The fourth and last session of the Workshop was introduced by Peter Mario Kreuter's general and personal critique of the expert's dialogue with mass media. In a rather pessimistic way Kreuter concluded on the basis of his rich experience with TV stations and newspapers that any constructive and scientific cooperation with mass-media is almost impossible.

In the second session Rossitza Gradeva gave an overview over the development of foci and definitions of Balkan Studies and the Balkans in connection or in contrary or supplementing Ottoman studies.

Yesterday's workshop on Balkan Studies was quite intense. The pretty tight schedule mirrors the high concentration of information that was given and discussed. All the speakers and presentations have been excellent, and though space for discussion was limited several debates about how to define "the Balkans" and "Balkan Studies", about the terminologiy of area studies, spatiality, cultures, and about the politics of funding and academia in general were going on.

Right before the start of the Workshop on Balkan Studies (April 25, 2009) Alexander Vezenkov published a revised edition of his paper History Against Geography: Should We Always Thik of the Balkans as Part of Europe? originally published by the IWM.

Maximilian Hartmuth, who initiated the upcoming Workshop on Balkan Studies has delivered and published his position paper on the current crisis or re-orientation at least of Balkan Studies.

Now follows the abstract (cf. Balkan Studies 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) of Tatjana Marković (Graz/Belgrade): Balkan Studies and Music Historiography. (Self-)Representation between Nationalist Myths and Europeanisation

Balkan Studies in music historiography are mainly determined by conservative understanding that Balkan culture is still of predominantly peasant character. Consequently, presentation of the Balkan music/s is based much more on insight in traditional than in art music, esp. contemporary, or popular music and, as such, it is present in the framework of positivistic ethnomusicological writings, in the first place. Recent musicological contributions to Balkan Studies (meaning studies of Balkan, West Balkan, southeast European music) show a new, growing interest in the field, signified by two main policies: on the one hand, there are writings of the guardians of nationalist myths, who construct the concept of music history in accordance with their frozen (medieval) exclusive image of national identity and, on the other, writings of the pro-European orientated scholars, who stress the Balkans’ close connections to Western Europe. The intermingling and separation of these two approaches, their different ideological and methodological outcomes, as well as possible ways of future research, will be discussed.

Here follows the abstracts (cf. Balkan Studies 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9) of Christian Marchetti (Tübingen): 19th-century Austrian Ethnography’s Discovery of the Proximate Other and its Legacy Today

The dichotomy between the exploration of the distant colonial primitive other and the discovery of the peasant as the nation’s »other within« provide a central divide in the historiography of the institutionalization of the anthropological sciences. In this ambivalent process Austrian ethnography was a borderline case. For ethnographic travellers as for aspiring scholars of all anthropological disciplines the proximate Balkans were a productive field of research. As the empire projected its powers into the same space, scientific "discovery" and military conquest often went hand in hand.

Here comes the abstract (cf. Balkan Studies 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9) of Peter Mario Kreuter (Regensburg): Slightly Nonsense. Or: Is there an Impact of (more or less) Scientific Balkan Studies in the Public (non-academic) Sphere?

"In Albania it is forbidden to listen to Manele; doing otherwise may be punished by imprisonment, fines, and whipping." This is what one can read when visiting the German Wikipedia in order to find some information about the Romanian musical style manele which also exists in Albania, but under a completely different name (tallava).

The abstract (cf. Balkan Studies 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9) of Karl Kaser (Graz): Disciplinary Boundaries in Question: Balkan Studies in a Globalizing World

The disciplinary boundaries between Balkan Studies and Near East and/or Middle Eastern Studies were basically drawn in the course of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century within a certain political framework and as results of European political interests. Arabic and Islamic Studies were considered as the study of the culturally other. Balkan Studies in this period of time were conceived as the »orient within«. The dissolution of the Habsburg and the Ottoman Empires by the end of 1918 changed the political landscape. Near East and Middle East Studies received the flavour of British and French Colonial Studies, whereas the German Reich was interested to explore the designated food deliverer, the Balkans, within its concept of Großraumpolitik.

Here follows the abstract (cf. Balkan Studies 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9) of Maximilian Hartmuth (Istanbul): Image-ing Balkans History: Non-Creative Others, Attention Deficits, and Art as a Problem

There are some fields in the humanities and social sciences, such as Nationalism Studies, in which the Balkans are very present, and others, such as art history and related disciplines, in which they are practically invisible. My paper is to question the impact of this condition on perceptions of the Balkans and Balkan-ness beyond the academia. Are the established interests of Balkan Studies really maintaining the image of the Balkans as an essentially conflictuous, non-creative space?

The abstract (cf. Balkan Studies 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) of Edin Hajdarpašić (Chicago): Balkan Policy Ghosts: Studying Southeastern Europe in the United States since the 1990s

In the US political, intellectual, and popular discourses of the 1990s, "the Balkans" emerged as a troubling Eastern European site that revealed a disturbing underside of the generally optimistic beginning of the post-Cold War era. In this context, the "Balkan" attribute in fact became a shorthand for a variety of post-Yugoslav phenomena revolving around the wars in Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo and the specter of multiple international community interventions in the region. Almost fifteen years later, »Balkan studies« in the US still bear a heavy imprint of "foreign policy" debates on intervention.

In addition to the abstracts 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 follows now Rossitsa Gradeva (Sofia): The Ottoman Rule in Bulgarian Historiography

The Ottoman (often equated with Turkish) rule which had lasted for more than five centuries and continued for some parts of the country until the beginning of the 20th century, is a major point of departure in constructing Bulgarian national identity. As such it has been usually subject to a very negative and emotional evaluation in popular writing, fiction, and even in academic publications, one of the most popular terms even today being the notorious 'Turkish yoke'. On the other hand, the Bulgarian ›school‹ in Ottoman studies has produced significant works which are an important reference in many of its fields. Thus the development of Bulgarian historiography of the Ottoman period can be seen as resultant of two major factors – political, inside Bulgaria, and academic, as a constituent of international scholarship, which too can be loaded with political considerations.

Abstract (cf. Balkan Studies 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) of Wladimir Fischer (Wien): From Balkanologie to Balkan-Kompetenzen: Major Topics in 'Western' Academic Representation of the Balkans

Institutionalized knowledge about the Balkans developed as a philological domain in theearly 19th century until today, Western and Central European businesses and banks capitalize on that knowledge in their Central and eastern European expansion strategies. This presentation showcases some major topical shifts in the field and discusses the present situation.

The abstracts of the upcoming Kakanian workshop Balkan Studies - quo vadis? (April 25, 2009) will be posted here in alphabetical order (cf. Balkan Studies 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9):

Zrinka Blažević (Zagreb): Globalizing the Balkans: Balkan Studies as Transnational/Translational Paradigm

Starting from the premise that space is both a physical givenness and a social construct, the
main focus of this paper will be placed upon an alternative theoretical conceptualization of
the Balkans as a possible heuristic framework for rethinking and epistemological broadening
of the Balkans Studies. Drawing upon Michel Foucault’s concept of heterotopia as
"impossible space" of coexistence of the opposite, distinctive and incommensurable, I
will propose a conceptualization of the Balkans as a heterotopical space in geographical,
historical, social, political, cultural and symbolic terms. Accordingly, it will be argued that
such a conceptualization might provide a basis for a transnational and translational politics
of the discipline which could not only bring about useful heuristic models and research
protocols for future Balkan Studies, but also ensure a survival of this academic and research
field in the post-transitional, global age.