Berkeley-Stanford 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 research 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), the Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities, and Stanford’s Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies (CREEES). Our program is also supported by donations and individual gifts made to the Berkeley New Yugoslav Studies Fund.
To date, the group has organized over 70 events in collaboration with its partners at ISEEES, CREEES, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), Department of Art & Art History (Stanford), Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures (Berkeley), Center of Interdisciplinary Critical Inquiry (Berkeley), and California Institute of Integral Studies (San Francisco). The CREEES Chronicle featured an article about the group’s first year in 2022-23.
Founded in 2022, the joint Berkeley-Stanford research 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), the Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities, and Stanford’s Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies (CREEES). Our program is also supported by donations and individual gifts made to the Berkeley New Yugoslav Studies Fund.
To date, the group has organized over 70 events in collaboration with its partners at ISEEES, CREEES, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), Department of Art & Art History (Stanford), Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures (Berkeley), Center of Interdisciplinary Critical Inquiry (Berkeley), and California Institute of Integral Studies (San Francisco). The CREEES Chronicle featured an article about the group’s first year in 2022-23.
2026
Apr 23 Reading group with author | Jovana Babović, The Youngest Yugoslavs: An Oral History of Post-Socialist Memory (Stanford)
Apr 9 Reading group with author | Nataša Kovačević, Nonaligned Imagination: Yugoslavia, the Global South, and Literary Solidarities Beyond the Cold War Blocs (Berkeley)
Apr 8 Book talk | Nataša Kovačević, Nonaligned Imagination: Yugoslavia, the Global South, and Literary Solidarities Beyond the Cold War Blocs (Stanford)
Mar 12 Reading group | Dubravka Ugreśić, The Culture of Lies (Berkeley)
Mar 4 Film screening: Želimir Žilnik, Ustanak u Jasku, Occupation Diaries: Three Portraits, BAMPFA (Berkeley)
Feb 19 Reading group | Keith Brown, Vančo Apostolski, Svetozar Vukmanović-Tempo and Tsola Dragoicheva on the “Macedonian Question” (Stanford)
Feb 5 Talk | Pavle Levi: “Dušan Makavejev’s 'Murderers on the Yugoslavia Express' (Speculative Archival Reconstruction of a Latent Film)” (Stanford)
Apr 9 Reading group with author | Nataša Kovačević, Nonaligned Imagination: Yugoslavia, the Global South, and Literary Solidarities Beyond the Cold War Blocs (Berkeley)
Apr 8 Book talk | Nataša Kovačević, Nonaligned Imagination: Yugoslavia, the Global South, and Literary Solidarities Beyond the Cold War Blocs (Stanford)
Mar 12 Reading group | Dubravka Ugreśić, The Culture of Lies (Berkeley)
Mar 4 Film screening: Želimir Žilnik, Ustanak u Jasku, Occupation Diaries: Three Portraits, BAMPFA (Berkeley)
Feb 19 Reading group | Keith Brown, Vančo Apostolski, Svetozar Vukmanović-Tempo and Tsola Dragoicheva on the “Macedonian Question” (Stanford)
Feb 5 Talk | Pavle Levi: “Dušan Makavejev’s 'Murderers on the Yugoslavia Express' (Speculative Archival Reconstruction of a Latent Film)” (Stanford)
2025
Dec 4 Reading group with CICI Discovery fellows Henry Wolverton and Angel Reyes | Asja Makarević, Post-Yugoslav Cinema and the Shadows of War: A Study of Non-Representation in Film (Berkeley)
Dec 3 BAMPFA screening and discussion | Jasmila Žbanić, Quo vadis, Aida? (joint class session of Berkeley’s “Socialist Alternatives: The Yugoslav Experiment in Culture and Literature” and Stanford’s “The Balkan World: History, Politics, Literature”; Berkeley)
Nov 20-3 Conference | New Yugoslav Studies at ASEEES 2025 (23 sessions and events; Washington, DC)
Nov 18 Talk | Jelena Vesić: “Trajectories of Solidarity in Time: The Week of Latin America, Student Cultural Centre, Belgrade, 1977” (organized by CREEES, Center for Latin American Studies, and Art & Art History; Stanford)
Nov 15 Bookstore reading and panel | Writing Against Genocide: Faruk Šehić in conversation with Ena Selimović and Antje Postema (organized by Turkoslavia; Oakland)
Nov 13 Talk | Faruk Šehić: the 2025 Peter N. Kujachich Lecture (organized by ISEEES; Berkeley)
Nov 7 Yugowave social | Yugoslav Punk and New Wave with DJ Zlaya and DJ Kaos Kaos (San Francisco)
Nov 6 Reading group with author | Bojana Videkanić, Nonaligned Modernism: Socialist Postcolonial Aesthetics in Yugoslavia, 1945-1985 (Stanford)
Oct 23 Reading group | Faruk Šehić, Under Pressure, Quiet Flows the Una, and selected poems translated by Ena Selimović (Berkeley)
Oct 15 Concert | Damir Imamović at the Freight (organized by World Class Music Live; Berkeley)
Oct 2 Film screening and discussion | Mila Turajlić, Ciné-Guerrillas: Scenes from the Labudović Reels (Stanford)
Sept 11 Reading group | Paul Stubbs (ed), Socialist Yugoslavia and the Non-Aligned Movement: Social, Cultural, Political, and Economic Imaginaries (Berkeley)
May 1 Reading group | Vladimir Unkovski-Korica, The Economic Struggle for Power in Tito’s Yugoslavia: From World War II to Non-Alignment (Stanford)
Apr 19 Yugowave social | Yugoslav Punk and New Wave with DJ Zlaya and DJ Kaos Kaos (San Francisco)
Apr 17 Reading group | Ivo Banac, With Stalin against Tito: Cominformist Splits in Yugoslav Communism (Berkeley)
Apr 3 Reading group and film screening with director | Srdjan Keča, Flotel Europa and Generation Loss (Berkeley)
Mar 20 Reading group | Ivana Bodrožić, Hotel Tito, tr. Ellen Elias-Bursać (Berkeley)
Feb 27 Reading group | Rastko Močnik and Miklavž Komelj, “The Močnik-Komelj Debate,” and Gal Kirn, "Towards the Partisan Counter-archive" (The Yugoslav Partisan Art); and Pavle Levi, "Pivo" (Stanford)
Feb 6 Reading group | Jozo Tomasevich, “Yugoslavia During the Second World War”; Hrvoje Klasić, “Why Did They Resist?” ; and the seven-part documentary serial Partizani, produced by Hrvoje Klasić (Berkeley)
Dec 3 BAMPFA screening and discussion | Jasmila Žbanić, Quo vadis, Aida? (joint class session of Berkeley’s “Socialist Alternatives: The Yugoslav Experiment in Culture and Literature” and Stanford’s “The Balkan World: History, Politics, Literature”; Berkeley)
Nov 20-3 Conference | New Yugoslav Studies at ASEEES 2025 (23 sessions and events; Washington, DC)
Nov 18 Talk | Jelena Vesić: “Trajectories of Solidarity in Time: The Week of Latin America, Student Cultural Centre, Belgrade, 1977” (organized by CREEES, Center for Latin American Studies, and Art & Art History; Stanford)
Nov 15 Bookstore reading and panel | Writing Against Genocide: Faruk Šehić in conversation with Ena Selimović and Antje Postema (organized by Turkoslavia; Oakland)
Nov 13 Talk | Faruk Šehić: the 2025 Peter N. Kujachich Lecture (organized by ISEEES; Berkeley)
Nov 7 Yugowave social | Yugoslav Punk and New Wave with DJ Zlaya and DJ Kaos Kaos (San Francisco)
Nov 6 Reading group with author | Bojana Videkanić, Nonaligned Modernism: Socialist Postcolonial Aesthetics in Yugoslavia, 1945-1985 (Stanford)
Oct 23 Reading group | Faruk Šehić, Under Pressure, Quiet Flows the Una, and selected poems translated by Ena Selimović (Berkeley)
Oct 15 Concert | Damir Imamović at the Freight (organized by World Class Music Live; Berkeley)
Oct 2 Film screening and discussion | Mila Turajlić, Ciné-Guerrillas: Scenes from the Labudović Reels (Stanford)
Sept 11 Reading group | Paul Stubbs (ed), Socialist Yugoslavia and the Non-Aligned Movement: Social, Cultural, Political, and Economic Imaginaries (Berkeley)
May 1 Reading group | Vladimir Unkovski-Korica, The Economic Struggle for Power in Tito’s Yugoslavia: From World War II to Non-Alignment (Stanford)
Apr 19 Yugowave social | Yugoslav Punk and New Wave with DJ Zlaya and DJ Kaos Kaos (San Francisco)
