Balkan Worlds: Ottoman past and Balkan Nationalisms

The Department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia will organize a Conference entitled “Balkan worlds: Ottoman past and Balkan nationalisms”. It will be held on October 5-7, 2012 in the University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki. The Conference will be dedicated on the centenary of the outbreak of the Balkan wars, which signified the beginning of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, however it aims at broadening the scope and topics including the rise of Balkan nationalisms and the State transformation during the Ottoman “long nineteenth century” (1789-1914) as well as the reconstruction of the memory through the emergence of historiographical schemes dealt with the problem of the Ottoman past. Consequently the Conference Scientific Committee encourages the submission of papers concentrated on the comparative analysis of the emerging national movements in the Ottoman Balkans as well as on the treament of different aspects of the Ottoman  past on the part of the Balkan historiographies.

Exactly because the definition of the Balkan History is impossible to ignore the Ottoman legacy in the peninsula the main perspective of the Conference deals with the epistemological fields of the Ottoman and Balkan studies as intersecting and overlapping. The basic aim of the Conference should be summarized as an endeavour of the convergence of both epistemological fields through the study of imperial structures and practices, the comparative study of the dissolution of the continental empires (Ottomans, Romanovs, Habsburgs) as well as the emergence of nation-states. This conference aims at bringing together a representative sample of  scholars and, especially young, researchers of the Late Ottoman as well as the Balkan History. The papers will be pre-prepared and circulated in advance to other presenters, discussants and chairs

Possible Topics:

–       Historiography and national discourses

–       Comparative approaches to the national movements in the Balkans

–       Comparative aprroaches to the dissolution of the Continental Empires

–       Comparative approaches to the imperial and national discourses

–       Religion and Nationalism in the ottoman context

–       Social/Power Networks and State Reformation

–       Violence and Memory

–       Modernization and Revolution

 

The Conference Scientific Committee consists of the following:

Nathalie Clayer (CNRS, Paris)

Raymond Detrez (University of Gent)

Sükrü Hanioğlu (Princeton University)

Miroslav Hroch (University of Prague)

Karl Käser (University of Graz)

Dimitris Stamatopoulos (University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki)

 

The working language of the Conference will be English. We welcome individual proposals for a 20-minute presentations:

Deadline for abstracts – May 31^st 2012

Notification of acceptance – June 30^th 2012

Deadline for papers – August 31^st 2012

Please include the following information with your proposal: i)full title of paper, ii)abstract (ca.200-300 words),  iii) name, iv) institutional affiliation, v) short CV, vi) telephone, fax, e-mail. The Conference will do the best for covering accommodation and travel expenses. However if there is a possibility the travel expenses to be covered by the affiliation institution it would be really helpful.

Best regards

Dimitris Stamatopoulos

Assist. Professor in Balkan and Late Ottoman History

Dept. of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies

University of Macedonia

156 Egnatia Str.

54006 Thessaloniki

Greece