Berkeley-Stanford Working Group in New Yugoslav Studies
Contact: Djordje Popović and antje postema at Berkeley; Dominick Lawton and Jovana Lazić at Stanford
Founded in 2022, the joint Berkeley-Stanford working group in New Yugoslav Studies is an interdisciplinary group of Bay Area students and scholars interested in the study of socialist Yugoslavia. The group facilitates critical scholarly inquiry, promotes exchange of knowledge about the Yugoslav project, and brings together researchers, teachers, and students from across different backgrounds.
The group’s bimonthly meetings alternate between the Berkeley and Stanford campuses. Its work is generously supported by Berkeley’s Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ISEEES) and Stanford’s Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies (CREEES).
To date, the group has organized dozens of events in collaboration with its partners at CREEES, ISEEES, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), Department of Art & Art History (Stanford), Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures (Berkeley), and the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco. The CREEES Chronicle featured an article about the group’s first year in 2022-23.
Founded in 2022, the joint Berkeley-Stanford working group in New Yugoslav Studies is an interdisciplinary group of Bay Area students and scholars interested in the study of socialist Yugoslavia. The group facilitates critical scholarly inquiry, promotes exchange of knowledge about the Yugoslav project, and brings together researchers, teachers, and students from across different backgrounds.
The group’s bimonthly meetings alternate between the Berkeley and Stanford campuses. Its work is generously supported by Berkeley’s Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ISEEES) and Stanford’s Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies (CREEES).
To date, the group has organized dozens of events in collaboration with its partners at CREEES, ISEEES, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), Department of Art & Art History (Stanford), Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures (Berkeley), and the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco. The CREEES Chronicle featured an article about the group’s first year in 2022-23.
2024
Feb 1 Talk: Joshua Malitsky, “Yugoslav Documentary Imaginaries of the Post-WWII Era” (Stanford)
Feb 22 Reading group: Gerson Sher, Praxis: Marxist Criticism and Dissent in Socialist Yugoslavia (Stanford)
Mar 14 Reading group: Gajo Petrović, “Why Praxis,” and Marx in the Mid-Twentieth Century; Herbert Marcuse, “The Foundations of Historical Materialism” (Berkeley)
Apr 3 Workshop with Andreja Novakovic and Gregor Moder, "Hegel's Antigone" (Berkeley)
Apr 4 Reading group with Gregor Moder and Bara Kolenc: Mladen Dolar, “Beyond Interpellation”; Slavoj Žižek, The Sublime Object of Ideology; and Louis Althusser, “Ideological State Apparatuses” (Berkeley)
Apr 5 Talk: Gregor Moder and Bara Kolenc, “The Trouble with Ideology” (Stanford)
Apr 11 Talk: Vjeran Pavlaković, U of Rijeka, "The Muralization of War: Graffiti, Murals, and Memory Politics in the former Yugoslavia" (Berkeley)
Apr 18 Paper workshop with Damjan Božinović, "Reading Post-Yugoslav Literature Translingually" (Berkeley)
May 2 Program of experimental films curated by Milan Milosavljević, AFC Belgrade: “The New Yugoslav Film Experiment (Academic Film Center edition)” (Stanford)
May 17 Branko Sekulić: "Ethnoreligiosity in the Former Yugoslav Context" (Stanford)
Sept 19 Reading group: Andrew Wachtel, Making a Nation, Breaking a Nation: Literature and Cultural Politics in Yugoslavia (Berkeley)
Oct 10 Reading group: Andrew Wachtel, Making a Nation, Breaking a Nation: Literature and Cultural Politics in Yugoslavia (Stanford)
Oct 24 Reading group: Srećko Horvat and Igor Štiks, Welcome to the Desert of Post-Socialism: Radical Politics After Yugoslavia (Berkeley)
Nov 12 Film Screening: Dušan Makavejev's Innocence Unprotected (Nevinost bez zaštite, 1968) (Stanford)
Nov 18 Reading group: Underground Barbie with Maša Kolanović (author) and Ena Selimović (translator) in attendance (Stanford)
Nov 19 Reading group: Underground Barbie with Masa Kolanović (author) and Ena Selimović (translator) in attendance (Berkeley)
Feb 22 Reading group: Gerson Sher, Praxis: Marxist Criticism and Dissent in Socialist Yugoslavia (Stanford)
