Zoran Milutinovic - Böcker

Area Studies became increasingly common after World War II as a means of responding to perceived ‘external threats’ from the Soviet Union and China. After the Cold War and in the face of increasingly rapid globalisation, it seemed inevitable that Area Studies – institutionally and intellectually – would slowly degenerate. But this has not been the case, and there has recently been a resurgence of interest in it as an effective and positive research paradigm. Responding to this renewed interest, this book brings together an esteemed group of contributors at the cutting edge of the field to consider the state of Area Studies today and its prospects for the future. The Rebirth of Area Studies demonstrates that numerous aspects of the research paradigm in fact recommend it as well-suited for the present moment and the challenges posed by globalisation, both as a means to overcome disciplinary limitations and to increase self-reflexivity. Area Studies research is grounded in place-specific knowledge, yet by definition it transcends nation as the basic unit of analysis and thus empowers comparative and trans-national approaches. This book outlines a new, critical Area Studies for the 21st century – self-reflexive, aware of its limitations and conscious of its origins in geopolitical, strategic or ideological considerations – and is essential reading for historians, geographers and political scientists.

Area Studies became increasingly common after World War II as a means of responding to perceived ‘external threats’ from the Soviet Union and China. After the Cold War and in the face of increasingly rapid globalisation, it seemed inevitable that Area Studies – institutionally and intellectually – would slowly degenerate. But this has not been the case, and there has recently been a resurgence of interest in it as an effective and positive research paradigm. Responding to this renewed interest, this book brings together an esteemed group of contributors at the cutting edge of the field to consider the state of Area Studies today and its prospects for the future. The Rebirth of Area Studies demonstrates that numerous aspects of the research paradigm in fact recommend it as well-suited for the present moment and the challenges posed by globalisation, both as a means to overcome disciplinary limitations and to increase self-reflexivity. Area Studies research is grounded in place-specific knowledge, yet by definition it transcends nation as the basic unit of analysis and thus empowers comparative and trans-national approaches. This book outlines a new, critical Area Studies for the 21st century – self-reflexive, aware of its limitations and conscious of its origins in geopolitical, strategic or ideological considerations – and is essential reading for historians, geographers and political scientists.

This book constitutes the most detailed and wide-ranging comparative study to date of how European literatures written in less well known languages try, through translation, to reach the wider world. Through case studies of over thirteen different national contexts as diverse as Bosnian, Catalan, Czech, Dutch, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish and Serbian, it explores patterns and contrasts in approaches to supply-driven translation, cultural diplomacy, institutional support and international gate-keeping, while examining the particular fates of poetry, women’s writing and genre fiction, and the opportunities arising from trans-medial circulation, self-translation and translingualism and a more radical critique of power balances in the translation and publishing industries. Its comparative approach challenges both the narratives of uniqueness that arise from discrete national approaches and the narrative of tragic marginalization that prevails in world literary approaches. Instead, it uses an interdisciplinary mix of literary, historical, sociological, gender- and translation-studies approaches to illuminate the often pioneering, innovative thinking and strategies that mark these literatures as they take on the inequalities of globalization.

This book constitutes the most detailed and wide-ranging comparative study to date of how European literatures written in less well known languages try, through translation, to reach the wider world. Through case studies of over thirteen different national contexts as diverse as Bosnian, Catalan, Czech, Dutch, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish and Serbian, it explores patterns and contrasts in approaches to supply-driven translation, cultural diplomacy, institutional support and international gate-keeping, while examining the particular fates of poetry, women’s writing and genre fiction, and the opportunities arising from trans-medial circulation, self-translation and translingualism and a more radical critique of power balances in the translation and publishing industries. Its comparative approach challenges both the narratives of uniqueness that arise from discrete national approaches and the narrative of tragic marginalization that prevails in world literary approaches. Instead, it uses an interdisciplinary mix of literary, historical, sociological, gender- and translation-studies approaches to illuminate the often pioneering, innovative thinking and strategies that mark these literatures as they take on the inequalities of globalization.

This book presents a systematic and comprehensive review of the major seismic hazard assessment and zonation accomplishments for the territory of the present Republic of North Macedonia from 1948 to 2024. This contribution encompasses all significant efforts related to territory of N. Macedonia on national, regional, and global levels of seismic hazard assessments, briefly discussing the methodologies used and the results derived. The monograph compactly presents and preserves historical, administrative, and some technical information that is currently of limited availability. It identifies and emphasizes the adverse influence of the migration of design seismicity enforced by different seismic zonings and non-harmonized standards for seismic design, concrete, and reinforce concrete, on a timescale.The monograph presents, in necessary detail, the spatial and temporal evolution of seismic zoning maps during the last 76 years, the results of efforts by the Macedonian national and international research community to quantify the Macedonian seismic environment, and the implications thereof on modelling the spatial and temporal evolution of developed exposure.The authors considered it worthwhile to collect, systemize, analyze, and make available for further studies and research to the broader scientific and professional community. The presented review may be of particular interest to research communities of countries succeeding the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) since the discussed legal technical documents have controlled the development of the built environment (exposure) and its seismic vulnerability in the pre-Eurocode design and construction period, not only in the territory of the Republic of North Macedonia but also in the territories of all SFRY successors. All maps and studies presented in this monograph have been processed using GIS and/or digitized from the original maps.

The book examines the discursive construction of the representation of “Europe” in the selected writings of leading Serbian writers and intellectuals in the first half of the twentieth century. In addition to being of particular significance in the process of the genesis of our understanding of Europe across the continent, these several decades were crucial for the discursive construction of “Europe” in Serbian culture: when after the end of the Cold War the debate on Europe became possible again, it was on a discursive level to a large extent determined by the stockpile of images and ideas created between the world wars. The book seeks to answer the following questions: who constructed “Europe”, and with what authority? For whom were these constructions intended? How was this representation validated? What purposes was it meant to serve? Which issues were raised in comparing “Europe” with Serbia, and why? Which textual traditions were the elements of this construction borrowed from? How did the construction of the European other define Serbian self-representation? This volume is of interest for all those working in Slavic or East European studies - especially cultural, intellectual and political history of the Balkans - imagology, and European studies.

A bold intervention into the lingering debates on Serbian writers Petar Petrovic Njegos and Ivo Andric in the late Yugoslav and post-Yugoslav period, which interrogates the political and moralizing (mis)use of literature.This open access study asks difficult questions about the relationship between literature, history, politics and ethics: Does representing something in fiction mean endorsing it? Should fiction be used to rewrite history? Should we weaponize legitimate ethical concerns while reading fiction and transform them into superficial moralizing? Should political misreading of fiction be opposed?Zoran Milutinovic examines a well-established, deeply rooted and widespread Bosniak nationalist discourse on Ivo Andric and, to a lesser extent, Petar Petrovic Njegos. This discourse claims that Nobel Prize winner Andric expounded a nationalist ideology in his works, which instigated, or at least justified, the genocide of Bosnian Muslims. Milutinovic argues that this Bosniak nationalist discourse is not really about Andric’s works. It is a political discourse that uses Andric’s works and career merely as a springboard, and as literary criticism and scholarship, it is harmful. This is criticism that goes to war.When Criticism Goes to War is a study characterized by a smooth and sensitive writing style that makes this contentious subject accessible to those more generally interested in political distortions of fiction and its authors, as similar attempts to misuse literature are not limited to the Yugoslav context.The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.