WHAT WE AIM TO DO
Study programs
During the first successful year of implementing the ERASMUS Strategic partnership, we have managed to fulfill one of the two main objectives of our project, that is to develop a MA study program, by designing syllabi for twelve courses, organized in four research modules: Bodies Politics, Memory Studies, Critique of Illiberal Ideologies, and Politics of Borders, Migration and Communities.
In the following project year (2022), we proceeded with working on and developing a PhD study program in Trans-disciplinary Balkan Studies.
Developing a curriculum for an integrated MA and PhD program in GEOBALKANS means supporting individuals in acquiring and developing basic skills and key competences in the field of trans-disciplinary and critical political and social studies of the Balkans, hence providing prospective students and existing teaching staff with innovative methodologies and apparatus of critical and contemporary concepts for analyzing the historical and contemporary socio-political and cultural contexts in the Balkans, Europe and world- wide.
Therefore, bringing together as project partners universities, departments and teaching staff that cut across multiple disciplines and social sciences, the project has designed studying opportunities for students coming from different under-graduate backgrounds, and thus supporting permeability between the different education and training pathways.
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Considering the complexities of the dynamic and fast-changing contemporary world, we realize the urgency to invent new methodologies and theories for studying, researching and analyzing contemporary political phenomena. In this sense, the project aims not only at socio-educational and personal development of youth, prospective students and scholars, but also at fostering employability of future political scholars and analysts, equipping them with the needed knowledge and tools for developing responsive policies and addressing the needs of various social groups. This becomes even more salient considering the prevalent traditional approaches in political sciences in the Region that struggle to catch up with the on-going dynamics in the contemporary political world.
The curriculum we designed promotes transdisciplinary and critical political studies that brings into dialogue and co-operation various traditions of critical theory and multiple disciplines from the humanities and social sciences (psychoanalysis, anthropology, contemporary philosophy, art theory, cultural studies, gender and sexuality studies, media studies, human geography, history etc.), and develop innovative pedagogies, teaching, assessment and learning environments that would correspond to this approach.
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The syllabi are organized in accordance to the 4 research clusters
Bodies Politics
- Affects, Communities and Identities
- Embodiment and Power
- Feminist and Queer Critiques and Politics
Memory Studies
- Landscapes of Memory: theory and practice
- Entangled Memories: borders, minorities, mobilities
- Contested Memories, Memory Activism and Mnemonic Practices
Critique of illiberal ideologies
- Balkan and Otherness
- Limits of Liberalism
- Post-socialist transition - why does it go illiberal and emancipatory alternatives to illiberalism
Politics of Borders, Migration and Communities
- Migration, Integration and Citizenship
- Crossing Borders: from nationalism to communities to come
- Rethinking the Balkans
Trans-disciplinary Balkan Studies Programs
The aim of the Transdisciplinary MA Balkan Studies is to offer prospective students cross-disciplinary and critical understanding, together with tools for analysis and research, on contemporary political phenomena, by setting the geopolitical location, relations and politics of the Balkans as its major focus of knowledge production.
The integrated PhD program in Geophilosophy of the Balkans, specifically designed by the consortium, promotes the acquisition of theoretical and methodological skills to carry out highly qualified research activities in Universities and public or private organisations in Europe or abroad.