Courses

Activism Reloaded

Course Facilitators:
Goran Bozicevic, Grožnjan/Skopje
Paul Stubbs, Zagreb

This course aims to promote an understanding of peace-building and related forms of activism (including movements for human rights, social justice, environmental sustainability, tactical media, gender equality and gay and lesbian rights) in the Yugoslav and post-Yugoslav space. Whilst many of the case studies will focus on peace-building in relation to the wars from 1991, the course will also encourage discussion of earlier 'moments' including the student-national popular-democratic activisms from 1968-1972, and the flowering of 'civil society' activisms in the 1980s. Recent activist work on 'dealing with the past' as well as movements to reclaim public space will also be discussed. Attention will be given to linkages between the local and the global with examples of transformative pioneering peacebuilding work in areas of engagement of war veterans in peacebuilding, the role of civilian volunteers in normalisation processes, grassroots empowerment and educational initiatives. Case studies will build on participants' own experiences and will seek to explore the diversity of activist trajectories and repertoires, trying to isolate what worked well and why, whilst avoiding an over-prescriptive 'toolkit' approach. Issues of networking, the role of computer-mediated communication, questions of organisational forms and the dangers of 'projectisation', will also be discussed.

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Memory: Remembering and Forgetting

Course facilitators:
Stef Jansen
Alenka Bartulovic

Through discussions, readings, lectures, films, individual and group exercises, and mini-expeditions in the city of Sarajevo, this course aims to provide students with an insight in some ways in which the social sciences help us understand the topic of memory, as well as with a forum to discuss what role remembering and forgetting may play with regard to different forms of violence and their alternatives.

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Understanding Internal dynamics of Societies in Conflict: Collective Memories and Collective States of Denial: the Case of the Israeli-Palestine Conflict

Course Instructor:
Orli Fridman

This course will explore the concepts of collective memory and political denial and the role they play in the study of societies in conflict.  It will offer students an introduction to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, focusing on the dynamics of the societies involved while addressing some of the common misconceptions regarding this conflict.  The course will offer a comparative perspective of conflict studies, investigating the importance of analyzing the asymmetry of power and the role it plays in the present analysis of the conflict.  Through the lenses of research about memory and denial, the course will discuss issues such as competing historical narratives, dominant discourses and alternative voices in societies in conflict.  The course will examine these concepts and their relevance to the experiences and lives of the course participants and will seek to take the case studies of Israel-Palestine and/or the ex-Yugoslav Conflicts into a broader analysis of the study of internal dynamics of societies in conflict.