Apr 17 Reading group | Ivo Banac, With Stalin against Tito: Cominformist Splits in Yugoslav Communism (Berkeley)
Apr 3 Reading group and film screening with director | Srdjan Keča, Flotel Europa and Generation Loss (Berkeley)
Mar 20 Reading group | Ivana Bodrožić, Hotel Tito, tr. Ellen Elias-Bursać (Berkeley)
Feb 27 Reading group | Rastko Močnik and Miklavž Komelj, “The Močnik-Komelj Debate,” and Gal Kirn, "Towards the Partisan Counter-archive" (The Yugoslav Partisan Art); and Pavle Levi, "Pivo" (Stanford)
Feb 6 Reading group | Jozo Tomasevich, “Yugoslavia During the Second World War”; Hrvoje Klasić, “Why Did They Resist?” ; and the seven-part documentary serial Partizani, produced by Hrvoje Klasić (Berkeley)
2024
Dec 13 Yugowave social | Yugoslav Punk and New Wave with DJ Zlaya and DJ Kaos Kaos (San Francisco)
Nov 21-4 Conference | New Yugoslav Studies at ASEEES 2024 (13 sessions and 3 screenings; Boston)
Nov 18-9 Reading group with author and translator | Maša Kolanović and Ena Selimović, Underground Barbie (Stanford and Berkeley)
Nov 16 Book launch and talk | Maša Kolanović and Ena Selimović: “Women in translation” (organized by Turkoslavia and Sandorf Passage; Oakland)
Nov 12 Film screening and discussion | Dušan Makavejev, Innocence Unprotected (Stanford)
Oct 24 Reading group | Srećko Horvat and Igor Štiks, Welcome to the Desert of Post-Socialism: Radical Politics After Yugoslavia (Berkeley)
Oct 10 Reading group | Andrew Wachtel, Making a Nation, Breaking a Nation: Literature and Cultural Politics in Yugoslavia (Stanford)
Sept 19 Reading group | Andrew Wachtel, Making a Nation, Breaking a Nation: Literature and Cultural Politics in Yugoslavia (Berkeley)
May 17 Talk | Branko Sekulić: “Ethnoreligiosity in the Former Yugoslav Context” (organized by CREEES and Stanford Global Studies; Stanford)
May 2 Film screening and discussion with curator | “The New Yugoslav Film Experiment,” program curated by Milan Milosavljević, AFC Belgrade (organized by Art & Art History; Stanford)
Apr 18 Dissertation workshop | Damjan Božinović, “Reading Post-Yugoslav Literature Translingually” (Berkeley)
Apr 11 Talk | Vjeran Pavlaković: “The Muralization of War: Graffiti, Murals, and Memory Politics in the former Yugoslavia” (Berkeley)
Apr 5 Talk | Gregor Moder and Bara Kolenc: “The Trouble with Ideology” (Stanford)
Apr 4 Reading group with Gregor Moder and Bara Kolenc | Mladen Dolar, “Beyond Interpellation”; Slavoj Žižek, The Sublime Object of Ideology; and Louis Althusser, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” (Berkeley)
Apr 3 Workshop on Hegel’s Antigone | Andreja Novaković, “Brothers and Sisters,” and Gregor Moder, “Family, Sexual Difference, and Power” (Berkeley)
Mar 14 Reading group | Gajo Petrović, “Why Praxis,” and Marx in the Mid-Twentieth Century; Herbert Marcuse, “The Foundations of Historical Materialism” (Berkeley)
Feb 22 Reading group | Gerson Sher, Praxis: Marxist Criticism and Dissent in Socialist Yugoslavia (Stanford)
Feb 1 Talk | Joshua Malitsky: “Yugoslav Documentary Imaginaries of the Post-WWII Era” (Stanford)
Nov 21-4 Conference | New Yugoslav Studies at ASEEES 2024 (13 sessions and 3 screenings; Boston)
Nov 18-9 Reading group with author and translator | Maša Kolanović and Ena Selimović, Underground Barbie (Stanford and Berkeley)
Nov 16 Book launch and talk | Maša Kolanović and Ena Selimović: “Women in translation” (organized by Turkoslavia and Sandorf Passage; Oakland)
Nov 12 Film screening and discussion | Dušan Makavejev, Innocence Unprotected (Stanford)
Oct 24 Reading group | Srećko Horvat and Igor Štiks, Welcome to the Desert of Post-Socialism: Radical Politics After Yugoslavia (Berkeley)
Oct 10 Reading group | Andrew Wachtel, Making a Nation, Breaking a Nation: Literature and Cultural Politics in Yugoslavia (Stanford)
Sept 19 Reading group | Andrew Wachtel, Making a Nation, Breaking a Nation: Literature and Cultural Politics in Yugoslavia (Berkeley)
May 17 Talk | Branko Sekulić: “Ethnoreligiosity in the Former Yugoslav Context” (organized by CREEES and Stanford Global Studies; Stanford)
