nettime-nl: Imagining the Balkans in De Balie (wednesday night)

[Geert Lovink <geert@xs4all.nl>]

>From djuke@pop.dds.nl Tue Jan 12 15:40:05 1999

January 13th 1999 - 20.00 hours, Grote Zaal, de Balie, Amsterdam

Press Now
Round table discussion
IMAGINING THE BALKANS

The Balkans, Southeast Europe and Central Europe (Mitteleuropa) are three
similar, mostly overlapping but still competing concepts. All three are
trying to overcome the legacy of Cold war divisions and define the
geographical, political and cultural identity of countries in transition
where Press Now is supporting independent media. All three concepts bear
the burden of the shift from the geographical and cultural domain to
political pragmatism in the efforts of the countries involved to join NATO
and the institutional framework of the European Union. The additional
syndrome of the unhappy "Almosteuropeans" is that they often try to
exclude rights of "others"  (from the same region) in joining the club of
the "Europeanness". The discussion will touch on all three concepts, their
possibilities and also their limitations. 

 Participants: 

Maria Todorova, historian. Now professor at the University of Florida
(USA) and visiting Professor at the University of Graz (Austria), she
studied at the University of Sofia and is a specialist in the history of
the Balkans and Eastern European countries. Her book Imagining the Balkans
(Oxford University Press 1997) is a profound analysis of existing dilemmas
and the most systematic overview of the answers put forward to date. 

Dubravka Ugresic, writer and essayist from Croatia. Most of her books have
been published also in the Netherlands. Since September 1998, she lectures
at the University of Chapel Hill, USA. 

Vladimir Pistalo, University of Durham, N.H. USA. The author of seven
books published in Belgrade. Pistalo is writer and historian, now engaged
in his doctoral studies on European and American history. 

Boris Buden, philosopher from Croatia, presently living in Vienna,
Austria. Author of the Barikade, Arkzin, Zagreb (1997 and 1998), one of
the most recent critical studies of nationalist ideology in Croatia. 

Chairperson: Mattijs van de Port, social anthropologist from the
Netherlands. Author of the book Gypsies, Wars & Other Instances of the
Wild: Civilization and Its Discontent in a Serbian Town, Amsterdam
University Press 1998 (Het einde van de wereld, 1994) 

The program will be conducted in English

Information: 020 5535165 (Zoran Djukanovic) / pressnow@xs4all.nl Press
Now, support free press in countries in transition


--
* Verspreid via nettime-nl. Commercieel gebruik niet toegestaan zonder
* toestemming. <nettime-nl> is een gesloten en gemodereerde mailinglist
* over net-kritiek. Meer info: list@dds.nl met 'info nettime-nl' in de
* tekst v/d email. Archief: http://www.factory.org/nettime-nl. Contact:
* nettime-nl-owner@dds.nl. Int. editie: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime.