Podiplomski studij antropologije – FDV,

Univerza v Ljubljani, Ljubljana, Slovenija

Predmet: Antropologija Balkana

Predavaè: Dr Aleksandar Boškoviæ

 

 

Course outline

The proposed course will deal with the development of ethnological and anthropological theories in the Balkans region, focusing on the countries that used to be (until 1991) part of the SFR Yugoslavia. We shall deal with some of the early ethnological theories, as well as with a general overview of the development of national ethnologies in the region. We shall also re-examine enormous influence that Marija Todorova’s book Imagining the Balkans has had for the scholarship in and about the region, in postulating “Balkanism” on the lines of Edward Said’s “Orientalism” (and thus falling into some of the same traps and essentializations).

The aim of the course is twofold:

  1. to introduce students to relevant scholarly material (of high academic value – but not readily accessible) from the scholars from this region, especially in the early 20th century; and
  2. to re-evaluate and de-construct the very ideas such as “Balkan” or “Balkan anthropology” as mere inventions, and to look at the consequences of these inventions.

 

Students should come out of the course wioth much clearer idea of how anthropology constructs its objects, as well as how it is used for daily political purposes. Thus, the course will also touch upon the methodology of ethnographic/anthropological research (especially doing anthropology “at home”), history of anthropology, and political anthropology.

 

Evaluation

Students should actively participate in the lectures and seminars, and write the final paper on the topic approved by me by the end of July.

Important: It is expected that all students attending the course would have read the following texts before the beginning of the course:

Etnoloski pregled No. 23-24, Beograd, 1988, and

Jezernik, Bozidar, Dezela kjer je vse narobe. Prispevki o etnologiji Balkana.

 

Literature [copies of unaccessible articles will be provided by the lecturer]

Bakic-Hayden, Milica, and Robert M. Hayden

1992    Orientalist Variations on the Theme “Balkans”: Symbolic Geography in Recent Yugoslav Cultural Politics. Slavic Review 51(1): 1-15.

Barjaktarovic, Mirko

1956    Misljenja o terminima etnologija, etnografija i folklor. Glasnik Etnografskog muzeja u Beogradu 19: 301-302.

Bauman, Zygmunt

1998    Hereditary Victimhood: The Holocaust's Life as a Ghost. Tikkun July/August 1998, str. 33-38.

Bjelic, Dusan, and Obrad Savic (editors)

2002    Balkan as Metaphor: Between Fragmentation and Globalization. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

Boskovic, Aleksandar

2003a  Virtual Balkans: Imagined boundaries, hyperreality and playing rooms. In: Absolute Report. Springerin Verlag, Wien [forthcoming].

2003b  Ethnicities in wonderland: ‘Balkan’ of my imagination. Social Anthropology 11 [forthcoming].

Bratanic, Branimir

1976    Pogled na 200 godina etnoloske znanosti. Izvjesca V and VI: 5-56. Hrvatsko etnolosko drustvo, Zagreb.

Djordjevic, Tihomir R.

1906    O etnologiji. Srpski knjizevni glasnik XVII(7): 520-532.

Erdeljanovic, Jovan

1938    Etnologija kao nauka. Glasnik Etnografskog muzeja u Beogradu 13: 9-23.

Etnolsπki pregled

1988    Etnoloski pregled. [Revue d’ethnologie.] Beograd.

Herzfeld, Michael

1987    Anthropology through the Looking-Glass: Critical Ethnography in the Margins of Europe. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

1995    Les enjeux du sang: La production officielle des stéréotypes dans les Balkans — Le cas de la Grèce, Anthropologie et Sociétés 19(3): 37-51.

Ivekovic, Ivan

1998    Usual bias, political manipulations and historical forgeries: The Yugoslav drama. In: Stefano Bianchini and George Schopflin (eds.), State Building in the Balkans: Dilemmas on the Eve of the 21st Century. Europe & the Balkans International Network, Bologna and Longo Editore, Ravenna.

Kolar-Panov, Dona

1997    Video, War and the Diasporic Imagination. Rouledge, London.

Kulisic, Spiro

1967    Osvrt na razvitak naucne misli u srpskoj etnologiji. Etnologija (Sarajevo) N.s. 22: 197-206.

Muraj, Aleksandra

1996    Talking with Dunja. Narodna umjetnost 33, 2, str. 31-46.

Naumovic, Slobodan

1998    Romanticists or double insiders? An essay on the origins of ideologised discourses in Balkan ethnology. Ethnologia balkanica 2, pp. 101-120.

1999    Instrumentalised Tradition: Traditionalist Rhetoric, Nationalism and

Political Transition in Serbia, 1987-1990. In: Miroslav Jovanovic, Karl

Kaser, Slobodan Naumovic (eds.), Between the Archives and the Field. A

Dialogue on Historical Anthropology of the Balkans, Zur Kunde

Sudosteuropas - Band II/24, Udruzenje za drustvenu istoriju - Posebna

izdanja / Teorija I/1, Beograd and Graz.

Pusic, Vesna

1995    Uses of Nationalism and the Politics of Recognition. Anthropological Journal of European Cultures 4(1): 43-61.

Rihtman-Augustin, Dunja

1996a  A national ethnology, its concepts and its ethnologists. Ethnologia Europaea 26: 99-106.

1996b  see Muraj 1996.

1998a  An ethno-anthropologist in his native field: To observe or witness? Anthropological Journal of European Cultures 7: 129-144.

1998    Kroatien und der Balkan. Volkskultur – Vorstellungen – Politik. Österreichische Zeitschrift für Volkskunde. N. s. 101(2): 151-168.

1999    A Croatian controversy: Mediterranean – Danube – Balkans. Narodna umjetnost 36(1):103-119.

2000    Ulice moga grada. Biblioteka XX vek, Beograd.

Ristovic, Milan

1995    The Birth of “Southeastern Europe” and the Death of “The Balkans”. Thetis. Mannheimer Beiträge zur Klassischen Archäologie und Geschichte Griechenlands und Zyperns (edited by Reinhard Stupperich and Heinz A. Richter), Vol. 2, pp. 169-176.

Todorova, Marija

1997    Imagining the Balkans. Oxford University Press, New York.