Call for Papers for the Special Issue: Slow Memory After Conflict: Fragments From the Post- Yugoslav Space 

Rationale 

Inspired by the COST Action on Slow Memory, it is a pleasure to announce a call for papers to a special issue of the journal Southeastern Europe that will critically engage with the literature from peace and conflict as well as memory studies, aiming to advance our theoretical and methodological understandings of slow memory (Wustenberg 2021; Fridman and Pavlakovic, 2022) and the transformation of conflict (or lack of). 

In the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, more than three decades after the end of a series of violent wars and conflicts, the past is still contested, manipulated and subject to intense revisionism as part of ongoing nationalist projects. These trends, which seemed to have been an exceptional characteristic of the Balkans, have now become global with the decline of liberal internationalism and the rise of historical revisionism, virulent populism, and new international peace architecture (Pagodda et al. 2023). 

The Yugoslav successor states, where the intertwined and contested memory politics of WW2, communism, Socialist Yugoslavia, post-socialist transition, and the wars of the 1990s continue to loom large across the region, have been the focus of intense memory scholarship over the past decade. Therefore, we believe it to be a fertile region for applying concepts of slow memory and scrutinizing the puzzle of slow transformations of conflict. 

The Slow Memory  Action seeks contributions engaging both with the perspective of the subjects of remembrance (marginalized victims, processes, national identities), as well as commemorative practices. They are particularly interested in contributions offering a critique of state sponsored memory politics in order to deepen our understanding of slow memory processes as the product of counter-memory: memory activism, alternative commemorations, artistic mnemonic interventions, and shifting narratives. Southeastern Europe – Brill Journal Southeastern Europe @BrillEurope Southeastern Europe brill.com/seeu 

It is a calling for contributions focusing on the following themes: 

• Beyond events and slow memory/slow transformation of conflict 
• Post-conflict slow memory of the 1990s and marginalized groups/minorities 
• Memory activism and ex-YU space: Counter memory and the critique of/alternative to the nationalist projects, memory activism as a space of joint political action 
• Slow memory in protests: social justice after conflict 
• Slow memory and social movements 
• Memory and slow spatial change: Murals, graffiti, monuments, counter-monuments, and other alternative sites of cultural memory 
• Nationalism, identity and slow memory (selective remembrance) 
• Legacies of slow violence 

The Journal Southeastern Europe is abstracted/indexed in Web of Science, Scopus and several other data bases. It was rewarded the highest listing, A, by Italy’s Research Quality Committee, Valutazione della Qualitat della Ricerca. 

Contacts: 

– For conceptual issues – prof. Orli Fridman (orli.fridman@fmk.edu.rs) and prof. Vjeran Pavlakovic (vjeranp@gmail.com) 

– For submission issues – Dr. Marco Zoppi (marco.zoppi2@unibo.it) 

Timeline: 

– July 26, 2024 – abstract (250 words) and bio (150 words) 

– August 26, 2024 – feedback on the approval of the proposals 

– October 14, 2024 – submission of articles to editors – 7,500 – 10,000 words 

– End October 2024 – Authors workshop and editors’ feedback – End December 2024 – submission of articles to SEEU Download Author Instructions 

Slow Memory Action Website: Call for Papers: Slow Memory after Conflict – SlowMemory – CA20105