics of Community, Margaret Beissinger, Jane Tylus and Susanne Wofford, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999, pp. 69-83 (these pages will be distributed in class in advance).

-Maja Brkljačić, "Popular Culture and Communist Ideology: Folk Epics in Tito’s Yugoslavia", in Ideologies and National Identities: The Case of Twentieth-Century Southeastern Europe, John R. Lampe and Mark Mazower, Budapest: CEU Press, 2004, pp.180-210. Available also online at: http://books.openedition.org/ceup/2430.

Additional (advisable) Readings:

-Gregory Nagy, "Epic as Genre", in The Epic Traditions in the Contemporary Word: The Poetics of Community, Margaret Beissinger, Jane Tylus and Susanne Wofford, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999, pp. 21-29.

-Alice Blackwood, "Adapting Tradition: The Role of Epic Poetry in Communist Bulgaria and Yugoslavia", Balkan Folklore, 2011, pp.1-12,

Available: https://www.academia.edu/4457193/Adapting_Tradition_The_Role_of_Epic_Poetry_in_Communist_Bulgaria_and_Yugoslavia

-Shinya Watanabe, Comparison of Marina Abramovic’s Performance at the Venice Biennale, and Sanja Ivekovic’s Performance Miss Croatia and Miss Brazil Read Zizek and Chomsky at the Sao Paolo Biennale

available at: http://www.shinyawatanabe.net/nationstate/thesis5.htm

5. Balkan vernacular style and its influences in modern architecture: the relationship between tradition and modernity and between politics and aesthetics

Mandatory Readings:

-Chiko Ncube, Vernacular and Modern Architecture: Lessons from Corbusier, pp. 1-18

Available at: http://www.slideshare.net/chikoNcube/vernacular-and-modern-architecture-lessons-from-corbusier

-Sibel Bozdogan, "Politics of Vernacular: The Turkish House: Nationalism and Postmodernity", History/Theory/ Criticism, 1995, 171-176.

Additional (advisable) Readings:

-Milica - Jovanovic -Popovic, Vesna Sunjkic and Radmila Tomovska, "Aesthetics of Vernacular Architecture: Comparative Analysis of Context Aesthetics in Balkan Region", 2012.

Available at: http://www.plea2012.pe/pdfs/T11-20120130-0071.pdf

6. Contemporary Balkan art and its institutions: Art worlds and Art Practices in the Balkans

The artistic production of the Balkans entered into Western history of art after the fall of Communist regimes. As many theorists claim the Balkans had to wait until the end of the 1990s to be welcomed in the community of contemporary art.How are the artists from the region negotiating this delay? Is there really a peculiar form of art in the Balkan region or the term "Balkan art" indicates the incapacity of the "West" to examine and evaluate specific artworks by using criteria developed for the assessment of the mainstream art production?

Mandatory Readings:

- Srdja Pavlović, "Does Balkan Art exists?" Kakanien Revisited, 2003, available at:

http://www.kakanien.ac.at/beitr/fallstudie/SPavlovic4.pdf

-Diane Amiel, "Specifically Balkan Art: Does it Exist?", Third Text, The Balkans, Vol. 21 Issue 2, 2007, Published by Routledge, pp. 137-144.

7. The negative images of the Balkan "other" in the Western gaze and how this stigmatization is resisted, internalized or coped with in the cultural production of the region

Maria Todorova’s canonical text "Imagining Balkans" (Oxford University Press, 1997) dispels the noxious connotations of the term "Balkans". This book’s influence for the cultural and political studies of the area is tremendous. During this class we will examine how art from the Balkan region can be understood/evaluated and to what extent the contemporary artists from the region resist, internalize or cope with the negative images of the Balkan "other" in their art. Does the term "Balkan art" leads to a better unders