Global South Lecture Series | Ulf Brunnbauer (Regensburg) - Balkan und Südosteuropa, und Beyond: Wie eine Region sich selbst sieht

Ulf Brunnbauer | Leibniz Institute of East and Southeast European Studies (IOS), Regensburg
Balkan und Südosteuropa, und Beyond: Wie eine Region sich selbst sieht

This lecture will be given in German

Balkans, Southeast Europe and Beyond: How a region sees itself

This lecture focuses on the question of which modes of regional self-positioning and thus regional interconnections have been evident in Southeast Europe since the nineteenth century. How did intellectuals deal with the stigmatization of ‘their’ region (so-called Balkanism), and how did they – or how did they fail to – oppose such positionings? What I discuss, then, is the self-perception of an area that, at least in the eyes of outsiders, was seen as a region. I will consider here, among other things, the ambivalent status of ‘Southeast European studies’ within the region, how it was instrumentalized politically (for example as part of communist attempts towards integration), while also exploring the traditions of cultural geography. Finally, I will examine whether an (ascribed) peripheral status generates particular sensibility for liminal situations, ambiguity and contradictoriness.