After traveling on the Una line last week I put my thoughts into a blog post. This is very long and detailed and emotional. I've never had such an intense experience researching a piece of infrastructure before. I hope you'll enjoy it and perhaps be inspired to visit this beautiful part of Bosnia.

Traveling the Una railroad: thoughts on potential revitalization

I’ve been writing a lot about railroads in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) lately. Despite abysmal rail passenger numbers, I’ve been fascinated by the unique scenery of Bosnia’s railways and the…

blog.vladovince.com

Bosnian women’s tattoos have lately made it to Eurovision, become popular in the diaspora, and even caused a brief spat with Turkish media. I wrote about how they fold back into familiar tropes about the Balkans, the Ottoman past, and Christian-Muslim relations: newlinesmag.com/essays/the-o...

The Origin Stories of Bosnian Tattoos Are Only Skin-Deep

A nationalistic bent has accompanied a revival of the markings, along with apocryphal tales that they kept Catholic maidens safe from Ottoman overlords

newlinesmag.com

It's a great feeling to have this out in the world, finally. And was a wonderful process working with everyone @stanfordpress.bsky.social!

Stanford University Press@stanfordpress.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Geographers have long argued that places are constituted by relations with the wider world, relations that are always in flux. In The Difference Place Makes, Adam Moore argues that the inverse is also true: places are generative of relations. https://ow.ly/G0Fh50YZTi9

Bosnian women’s tattoos have lately made it to Eurovision, become popular in the diaspora, and even caused a brief spat with Turkish media. I wrote about how they fold back into familiar tropes about the Balkans, the Ottoman past, and Christian-Muslim relations: newlinesmag.com/essays/the-o...

The Origin Stories of Bosnian Tattoos Are Only Skin-Deep

A nationalistic bent has accompanied a revival of the markings, along with apocryphal tales that they kept Catholic maidens safe from Ottoman overlords

newlinesmag.com

I'm sure everyone's heard about the Bosnian tattoos by now. I explored the story for the @newlinesmag.bsky.social, and if you’re curious about Ottoman Bosnia, Catholic women, and the stakes of turning complicated histories into myths, take a look: newlinesmag.com/essays/the-o...

bosnian catholics are routinely robbed of culture, history and agency and almost as frequently enough, they relinquish it readily, embracing the erasure and diminishing themselves while surrendering to nationalistic predation of people who despise them. time to dive deeper into ourselves, not shrink

Ana Sekulić@anasekulic.bsky.social · 3mo ago

I'm sure everyone's heard about the Bosnian tattoos by now. I explored the story for the @newlinesmag.bsky.social, and if you’re curious about Ottoman Bosnia, Catholic women, and the stakes of turning complicated histories into myths, take a look: newlinesmag.com/essays/the-o...

I'm sure everyone's heard about the Bosnian tattoos by now. I explored the story for the @newlinesmag.bsky.social, and if you’re curious about Ottoman Bosnia, Catholic women, and the stakes of turning complicated histories into myths, take a look: newlinesmag.com/essays/the-o...

"Brothers with Baggage: Eight Chapters on the Austro-Hungarian Civilizing Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina" is out, including an essay of mine (in Czech) on "Colonial ambivalence: On foreigners and expertise in Habsburg Bosnia" — plus many more interesting essays here: avu.cz/publikace/br...

Bratři s kufry. Osm kapitol o rakousko-uherské civilizační misi v Bosně a Hercegovině (1878–1918) - avu

Web Akademie výtvarných umění.

avu.cz

The only professional images of executions from the war in Yugoslavia have long been a subject of rumor and controversy. Barbara Matejčić investigates how and why they came to exist. 

They Photographed an Execution in Bosnia. Did They Influence the Killer?

