Balkan Express 2023: Between Orientalism and Occidentalism ****************************************************************************************** * ****************************************************************************************** The 7th International and Interdisciplinary Conference in Balkan Studies Balkan Express 2023: Between Orientalism and Occidentalism Date: November 10-11, 2023 Location: Faculty of Humanities, Charles University Institutional Support: Faculty of Humanities – Charles University Institute of History of the Czech Academy of Sciences Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences (Zora Hesová) Czech National Committee of Balkan Scholars - Czech Association for Slavonic, Balkan and B (ČSSBBS) The conference was supported by Strategy AV 21 – Top Research in Public Interest, the rese the Czech Academy of Sciences, and the Czech Association for Social Anthropology (CASA). The final program can be downloaded here [ URL "https://www.hiu.cas.cz/udalosti/balkan-exp between-orientalism-and-occidentalism"] . The link to the official conference video is here [ URL "https://youtu.be/ugOLdoABNAc"] . ****************************************************************************************** * About the conference ****************************************************************************************** The Balkan Express Conferences, organized since 2013, are the largest conferences in Balka regularly held in the Czech Republic. The conference was dedicated to the memory of Mirjam (1931-2023), ethnologist and Balkan scholar from the Faculty of Humanities, Charles Univer (2013), and organizing committee member. In 2023, the 7th International Balkan Studies Conference "Balkan Express" focused on the B concepts of Orientalism and Occidentalism from the 19th century to the present day. At the attention were the mechanisms of integration and disintegration, the social construction o national, and European identities in Southeastern Europe, and the discourses that further processes. Orientalism is a term coined by Edward Said, and it refers to the asymmetrical perception of the East (i.e., the Orient). In these biased orientalizing perspectives, the typically constructed as "non-European" and as radically different from the rest of the ol Occidentalism, a stereotypical and distorted image of the West (Occident), is also present from the 19th century to the present day. In Southeastern Europe, Occidentalism often mani today as the refusal of European integration processes and, at the same time, an attempt t seemingly independent Orthodox Christian civilization inclined towards Russia as opposed t "rotten and decadent" West. The 7th "Balkan Express" conference analyzed the notions, practices, and discourses of Ori Occidentalism from an interdisciplinary perspective (historical, anthropological, politica perspectives) in order to improve communication between individual disciplines. The confer innovative perspective on the region, which at present (as was also often the case in the unstable and potentially explosive space where Europe (West), Russia, the Islamic world, a compete for political, economic, and cultural influence. The conference "Balkan Express: Between Orientalism and Occidentalism" took place on Novem at the Faculty of Humanities of Charles University. There were altogether 11 thematic pane academic presentations (30 minutes per presentation) by 31 active participants from Austra Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czechia, Germany, Ireland, Hungary, Mon Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and the United Kingdom. This year's keynote sp Halilovich (RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia), an award-winning anthropologist and pr Studies, delivered a keynote lecture entitled Global Echoes of the Balkans War Tunes: Popu (Self-)Orientalism of Imagined Enemies and Real Victims. Apart from classical academic presentations, there were also two special book presentation Krasimira Marholeva (Journal Balgari, Prague, Czech Republic), former Ph.D. student and cl of Dr. Mirjam Moravcová (1931-2023), doyenne of Czech ethnology and Balkan studies, co-fou of the organizing committee of the Balkan Express conferences, talked about Moravcová's la published just a few days after her passing, the English language monograph entitled Ethni Festivities in the Czech Republic: Cultural Traditions between Isolation, Integration and (Prague: Karolinum, 2023). Professor Clemens Ruthner (Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland) pr collective volume Peter Handkes Jugoslawienkomplex (Würzburg: Königshauser & Neumann, 2022 edited together with the literary scholar Vahidin Preljević. The book provides a critical controversial engagements of the Austrian writer Peter Handke (Nobel Prize for Literature, Balkans and a well-argued deconstruction of his discourse and personal positions on the wa Yugoslavia. The final cultural program was provided by Aida Mujačić, singer and musicologist living an in Prague, who performed several traditional songs from her native Bosnia and Herzegovina (sevdalinke) and Ladino (the language of the Sephardic Jews) and also explained their hist as musical genesis to the public. The main social event and informal networking took place – Association for the Citizens of Former Yugoslavia near Prague's central Wenceslas Square been actively promoting tolerance, multicultural understanding, and the cultivation of lin between the countries of former Yugoslavia and Czechia. Photo: Domingo Mohedano, Markéta Slavková and Boris Skenderija František Šístek and Markéta Slavková On behalf of the Organizing Committee of the Balkan Express Conferences