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Images and Stereotypes of the Balkans - JTM273
Title: Images and Stereotypes of the Balkans
Guaranteed by: Department of Russian and East European Studies (23-KRVS)
Faculty: Faculty of Social Sciences
Actual: from 2022
Semester: summer
E-Credits: 6
Examination process: summer s.:combined
Hours per week, examination: summer s.:1/1, Ex [HT]
Capacity: 16 / unknown (21)
Min. number of students: unlimited
4EU+: no
Virtual mobility / capacity: no
State of the course: taught
Language: English
Teaching methods: full-time
Teaching methods: full-time
Note: course can be enrolled in outside the study plan
enabled for web enrollment
priority enrollment if the course is part of the study plan
Guarantor: František Šístek, M.A., Ph.D.
Teacher(s): František Šístek, M.A., Ph.D.
Class: Courses for incoming students
Incompatibility : JMM034
Files Comments Added by
download Junaci horale lenosi FSistek 2011.pdf František Šístek, M.A., Ph.D.
download Maleckova Turk in Czech Imagination Book 2021.pdf František Šístek, M.A., Ph.D.
Annotation - Czech
Last update: František Šístek, M.A., Ph.D. (07.02.2024)
Western perceptions of the Balkans and its inhabitants, since the beginning of the modern era until today, represent a rich and fascinating source of contradictory images and stereotypes. Negative representations of the supposedly “unstable“, “chaotic“, “barbarian“ and “violent“ region as well as a markedly more romantic discourse focused upon the heroic, authentic and hospitable character of the Balkan peoples have survived until today and can be frequently encountered in the media, in political discourse, literature, film and elsewhere. The goal of this course is to analyze and deconstruct the most frequent types and forms of images and stereotypes about Southeastern Europe in a long historical perspective from the beginning of the modern era until present. We well discuss both outside (Western, Central European etc.) representations of the Balkans and its different forms (the Balkans as a European Orient, the “unstable and violent“ Balkans, romantic adoration of Balkan peoples as heroic fighters for freedom etc.) as well as mutual stereotypes of Balkan peoples themselves (neighbors, “hereditary enemies“, internal others), the ambivalent relation between the region and Europe as well as conflicting representations of the wars in former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. The required reading consists partly of the most relevant scholarly texts on the topic (Maria Todorova, Vesna, Goldsworthy, Božidar Jezernik and others), partly of primary sources which include characteristic examples of different images and stereotypes (in texts such as travelogues but also in film).


CZECH / ČESKY
Balkán a jeho obyvatelé byli v minulosti tradičně nahlíženi a popisováni za pomoci řady stereotypů, klišé a opakujících se obrazů. Negativní představy o "neklidném", "výbušném", "chaotickém", "barbarském" a "násilném" Balkáně i romantičtější diskurs o údajné pohostinnosti, statečnosti a opravdovosti "horkokrevných" Balkánců úspěšně přetrvaly až do současnosti. Cílem tohoto kursu bude přiblížit základní okruhy obrazů a stereotypů o evropském jihovýchodě v historické perspektivě od jejich vzniku na prahu moderní doby až po dnešek. Prozkoumáme jak vnější ("západní") pohled na Balkán a jeho podoby (Balkán jako "brána Orientu", "věčně neklidný Balkán", romantizaci Balkánců jako "ušlechtilých junáků" apod.), tak také vzájemné předsudky tamějších populací nebo jejich vztah k "Evropě". K většině přednášek se vztahuje povinná četba: částečně jde o zásadní odborné texty k tématu (Larry Wolff, Maria Todorova, Vesna Goldsworthy, Božidar Jezernik apod.), částečně pak budeme společně rozebírat obrazy a stereotypy obsažené v charakteristických ukázkách publicistického nebo cestopisného charakteru i reprezentace "balkánství" ve filmu.

Aim of the course
Last update: František Šístek, M.A., Ph.D. (07.02.2024)

Goals and Methods

 

The main goal of the course is to identify and analyze the most characteristic images and stereotypes of the Balkan region that can be encountered in scholarly literature, travelogues, fiction, visual arts, public discourse, media and film. On a more general level, the students will learn to identify, analyze and deconstruct various representations and stereotypes in general and apply the skills and knowledge from this course to other regions of their interest, not just the Balkans. The overall goals will be achieved through a combination of lecture and seminar in each class, regular reading and discussions. The progress of each student will be checked by a final exam (test) and a final paper.

