Translating Cultures: Balkan Responses to European Migrant Crisis

The influx of hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Middle East into Europe has challenged the existing notion of national boundaries and demonstrated an increased need for a public policy that would take into account problems arising from the forced movement of population on such a large scale. Media reporting of the crisis focuses on the plight of miserable migrants who are using Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia and Hungary as transition points to reach the wealthier countries in Europe. Needless to say, countries comprising the European Union have had vastly differing responses to the issue of national boundaries and their permeability in the ongoing migration crisis. This lecture uses the innovative methodology of cultural translation to analyze this phenomenon by calling for a new understanding of language, space and identity in the Balkans in particular and Europe in general.

Tomislav Longinović is Professor of Slavic, Comparative Literature and Visual Culture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This year he is also Visiting Professor at Harvard University. Longinović has published four books and over forty articles on the literature, history, and politics of the Balkan region. He received the Mihajlo Miša Đorđević Award for best book in South Slavic studies for Vampire Nation: Violence as Cultural Imaginary in 2012 and the award for Best Literary Contribution in Yugoslavia in 1990. His teaching areas include the modern Central and East European novel, comparative history of South Slavic literatures, and theories of intercultural communication. He is currently working on a new book entitled, The Secret of Translation: A Manifesto of Border Cultures.

Open to Stanford affiliates.

RSVP requested.