A three-year investigation unravels the rumors and controversy that have long swirled around the award-winning images of a war crime

newlinesmag.com

A proud editor moment: this piece hits with exactly the right intensity, and I might spend the next few days asking everyone around me to read it. + @anasekulic.bsky.social did an amazing job streamlining the story

Women* Write the Balkans@womenwritebalkans.bsky.social · 5mo ago

We’re closing our winter special with a gem: Lejla Talić’s intimate exploration of bodily and sexual repression in 2000s Croatia, and the passion and love found beyond it. www.womenwritethebalkans.com/essays/sleep...

We’re closing our winter special with a gem: Lejla Talić’s intimate exploration of bodily and sexual repression in 2000s Croatia, and the passion and love found beyond it. www.womenwritethebalkans.com/essays/sleep...

Sleeping Beauty — Women* Write the Balkans

There was no magic in figuring out I was a lesbian.

womenwritethebalkans.com

Croatian interior minister announced today that demining is now fully complete - 31 years after the war in Croatia ended. The MIS portal also shows no suspected areas remaining: misportal.hcr.hr/HCRweb/faces...

Croatia declared free of landmines after 31 years

Interior Minister Davor Božinović announced Friday that Croatia is officially free of landmines. Thirty-one years after the end of the Homeland War, all known minefields have been cleared — a major mi...

glashrvatske.hrt.hr

"The Marriage Customs of the Romanian Peasants" - last year I discovered an unknown study from 1837 by Romanian historian Mihail Kogălniceanu and republished it with a commentary. (In Romanian) Now #OpenAccess in @researchgate.bsky.social www.researchgate.net/publication/...

The Afterlife of Ottoman Europe is now available in paperback. Plus take advantage of @stanfordpress.bsky.social Valentine’s Day Sale for a few more days. www.sup.org/books/histor... 🗃️ #menasky #ottoman #bosniaandherzegovina #bosnia #muslims #austriahungary

Check out Growing Pains, a new essay in our Bodies of the Balkans winter special. Iva Jelušić explores parental expectations that eschewed words, living instead in bodies, gestures, and things. www.womenwritethebalkans.com/essays/growi...

Growing Pains — Women* Write the Balkans

In my more-or-less adulthood, I sometimes have coffee with my mum, often by the sea. We talk quite a bit now. To my surprise, I am not sure that words lead to a better understanding.

womenwritethebalkans.com

Latest podcast! We talk to Simone Kenyon, choreographer + artistic creator of the place-sensitive performance piece Into the Mountain, inspired by the lyrical & embodied prose of Nan Shepherd’s 1974 book. shorturl.at/ac6QE @anasekulic.bsky.social @annamfleming.bsky.social @papayranger.bsky.social

So I wrote something about ethnicity and gender, and the feeling of being "Other" in both. Thanks so much to @womenwritebalkans.bsky.social for publishing it, hope people find it an interesting read!

Women* Write the Balkans@womenwritebalkans.bsky.social · 7mo ago

The third essay of our winter special Bodies of the Balkans is now on the website! @alexsaysstuff.bsky.social writes about bodies—national and personal—and costs of classification. www.womenwritethebalkans.com/essays/on-cl...

The third essay of our winter special Bodies of the Balkans is now on the website! @alexsaysstuff.bsky.social writes about bodies—national and personal—and costs of classification. www.womenwritethebalkans.com/essays/on-cl...

On Classification — Women* Write the Balkans

When rights in a society are determined by what group one is considered part of, aggressive attempts to police the boundaries of who “really counts” are almost inevitable. It is not enough to just be ...

womenwritethebalkans.com

In the second part of our winter special, Bodies of The Balkans, Magdalena Crăciun guides us through the river crossing between socialist Romania and Bulgaria, exploring the shadow economy and the delicious pleasures on the other side with a touch of life-changing suspense. tinyurl.com/3v24vamk

Across the River — Women* Write the Balkans

A small, cold weight lodged in the body. I have held it there, contained, neither mastered nor erased. It rises only rarely, most often when I cross a state border.

womenwritethebalkans.com

Our winter special, "Bodies of the Balkans," begins with a piece by Alja Gudžević that takes us to Ikaria, where stories of hunger and long life unfold.