 

Course completion requirements
Last update: Bc. Sára Lochmanová (05.02.2024)

According to the Dean's provision, the teacher evaluates the student's performance in the percentages assigned to grades A to F (https://fsv.cuni.cz/opatreni-dekanky-c-20/2019):

  • 91% and more   => A
  • 81-90%             => B
  • 71-80%             => C
  • 61-70%             => D
  • 51-60%             => E
  • 0-50%               => F

More in SMĚRNICE S_SO_002: Organizace zkouškových termínů, kontrol studia a užívání klasifikace A–F na FSV UK.

Literature
Last update: František Šístek, M.A., Ph.D. (26.02.2024)

REQUIRED LITERATURE (IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER)

 

Božidar Jezernik: Wild Europe. The Balkans in the Gaze of Western Travellers, London: Saqi 2004, kapitola “The Land Where the East Begins,“ 23-46.

 

Gingrich, Andre. 1996. ‘Frontier Myths of Orientalism: The Muslim World in Public and Popular Cultures of Central Europe.’ In Mediterranean Ethnological Summer School, eds. Bojan Baskar and Borut Brumen. Piran: Institut za multikulturne raziskave, pp. 99–127.

 

Robert D. Kaplan: Balkan Ghosts. A Journey Through History, New York: Vintage 1994,

3-28, 79-99.

 

Božidar Jezernik: Wild Europe. The Balkans in the Gaze of Western Travellers, London: Saqi, 2004, 103-146.

 

John Hodgson: “Edith Durham“, In: John B. Allcock; Antonia Young, eds: Black Lambs and Grey Falcons. Women Travelling in the Balkans, New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2000, 9-31.

 

Vesna Goldsworthy: Inventing Ruritania. The Imperialism of the Imagination, New Haven and London, 1998, Preface IX-XI; Chapter 4: “War and Diplomacy in the New Ruritania: Comic Visions of the Balkans“, 111-159; Reclaiming Balkan Erewhons, 201-212.

 

Peter Maass: Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War, London: Papermac 1996.

3-15; 36-57; 271-277.

 

Milica Bakić-Hayden: "Nesting Orientalisms: The Case of Former Yugoslavia,“ In: Slavic Review, vol. 54, no. 4 (Winter 1995), 917-931.

 

Maria Todorova: Imagining the Balkans, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

kapitola “Balkans as Self-designation“, 38-61.

 

Roumen Daskalov: “Modern Bulgarian Society and Culture through the Mirror of Bai Ganio“, In: Slavic Review, vol. 60, No. 3 (Autumn 2001), 530-549.

Alenka Bartulović, “From Brothers to Others? Changing Images of Bosnian Muslims in (Post)Yugoslav Slovenia“, In: František Šístek (ed.), Imagining Bosnian Muslims in Central Europe. Representations, Transfers, Exchanges, New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books 2021, pp. 194-213.

 

Teaching methods
Last update: František Šístek, M.A., Ph.D. (07.02.2024)

 

Methods

 

The main goal of the course is to identify and analyze the most characteristic images and stereotypes of the Balkan region that can be encountered in scholarly literature, travelogues, fiction, visual arts, public discourse, media and film. This will be achieved through a combination of lecture and seminar in each class, regular reading and discussions. The progress of each student will be checked by a final exam (test) and a final paper.

 

IMPORTANT! In the winter semester 2021/2022, the course will be taught in a classical contact form (you will be physically present in a real classroom). Only in case of new epidemic restrictions imposed by the government during the winter semester 2021/2022, the course will be offered in a hybrid or online form (Zoom). In that case, links and other details will be available here + sent to all students via email.

Requirements to the exam - Czech
Last update: František Šístek, M.A., Ph.D. (07.02.2024)

Goals and Methods

 

The main goal of the course is to identify and analyze the most characteristic images and stereotypes of the Balkan region that can be encountered in scholarly literature, travelogues, fiction, visual arts, public discourse, media and film. This will be achieved through a combination of lecture and seminar in each class, regular reading and discussions. The progress of each student will be checked by a final exam (test) and a final paper.

 

 

Requirements

 

 

 

Regular attendance and meaningful participation in discussions. In case that you cannot participate in a weekly class, please inform the teacher in advance.

