After Yugoslavia: Antagonism and Identity Revisited
29 - 31 March 2003: University of Kent, Canterbury, U.K.
This conference builds upon issues raised in August 1992 at a Kent
conference entitled "Issues of Identity in Contemporary `Yugoslavia':
Antagonism and the Construction of Community". That conference drew together
anthropologists, sociologists, historians, constitutional lawyers and other
scholars to discuss contemporary nationalist mobilizations in Yugoslavia.
Thirty four academics (twenty of whom came from 'then Yugoslavia') presented
papers concerned with identity formations and transformations in the
contexts of modernization, federation, the collapse of existing socialism,
and the rearticulation of ethnic nationalisms1. The conference provided
perhaps the last forum within which academics of what rapidly became 'Former
Yugoslavia' were able to meet and openly discuss the political, social, and
cultural forces dismembering the state they had shared.
A decade later many of those same scholars - augmented by a number of other
voices from the region - will reconvene at Kent to resume and advance that
dialogue2. Papers will discuss the developments of the past ten years, the
trajectories likely to be followed into the future, and their implications
not only for social, political, cultural and economic interactions but also
for academic work on and in the region. With at least twenty of the planned
speakers having presented papers at the earlier conference, a degree of
reflexivity will be introduced into the presentations and the debates they
will engender. Participants will reflect not only on the changes which have
affected the region in the past decade but also the changes that decade has
effected in their own thinking.
The conference will run from 13:00 on Saturday the 29th until 16:00 on
Monday the 31st. Registration - which provides for attendance and coffee -
will be £10 for one day (£5 for students) or £20 for the entire conference
(£10 for students). Those wishing to register should send contact details
and a cheque made out to UNIKENT - AFTER YUGOSLAVIA to the organiser, Glenn
Bowman at the Department of Anthropology, University of Kent, Canterbury CT2
7NS.
Information on bed and breakfast accommodation is available through the
Canterbury tourist office --
http://www.canterbury.co.uk/cgi-bin/accommodation.cgi -- although conference
attendees wishing to stay in less expensive on-campus accommodation (£19.50
a night, available Saturday through Monday) can arrange this through Patrick
Bradley at [log in to unmask] . Meals will be available on campus.
Persons pre-registering can join the conference speakers for a banquet at
the new Canterbury "Goods Shed" (see
http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/food_and_drink/reviews/story.jsp?story=35
6950 ) on the Sunday evening. This will cost £29.50 and a separate cheque
made out as above should be sent to Glenn Bowman.
Please direct all inquiries to Glenn Bowman at [log in to unmask]
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