Epistle on a Mnemonic — Women* Write the Balkans

Numerous tests are being conducted on its centenarians without providing persuasive answers on why Ikaria is on the list of what the world called Blue Zones: is it the diet, the air, the sea, genetic...

womenwritethebalkans.com

Join us for our first podcast! We talk with the amazing Alexandra Cotofana about landscape sentience in the Romanian Carpathians and the concept of xenophobic mountains. shorturl.at/DfOrj @drdavidcooper.bsky.social @timhannigan.bsky.social @issygapp.bsky.social @asleuki.bsky.social

I wrote an essay for @bostonreview.bsky.social about what I learned about close reading when I taught at West Virginia University www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...

The Claims of Close Reading - Boston Review

Literary studies have been starved by austerity, but their core methodology remains radical.

bostonreview.net

Each year, we publish lists of books, journal articles, and chapters published by historians working off the tenure track. It's never too early to start collecting, so if you or someone you know has something with a 2025 publication date to submit, have at it!

Publications by Non-Tenure-Track Historians

Since we began publishing in 2019, Contingent has published end-of-year lists of books and articles by non-tenure-track historians released in the past calendar year. To submit something for inclusion...

contingentmagazine.org

We’re looking for nonfiction—of any length or form—that dives into the many meanings and manifestations of embodiment in and of the Balkans. Send us your pitches (50–100 words) by October 1 and join us for our first-ever Virtual Open House on September 24: www.womenwritethebalkans.com/specials

"Although I didn’t understand it at the time, nature could cradle us and root us, while borders and nations spat us out like bitter, sinewy morsels."

Снежна Авис / Janez 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️@snowyavis.bsky.social · last yr.

A couple of years ago I read an essay by Ana Sekulić (@anasekulic.bsky.social ), "Threads of Life", which explained my situation exceptionally well, and I felt seen for the first time. I am really grateful. I strongly recommend you read it. [12/12] www.mangalmedia.net/english/find...

A couple of years ago I read an essay by Ana Sekulić (@anasekulic.bsky.social ), "Threads of Life", which explained my situation exceptionally well, and I felt seen for the first time. I am really grateful. I strongly recommend you read it. [12/12] www.mangalmedia.net/english/find...

Threads of Life — Mangal Media

I finally found a thread that leads from the land she came from to the bristled leaves that sprouted from it, to the grazing flocks of sheep that my grandmother tended and whose wool she shore, from t...

mangalmedia.net

Here is a little story about the #earlymodern emoticon "<3" and the complex symbolic meaning of this typographical entity that I posted yesterday. Follow me, for catholic symbolism and some #bookhistory, dear #skystorians of the blue skies. Here we go...

Daniel Bellingradt@dbellingradt.bsky.social · last yr.

A printed ❤️ symbol from a 1702 text about the Holy Trinity.

My article on the etymology of 'kukuruz' is now published in "Zeitschrift für Balkanologie" - get in touch if you would like a copy www.zeitschrift-fuer-balkanologie.de/index.php/zf...

Super proud of @evrenko.bsky.social 💜 Check out this gem of late Ottoman printing now in English.

evren sunnetcioglu@evrenko.bsky.social · last yr.

It’s out! My translation just dropped in Art in Translation. It's a booklet, published in 1912 & attributed to Ahmed İhsan Bey, a print entrepreneur, author, and translator, on his publishing house & legendary illustrated journal Servet-i Fünun ("Wealth of Sciences") under the Ottoman Empire. 1/3

enjoyed this lovely piece. it appears that in scholarship, writing, and life really, the richest insights come from the dislodged. "Disciplines are homes that I don’t belong to anymore and I can’t say that’s something I regret."

Agata Tumiłowicz-Mazur@agatumilowicz.bsky.social · last yr.

Very shy to share this new text of mine. Here’s a very personal essay about being an independent scholar, my method, about immigration, cracks in academia and fragments. I don’t know if people even read this kind of stuff anymore but if you do, enjoy. aseees.org/newsnet-arti...