 

 

 

Regular reading of the required texts for each class is obligatory for all participants. For most texts, a principal presenter will be selected in advance. After he/she outlines the main ideas of a particular text in an oral presentation (15-20 minutes), a general discussion will follow.

 

 

 

A final paper (15 pgs) in English, closely linked to the content of the course, due after the course. Students are encouraged to discuss the proposed topics in advance. Topics can also be assigned by the teacher instead.

 

 

 

Evaluation and classification:

 

 

 

91 and more = A

 

81 - 90 % = B

 

71 - 80 % = C

 

61 - 70 % = D

 

51 - 60 % = E

 

0 - 50 % = F

 

 

 

participation in class 10%

 

contribution to discussions 10%

 

oral presentation 10%

 

test 20%

 

final paper 50%

 

 

 

 

 

Syllabus - Czech
Last update: František Šístek, M.A., Ph.D. (26.02.2024)

IMAGES AND STEREOTYPES OF THE BALKANS

1. Introductory Lecture

Practical issues, requirements, general information about the course.

Terminology (image, stereotype, representation, alterity, the Other)

General overview of research into images and sterotypes, major authors and topics, theoretical and methodological approaches.

 

Recommended Reading

Walter Lippman: Public Opinion, New York 1922.

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~Hyper2/CDFinal/Lippman/cover.html

Edward Said: Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient, London and New York: Penguin 1979.  

 

2. The Western “Discovery“ of the Balkans and its Peoples

 

Required Reading

Božidar Jezernik: Wild Europe. The Balkans in the Gaze of Western Travellers, London: Saqi 2004, kapitola “The Land Where the East Begins,“ 23-46.

Recommended Reading

Larry Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe. The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Englightenment, Stanford: Stanford University Press 1994.

Larry Wolff, Venice and the Slavs. The Discovery of Dalmatia in the Age of Enlightenment, Stanford: Stanford University Press 2002.  

3.  Balkans as a “Gate to the Orient“

 

Required Reading

Gingrich, Andre, ‘Frontier Myths of Orientalism: The Muslim World in Public and Popular Cultures of Central Europe.’ In Mediterranean Ethnological Summer School, eds. Bojan Baskar and Borut Brumen. Piran: Institut za multikulturne raziskave 1996, pp. 99–127.

Recommended Reading

Omer Hadžiselimović, At the Gates of the East: British Travel Writers on Bosnia and Herzegovina from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Centuries, Boulder: East European Monographs 2001.

Jitka Malečková, The Turk in the Czech Imagination (1870s – 1923), Leiden: Brill 2021. Open Access: https://brill.com/display/title/58995?language=en

František Šístek (ed.), Imagining Bosnian Muslims in Central Europe, New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books 2021.

4. The Bloody and Violent Balkans

 

Required Reading

Robert D. Kaplan: Balkan Ghosts. A Journey Through History, New York: Vintage 1994, 3-28, 79-99.

Recommended Reading

Slobodan G. Markovich: British Perceptions of Serbia and the Balkans, 1903-1906, Paris 2001

Eugene Michail, Western Attitudes to War in the Balkans and the Shifting Meanings of Violence, 1912- 91, In: Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 47, No. 2 (April 2012), pp. 219-239

František Šístek, Diskurzy o příčinách násilí na moderním Balkáně, in: Bedřich Loewenstein, Milan Hlavačka, František Šístek (eds.), Násilí: jiná moderna, Praha: Historický ústav 2017.

Open Access: http://www.kroatistikabrno.cz/sistek_studie.html

 

5. Romantic Representations of the Balkans

 

Required Reading

Božidar Jezernik: Wild Europe. The Balkans in the Gaze of Western Travellers, London: Saqi, 2004, 103-146.

Recommended Reading

Samuel Foster, Yugoslavia in the British Imagination. Peace, War and Peasants Before Tito, London: Bloomsbery 2021.

Ján Jankovič: Boje Čiernohorcov a túžby Slovákov (1839-1914), Bratislava: JUGA, 2004.

František Šístek: Junáci, horalé a lenoši. Obraz Černé Hory a Černohorců v české společnosti 1830-2006, Praha: Historický ústav, 2011 / Naša braća na jugu. Slika Crne Gore i Crnogoraca u češkom društvu, 1830-2006, Cetinje – Podgorica: Matica crnogorska 2009.

