A conference asking the question of what the name ‘Yugoslavia’ means today, 25 years after its disappearance ?
The year 2015 brings two significant anniversaries : the 70th anniversary of the establishment of socialist Yugoslavia, and the 25th anniversary of the introduction of liberal democracy and a free market economy (that signalled not only the end of this socialist project but also, soon after, the end of Yugoslavia itself). The anniversaries offer a chance to reflect on these legacies, their successes and failures, and to consider the ideology and practice of both socialist and liberal-democratic regimes.
In this context, we want to ask what is ‘Yugoslavia’ the name of today 25 years after its disappearance ? The anti-fascist struggle, the rebellion against Stalin, experiments in economic democracy (i.e. socialist self-management), multinational federal composition, and international influence (the non-aligned movement) secured a special place for Yugoslavia (1945-1990), and even prestige, in the general history of socialist movements. Understanding new radical politics and the rise of new progressive movements ‘after Yugoslavia’ necessarily means a critical re-evaluation of socialist Yugoslavia as well as of the post-socialist, post-partition and often post-conflict predicament of the post-Yugoslav societies. It is also an invitation to understand the current situation in wider Europe in the light of this rich, contested and inspiring heritage.
Speakers : Bojan Aleksov (UCL), Boris Buden (Weimar University), Dejan Djokic (Goldsmiths), Costas Douzinas (Birkbeck),
Eric Gordy (UCL), Srecko Horvat (Independent Scholar),
Nina Power (University of Roehampton), Toni Prug (Independent Scholar),Saskia Sassen (Columbia University), Donald Sassoon (Queen Mary), Igor Stiks (University of Edinburgh), Ed Vulliamy (the Guardian), and Andreja Zivkovic (University of Cambridge).
Register for a place here
10.00am – 5.00am
The Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities
Room B34, Birkbeck Main Building, Malet Street
London, WC1E 7HX United Kingdom
(0) 20 7631 6612