Mar 14 Reading group: Gajo Petrović, “Why Praxis,” and Marx in the Mid-Twentieth Century; Herbert Marcuse, “The Foundations of Historical Materialism” (Berkeley)
Apr 3 Workshop with Andreja Novakovic and Gregor Moder, "Hegel's Antigone" (Berkeley)
Apr 4 Reading group with Gregor Moder and Bara Kolenc: Mladen Dolar, “Beyond Interpellation”; Slavoj Žižek, The Sublime Object of Ideology; and Louis Althusser, “Ideological State Apparatuses” (Berkeley)
Apr 5 Talk: Gregor Moder and Bara Kolenc, “The Trouble with Ideology” (Stanford)
Apr 11 Talk: Vjeran Pavlaković, U of Rijeka, "The Muralization of War: Graffiti, Murals, and Memory Politics in the former Yugoslavia" (Berkeley)
Apr 18 Paper workshop with Damjan Božinović, "Reading Post-Yugoslav Literature Translingually" (Berkeley)
May 2 Program of experimental films curated by Milan Milosavljević, AFC Belgrade: “The New Yugoslav Film Experiment (Academic Film Center edition)” (Stanford)
May 17 Branko Sekulić: "Ethnoreligiosity in the Former Yugoslav Context" (Stanford)
Sept 19 Reading group: Andrew Wachtel, Making a Nation, Breaking a Nation: Literature and Cultural Politics in Yugoslavia (Berkeley)
Oct 10 Reading group: Andrew Wachtel, Making a Nation, Breaking a Nation: Literature and Cultural Politics in Yugoslavia (Stanford)
Oct 24 Reading group: Srećko Horvat and Igor Štiks, Welcome to the Desert of Post-Socialism: Radical Politics After Yugoslavia (Berkeley)
Nov 12 Film Screening: Dušan Makavejev's Innocence Unprotected (Nevinost bez zaštite, 1968) (Stanford)
Nov 18 Reading group: Underground Barbie with Maša Kolanović (author) and Ena Selimović (translator) in attendance (Stanford)
Nov 19 Reading group: Underground Barbie with Masa Kolanović (author) and Ena Selimović (translator) in attendance (Berkeley)
2023
Jan 30 Reading group: Miroslav Krleža, “Speech at the Writers' Congress in Ljubljana” (Berkeley)
Feb 6 Talk: Bojana Videkanić, “Yugoslav People’s Art: Alternative Artistic Practices in Socialism” (organized by Slavic Languages and Literatures; Berkeley)
Feb 7 Reading group with author Katja Praznik, Art Work: Invisible Labour and the Legacy of Yugoslav Socialism (Stranford)
Feb 9 Talk: Katja Praznik, “When Art Workers Organize” (organized by Anthropology and Social Change at CIIS; San Francisco)
Feb 14 Film screening with Srdjan Keča: Museum of the Revolution (organized by CREEES and Art & Art History; Stanford)
Mar 3 Panel at the Berkeley-Stanford Conference on Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies: Branislav Jakovljević, Blaze Joel, and Djordje Popović (organized by ISEEES and CREEES; Berkeley)
Mar 13 Reading group: Susan Woodward, Socialist Unemployment: The Political Economy of Yugoslavia, 1945-1990 (Berkeley)
Apr 3 Reading group with author Jelena Batinić, Women and Yugoslav Partisans: A History of World War II Resistance (Stanford)
Apr 24 Manuscript workshop with Patrick Patterson, “The Products of Choice: Branding, Trademarks, and the Packaging of Socialist Prosperity” (Berkeley)
Aug 30 Reading group: Gal Kirn, Partisan Ruptures: Self-Management, Market Reform, and the Spectre of Socialist Yugoslavia (Berkeley)
Sept 13 Reading group: Daniel Goulding, Liberated Cinema: The Yugoslav Experience, 1945-2001 (Berkeley)
Sept 27 Reading group with authors Pavle Levi and Želimir Žilnik, “Europe’s Internal Exiles: Sound, Image, and Performance of Identity in Želimir Žilnik's Films”; and What, How, and for Whom (WHW), Shadow Citizens: Želimir Žilnik (Berkeley)
Sept 28-9 Film screenings with Želimir Žilnik: The People Are Present: Films of Želimir Žilnik (BAMPFA; with filmmaker in attendance)
Oct 11 Reading group: Brigitte Le Normand, Designing Tito's Capital: Urban Planning, Modernism, and Socialism (Berkeley)
Oct 25 Reading group: Vladimir Kulić, Bogdanović by Bogdanović: Yugoslav Memorials through the Eyes of Their Architect, and “The Scope of Socialist Modernism: Architecture and State Representation in Postwar Yugoslavia” (Stanford)
Oct 27 Roundtable discussion: Vladimir Kulić in “Monuments to Nostalgia” (organized by CREEES and Stanford Global Studies; Stanford)
Nov 15 Paper workshop with Mathew Muntz, “Untempered Revolution: Folklore, Antifascism, and People’s Art in Istria”; and Jacob Smiley, “Crisis and Social Ownership in Yugoslavia” (Berkeley)
Feb 6 Talk: Bojana Videkanić, “Yugoslav People’s Art: Alternative Artistic Practices in Socialism” (organized by Slavic Languages and Literatures; Berkeley)
