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Lecture Series: Balkan und Südosteuropa, und Beyond: Wie eine Region sich selbst sieht (Ulf Brunnbauer)

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Ulf Brunnbauer (Regensburg) examines the intersecting insider and outsider perspectives on Southeastern Europe and the Balkans, including area studies, that produced different spatializations of a seemingly peripheral region.

Balkan und Südosteuropa, und Beyond: Wie eine Region sich selbst sieht

In dem Vortrag geht es primär um die Frage, welche regionalen Selbstverortungen und damit auch Inbezugsetzungen in Südosteuropa seit dem 19. Jahrhundert zu beobachten sind. Wie gehen Intellektuelle mit der Stigmatisierung ‚ihrer‘ Region (sog. Balkanismus) um, was setzen sie diesem an Positionierungen entgegen – oder auch nicht? Es soll also um die Selbstsicht einer Gegend gehen, die zumindest in der Außensicht als Region wahrgenommen wird. Unter anderem werde ich auf den ambivalenten Status der ‚Südosteuropastudien‘ innerhalb der Region, ihrer politischen Indienstnahme (etwa im Rahmen kommunistischer Integrationsversuche) ebenso eingehen wie auf die Tradition der Kulturgeographie. Schließlich bleibt zu klären, ob ein (zugeschriebener) peripherer Status eine besondere Sensibilität für Situationen des Dazwischenseins, der Ambiguität und Widersprüchlichkeit nahelegt.

Balkans, Southeast Europe and Beyond: How a region sees itself

This lecture focuses on the question of which modes of regional self-positioning and thus regional interconnections have been evident in Southeast Europe since the nineteenth century. How did intellectuals deal with the stigmatization of ‘their’ region (so-called Balkanism), and how did they – or how did they fail to – oppose such positionings? What I discuss, then, is the self-perception of an area that, at least in the eyes of outsiders, was seen as a region. I will consider here, among other things, the ambivalent status of ‘Southeast European studies’ within the region, how it was instrumentalized politically (for example as part of communist attempts towards integration), while also exploring the traditions of cultural geography. Finally, I will examine whether an (ascribed) peripheral status generates particular sensibility for liminal situations, ambiguity and contradictoriness.

Ulf Brunnbauer has been Professor for the History of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe at the University of Regensburg since 2008. He is Director of the Leibniz Institute for East and South-East European Studies (IOS) and Co-Director of the Graduate School for East and South-East European Studies. His research focuses on migration, social history, and nations and nationalism. He is on the ScienceCampus's board of directors and serves as its spokesperson.

When?  Thursday, 17 June 2021, 18:15 CET

Where?  Online via Zoom, https://uni-regensburg.zoom.us/j/69616083914, Meeting ID: 696 1608 3914

The lecture series "Rethinking Area Studies and Space from the 'Global South'? Post/Colonial Perspectives and Glocal Challenges" offers a multiperspectival reconceptualization of area studies and relevant concepts of space in dialog with the 'Global South'. It is organized together with CITAS. Find the full programm here.

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