Forum on Southeast Europe
The Forum on Southeast Europe aims to provide a long-term academic platform for interdisciplinary research and discussion of the politics, economies, and societies across Southeast Europe.
INTERDISCIPLINARY NATURE
The Forum brings together scholars from a variety of fields: Political Science and International Relations, Political Theory, Modern History, Sociology, Cultural Anthropology, Economic Geography, and Global Studies. While building on existing relationships between UNC faculty and colleagues at different institutions in North Carolina, and the Southeastern U.S. broadly, the Forum’s annual events and activities foster multiple disciplinary and methodological perspectives in an effort to identify points of departure for joint discussions and research on the region.
THEMATIC FOCI
• The relations between the Balkans and “core Europe” in historical and contemporary perspective, including the dynamics of EU integration, democratization, institution building, and economic transformation
• New social movements in Southeast Europe: patterns of mobilization and political contestation in response to state capture, corruption, and economic crisis and dislocation
• Southeast Europe and globalization: the region in European and global trading, investment and production networks; migratory flows from, through, and to the Balkans
• Identity transformation at local, national, and regional levels: inter-ethnic relations, patterns of identification, and political action transcending community cleavages
• Inequality, economic development, and social change in Southeast Europe
PAST EVENTS
The Afterlife of Ottoman Europe: Muslims in Habsburg Bosnia Herzegovina
Participants: Leyla Amzi-Erdogdular (Rutgers University at Newark)
Bosnian Studies: Perspectives from an Emerging Field
Participants: Dženeta Karabegović (University of Salzburg), Adna Karamehić-Oates (Fontbonne University), Dino Kadich (University of Cambridge)
The War in Ukraine: Language, Identity and the Legacy of the Yugoslav Conflicts
Presenter: Robert Greenberg (University of Auckland, New Zealand)
Social Movements 101, How to Mobilize for Change
Presenter: Srđa Popović (Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies)
Sarajevo: Writing and Translating a City in Wartime
Participants: Ellen Elias-Bursac & Paula Gordon
Erdogan’s Turkey in the Balkans: A Rival of the West?
Participants: Lisel Hintz (Johns Hopkins University), Nora Fisher Onar (Coastal Carolina University), Dimitar Bechev (UNC-CH), Erdağ Göknar (Duke University)
The Rise and Fall of Authoritarianism in Today’s East Europe
Participants: Dimitar Bechev (UNC-CH), Martin Naunov (Prague Security Studies Institute), Milada Vachudova (UNC-CH)
Does International Justice Have an Impact? The Legacies of Criminal Tribunals
Participants: Diane Orentlicher (American University), David Tolbert (Duke University), Bob Jenkins (UNC-CH)
The Use and Abuse of Historical Memory in Southeast Europe: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue
Participants: Sarah Wagner (George Washington University) & Jelena Subotić (Georgia State University)
Book Panel • Hunger and Fury: The Crisis of Democracy in the Balkans
Participants: Jasmin Mujanović (author), Kiran Auerbach (UNC-CH), Besir Ceka (Davidson College)
Return to Authoritarianism in the Balkans?
Participants: Florian Bieber (University of Graz), Jasmin Mujanović (EastWest Institute), Jelena Subotić (Georgia State University), Milada Vachudova (UNC-CH)
If you would like to learn more about the Forum on Southeast Europe, please contact Adnan Džumhur, Forum convener and associate director of CSEEES