May 2 Film screening and discussion with curator | “The New Yugoslav Film Experiment,” program curated by Milan Milosavljević, AFC Belgrade (organized by Art & Art History; Stanford)
Apr 18 Dissertation workshop | Damjan Božinović, “Reading Post-Yugoslav Literature Translingually” (Berkeley)
Apr 11 Talk | Vjeran Pavlaković: “The Muralization of War: Graffiti, Murals, and Memory Politics in the former Yugoslavia” (Berkeley)
Apr 5 Talk | Gregor Moder and Bara Kolenc: “The Trouble with Ideology” (Stanford)
Apr 4 Reading group with Gregor Moder and Bara Kolenc | Mladen Dolar, “Beyond Interpellation”; Slavoj Žižek, The Sublime Object of Ideology; and Louis Althusser, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” (Berkeley)
Apr 3 Workshop on Hegel’s Antigone | Andreja Novaković, “Brothers and Sisters,” and Gregor Moder, “Family, Sexual Difference, and Power” (Berkeley)
Mar 14 Reading group | Gajo Petrović, “Why Praxis,” and Marx in the Mid-Twentieth Century; Herbert Marcuse, “The Foundations of Historical Materialism” (Berkeley)
Feb 22 Reading group | Gerson Sher, Praxis: Marxist Criticism and Dissent in Socialist Yugoslavia (Stanford)
Feb 1 Talk | Joshua Malitsky: “Yugoslav Documentary Imaginaries of the Post-WWII Era” (Stanford)
2023
Nov 30 Conference | New Yugoslav Studies at ASEEES 2023 (7 sessions; Philadelphia)
Nov 15 Paper workshop | Mathew Muntz, “Untempered Revolution: Folklore, Antifascism, and People’s Art in Istria,” and Jacob Smiley, “Crisis and Social Ownership in Yugoslavia” (Berkeley)
Oct 27 Roundtable | Vladimir Kulić in “Monuments to Nostalgia” (organized by CREEES and Stanford Global Studies; Stanford)
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 11 Reading group | Brigitte Le Normand, Designing Tito’s Capital: Urban Planning, Modernism, and Socialism (Berkeley)
Sept 28-9 Film screening with Želimir Žilnik | “The People Are Present: Films of Želimir Žilnik” (organized by BAMPFA; Berkeley)
Sept 27 Reading group with authors | Želimir Žilnik and Pavle Levi, “Europe’s Internal Exiles: Sound, Image, and Performance of Identity in Želimir Žilnik's Films”; and WHW, Shadow Citizens: Želimir Žilnik (Berkeley)
Sept 13 Reading group | Daniel Goulding, Liberated Cinema: The Yugoslav Experience, 1945-2001 (Berkeley)
Aug 30 Reading group | Gal Kirn, Partisan Ruptures: Self-Management, Market Reform, and the Spectre of Socialist Yugoslavia (Berkeley)
Apr 24 Manuscript workshop | Patrick Patterson, “The Products of Choice: Branding, Trademarks, and the Packaging of Socialist Prosperity” (Berkeley)
Apr 3 Reading group with author | Jelena Batinić, Women and Yugoslav Partisans: A History of World War II Resistance (Stanford)
Mar 13 Reading group | Susan Woodward, Socialist Unemployment: The Political Economy of Yugoslavia, 1945-1990 (Berkeley)
Mar 3 Panel |The Berkeley-Stanford Conference on Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies: Branislav Jakovljević, Blaze Joel, and Djordje Popović (organized by ISEEES and CREEES; Berkeley)
Feb 14 Film screening with director | Srdjan Keča, Museum of the Revolution (organized by CREEES and Art & Art History; Stanford)
Feb 9 Talk | Katja Praznik: “When Art Workers Organize” (organized by Anthropology and Social Change at CIIS; San Francisco)
Feb 7 Reading group with author | Katja Praznik, Art Work: Invisible Labour and the Legacy of Yugoslav Socialism (Stanford)
Feb 6 Talk | Bojana Videkanić: “Yugoslav People’s Art: Alternative Artistic Practices in Socialism” (organized by Slavic Languages and Literatures; Berkeley)
Jan 30 Reading group | Miroslav Krleža, “Speech at the Writers' Congress in Ljubljana” (Berkeley)
Nov 15 Paper workshop | Mathew Muntz, “Untempered Revolution: Folklore, Antifascism, and People’s Art in Istria,” and Jacob Smiley, “Crisis and Social Ownership in Yugoslavia” (Berkeley)
Oct 27 Roundtable | Vladimir Kulić in “Monuments to Nostalgia” (organized by CREEES and Stanford Global Studies; Stanford)