6. The Balkans through the Eyes of Female Travellers

 

Required Reading

John Hodgson: “Edith Durham“, In:  John B. Allcock; Antonia Young, eds:  Black Lambs and Grey Falcons. Women Travelling in the Balkans, New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2000, 9-31.

 

Recommended Reading

Mary Durham: High Albania, London 1909

http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/durham/albania/albania.html

Rebecca West: Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, London, 1942.

Ctibor Nečas: Mezi muslimkami: Působení úředních lékařek v Bosně a Hercegovině v letech 1892-1918, Brno: Masarykova univerzita, 1992. 

7. Images and Stereotypes of the Balkans in Fictional Literature

 

Required Reading

Vesna Goldsworthy: Inventing Ruritania. The Imperialism of the Imagination, New Haven and London, 1998, Preface IX-XI; Chapter 4: “War and Diplomacy in the New Ruritania: Comic Visions of the Balkans“, 111-159;  Reclaiming Balkan Erewhons, 201-212.

 

Recommended Reading

David N. Norris, In the Wake of the Balkan Myth. Questions of Identity and Modernity, Macmillan 1999.

 

8. Representations of the Balkans in Film

Students will watch 2 films (to be specified in class) containing representative images of the Balkans. We will then analyze and discuss them in class.

 

Recommended Reading

Dina Iordanova: Cinema of Flames: Balkan Film, Culture and the Media, London and Berkley: BFI and University of California Press 2001. 

Pavle Levi: Disintegration in Frames: Aesthetics and Ideology in the Yugoslav and Post-Yugoslav Cinema, Stanford: Stanford University Press 2007.

Jana Dudková: Balkán alebo metafora. Balkanizmus a srbský film 90. rokov, Bratislava: Slovenský filmový ústav, VEDA 2008. 

 

9. Representing the Wars of Yugoslav Succession (1990s)

 

Required Reading

Peter Maass: Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War, London: Papermac 1996, 3-15; 36-57; 271-277.

Recommended Reading

Laura Silber, Allan Little, The Death of Yugoslavia, London: Penguin 1995.

(check out the BBC documentary series of the same name at youtube – highly recommended!)

Sabrina P. Ramet: Thinking about Yugoslavia. Scholarly Debates about the Yugoslav Breakup and the Wars in Bosnia and Kosovo, Cambridge University Press 2005.

Misha Glenny: The Fall of Yugoslavia, Penguin 1992. 

Bernard Henry Lévy: Le lys et la cendre, Paris 1996. 

Mark Thompson: A Paper House.  The Ending of Yugoslavia, Vintage 1992.

Ed Vulliamy: Seasons in Hell, New York 1994.

10. Mutual Images and Stereotypes in the Balkans

 

Required Reading

Milica Bakić-Hayden: „Nesting Orientalisms: The Case of Former Yugoslavia,“ In: Slavic Review, vol. 54, no. 4 (Winter 1995), 917-931.

Maria Todorova: Imagining the Balkans, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1997, chapter “Balkans as Self-designation“, 38-61.

(if you are not already familiar with the book, the main concepts are explained in the Introduction, pp. 3-20 – in addition to what you will hear in class)

Recommended Reading

Olivera Milosavljević: U tradiciji nacionalizma ili stereotipi srpskih intelektualaca XX. veka o „nama“ i „drugima“, Beograd 2002.

11. “The Balkans“ and “Europe“

Required Reading

Roumen Daskalov: “Modern Bulgarian Society and Culture through the Mirror of Bai Ganio“, In: Slavic Review, vol. 60, No. 3 (Autumn 2001), 530-549.

 

Recommended Reading

Wendy Bracewell, Alex Drace-Francis: Under Eastern Eyes: A Comparative Introduction on East European Travel Writing on Europe, Budapest – New York: CEU University Press 2008. 

Wendy Bracewell, Alex Drace-Francis: Balkan Departures: Travel Writing from Southeastern Europe, Oxford: Berghahn Books 2009.

12. Images and Stereotypes of the Balkans in the 21st century

 

Required Reading: Alenka Bartulović, “From Brothers to Others? Changing Images of Bosnian Muslims in (Post)Yugoslav Slovenia“, In: František Šístek (ed.), Imagining Bosnian Muslims in Central Europe. Representations, Transfers, Exchanges, New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books 2021, pp. 194-213.

 
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