Feb 7 Reading group with author Katja Praznik, Art Work: Invisible Labour and the Legacy of Yugoslav Socialism (Stranford)
Feb 9 Talk: Katja Praznik, “When Art Workers Organize” (organized by Anthropology and Social Change at CIIS; San Francisco)
Feb 14 Film screening with Srdjan Keča: Museum of the Revolution (organized by CREEES and Art & Art History; Stanford)
Mar 3 Panel at the Berkeley-Stanford Conference on Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies: Branislav Jakovljević, Blaze Joel, and Djordje Popović (organized by ISEEES and CREEES; Berkeley)
Mar 13 Reading group: Susan Woodward, Socialist Unemployment: The Political Economy of Yugoslavia, 1945-1990 (Berkeley)
Apr 3 Reading group with author Jelena Batinić, Women and Yugoslav Partisans: A History of World War II Resistance (Stanford)
Apr 24 Manuscript workshop with Patrick Patterson, “The Products of Choice: Branding, Trademarks, and the Packaging of Socialist Prosperity” (Berkeley)
Aug 30 Reading group: Gal Kirn, Partisan Ruptures: Self-Management, Market Reform, and the Spectre of Socialist Yugoslavia (Berkeley)
Sept 13 Reading group: Daniel Goulding, Liberated Cinema: The Yugoslav Experience, 1945-2001 (Berkeley)
Sept 27 Reading group with authors Pavle Levi and Želimir Žilnik, “Europe’s Internal Exiles: Sound, Image, and Performance of Identity in Želimir Žilnik's Films”; and What, How, and for Whom (WHW), Shadow Citizens: Želimir Žilnik (Berkeley)
Sept 28-9 Film screenings with Želimir Žilnik: The People Are Present: Films of Želimir Žilnik (BAMPFA; with filmmaker in attendance)
Oct 11 Reading group: Brigitte Le Normand, Designing Tito's Capital: Urban Planning, Modernism, and Socialism (Berkeley)
Oct 25 Reading group: Vladimir Kulić, Bogdanović by Bogdanović: Yugoslav Memorials through the Eyes of Their Architect, and “The Scope of Socialist Modernism: Architecture and State Representation in Postwar Yugoslavia” (Stanford)
Oct 27 Roundtable discussion: Vladimir Kulić in “Monuments to Nostalgia” (organized by CREEES and Stanford Global Studies; Stanford)
Nov 15 Paper workshop with Mathew Muntz, “Untempered Revolution: Folklore, Antifascism, and People’s Art in Istria”; and Jacob Smiley, “Crisis and Social Ownership in Yugoslavia” (Berkeley)
2022
Sept 8 Reading group: Darko Suvin, Splendour, Misery, and Possibilities: An X-Ray of Socialist Yugoslavia, Part I-II (Berkeley)
Sept 22 Reading group: Darko Suvin, Splendour, Misery, and Possibilities: An X-Ray of Socialist Yugoslavia, Part III (Berkeley)
Oct 6 Reading group: Pavle Levi, Disintegration in Frames: Aesthetics and Ideology in the Yugoslav and Post-Yugoslav Cinema (Berkeley)
Oct 13-4 Film screenings with Jelena Maksimović, Ognjen Glavonić, and Marko Grba Singh: Cinematic Homelands (organized by CREEES and Art & Art History at Stanford)
Oct 17 Talk and film screening: Filip Sestan and Zach Hicks, “Politics and Praxis in New Yugoslav Film: Early Works by Želimir Žilnik” (organized by Slavic Languages & Literatures; Berkeley)
Oct 20 Reading group: Branislav Jakovljević, Alienation Effects: Performance and Self-Management in Yugoslavia, 1945-1991, Part One (Berkeley)
Nov 17 Reading group: Branislav Jakovljević, Alienation Effects: Performance and Self-Management in Yugoslavia, 1945-1991, Part Two (Berkeley)
Dec 1 Reading group: Branko Horvat, “Yugoslav Economic Policy in the Post-War Period: Problems, Ideas, Institutional Developments” (Berkeley)
Sept 22 Reading group: Darko Suvin, Splendour, Misery, and Possibilities: An X-Ray of Socialist Yugoslavia, Part III (Berkeley)
Oct 6 Reading group: Pavle Levi, Disintegration in Frames: Aesthetics and Ideology in the Yugoslav and Post-Yugoslav Cinema (Berkeley)
Oct 13-4 Film screenings with Jelena Maksimović, Ognjen Glavonić, and Marko Grba Singh: Cinematic Homelands (organized by CREEES and Art & Art History at Stanford)
Oct 17 Talk and film screening: Filip Sestan and Zach Hicks, “Politics and Praxis in New Yugoslav Film: Early Works by Želimir Žilnik” (organized by Slavic Languages & Literatures; Berkeley)
Oct 20 Reading group: Branislav Jakovljević, Alienation Effects: Performance and Self-Management in Yugoslavia, 1945-1991, Part One (Berkeley)
Nov 17 Reading group: Branislav Jakovljević, Alienation Effects: Performance and Self-Management in Yugoslavia, 1945-1991, Part Two (Berkeley)
Dec 1 Reading group: Branko Horvat, “Yugoslav Economic Policy in the Post-War Period: Problems, Ideas, Institutional Developments” (Berkeley)