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 11 Reading group | Brigitte Le Normand, Designing Tito’s Capital: Urban Planning, Modernism, and Socialism (Berkeley)
Sept 28-9 Film screening with Želimir Žilnik | “The People Are Present: Films of Želimir Žilnik” (organized by BAMPFA; Berkeley)
Sept 27 Reading group with authors | Želimir Žilnik and Pavle Levi, “Europe’s Internal Exiles: Sound, Image, and Performance of Identity in Želimir Žilnik's Films”; and WHW, Shadow Citizens: Želimir Žilnik (Berkeley)
Sept 13 Reading group | Daniel Goulding, Liberated Cinema: The Yugoslav Experience, 1945-2001 (Berkeley)
Aug 30 Reading group | Gal Kirn, Partisan Ruptures: Self-Management, Market Reform, and the Spectre of Socialist Yugoslavia (Berkeley)
Apr 24 Manuscript workshop | Patrick Patterson, “The Products of Choice: Branding, Trademarks, and the Packaging of Socialist Prosperity” (Berkeley)
Apr 3 Reading group with author | Jelena Batinić, Women and Yugoslav Partisans: A History of World War II Resistance (Stanford)
Mar 13 Reading group | Susan Woodward, Socialist Unemployment: The Political Economy of Yugoslavia, 1945-1990 (Berkeley)
Mar 3 Panel |The Berkeley-Stanford Conference on Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies: Branislav Jakovljević, Blaze Joel, and Djordje Popović (organized by ISEEES and CREEES; Berkeley)
Feb 14 Film screening with director | Srdjan Keča, Museum of the Revolution (organized by CREEES and Art & Art History; Stanford)
Feb 9 Talk | Katja Praznik: “When Art Workers Organize” (organized by Anthropology and Social Change at CIIS; San Francisco)
Feb 7 Reading group with author | Katja Praznik, Art Work: Invisible Labour and the Legacy of Yugoslav Socialism (Stanford)
Feb 6 Talk | Bojana Videkanić: “Yugoslav People’s Art: Alternative Artistic Practices in Socialism” (organized by Slavic Languages and Literatures; Berkeley)
Jan 30 Reading group | Miroslav Krleža, “Speech at the Writers' Congress in Ljubljana” (Berkeley)
2022
Dec 1 Reading group | Branko Horvat, “Yugoslav Economic Policy in the Post-War Period: Problems, Ideas, Institutional Developments” (Berkeley)
Nov 17 Reading group | Branislav Jakovljević, Alienation Effects: Performance and Self-Management in Yugoslavia, 1945-1991 (Berkeley)
Nov 10-3 Conference | New Yugoslav Studies at ASEEES 2022 (4 sessions; Chicago)
Oct 20 Reading group | Branislav Jakovljević, Alienation Effects: Performance and Self-Management in Yugoslavia, 1945-1991 (Berkeley)
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 13-4 Film screenings with Jelena Maksimović, Ognjen Glavonić, and Marko Grba Singh: “Cinematic Homelands” (organized by CREEES and Art & Art History; Stanford)
Oct 6 Reading group | Pavle Levi, Disintegration in Frames: Aesthetics and Ideology in the Yugoslav and Post-Yugoslav Cinema (Berkeley)
Sept 22 Reading group: Darko Suvin, Splendour, Misery, and Possibilities: An X-Ray of Socialist Yugoslavia (Berkeley)
Sept 8 Reading group): Darko Suvin, Splendour, Misery, and Possibilities: An X-Ray of Socialist Yugoslavia (Berkeley)
Nov 17 Reading group | Branislav Jakovljević, Alienation Effects: Performance and Self-Management in Yugoslavia, 1945-1991 (Berkeley)
Nov 10-3 Conference | New Yugoslav Studies at ASEEES 2022 (4 sessions; Chicago)
Oct 20 Reading group | Branislav Jakovljević, Alienation Effects: Performance and Self-Management in Yugoslavia, 1945-1991 (Berkeley)
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 13-4 Film screenings with Jelena Maksimović, Ognjen Glavonić, and Marko Grba Singh: “Cinematic Homelands” (organized by CREEES and Art & Art History; Stanford)
Oct 6 Reading group | Pavle Levi, Disintegration in Frames: Aesthetics and Ideology in the Yugoslav and Post-Yugoslav Cinema (Berkeley)
Sept 22 Reading group: Darko Suvin, Splendour, Misery, and Possibilities: An X-Ray of Socialist Yugoslavia (Berkeley)
Sept 8 Reading group): Darko Suvin, Splendour, Misery, and Possibilities: An X-Ray of Socialist Yugoslavia (Berkeley)