26th June 2023: Echoes of Bauhaus in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Selected case studies in Banja Luka by Prof. Miroslav Malinovic, Ph.D., University of Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The seminar lecture is divided into three coherent units, each tackling a specific topic needed to understand the environment in which the architecture perceived as the heritage of the Bauhaus movement is created in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The first part deals with the historical background, both in general and architectural perspective, in Bosnia and Herzegovina just prior to the end of Ottoman rule (1878), during the Austro-Hungarian rule (1878-1918), and later, when Bosnia and Herzegovina was an integral part of Kingdom of Yugoslavia. It shows the complexity of social, economic, cultural, and religious compounds that genuinely reflected the architectural production and became a specific soil for the welcome of the Bauhaus influences afterward.
The second part is devoted to the reception and perception of Bauhaus in Bosnia and Herzegovina. With only one graduate, Selman Selmanagic, who indeed was not the one to bring the Bauhaus to the homeland, it is important to understand that several informal channels were custodians for the transfer of Bauhaus principles in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Foremostly, architecture produced by foreign-educated domestic architects in Belgrade and Zagreb, later Sarajevo, was the seed from which expansion, supported by Yugoslav policies breaking up with historical styles, enrooting the Bauhaus in the inter-war period happened. The most representative cases, country-wide, will be presented. The third part showcases selected buildings erected in Banja Luka in 1929-1941. Their typology, size, benefactors, and architects will be related to the first and second parts of the seminar. Moreover, their later treatment in post-war decades and present time, are however the most important facts casting the light on echoes of Bauhaus in Bosnia and Herzegovina. A selection of floorplans, elevations, and site survey photos will be presented and discussed.
Short Bio of Miroslav Malinovic:
Dr. Miroslav Malinovic, Ph.D. (1988) graduated in architecture at the University of Banja Luka (2011) and received a Master's degree (2012) and a Doctoral degree in technical sciences (2015) at Vienna University of Technology. Since 2013 he is employed at the University of Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, currently in the position of Associate Professor and Head of the Department for History and Theory of Architecture and Building Heritage Protection. His scientific work deals with the history of architecture, specifically the period of the late XIX century onwards. As an international expert, he is involved in several research scientific or educational projects in international frameworks of Horizon 2020 and Erasmus+. He is a reviewer, evaluator, and assessor of several national and international scientific journals, funds, and organizations. Besides that, he is contracted by the European Commission as a scientific expert. In the recent past, he also served as the Vice-Rector for Science, Research, and Development at the University of Banja Luka.
20th Feb 2023: What Is This Thing Called Postcolonialism? by Benjamin Zachariah
The thing called Postcolonialism, or Postcolonial Theory, is possibly the most successful academic movement in history; it is invoked in public domain arguments and has become something of a yardstick of legitimacy for politics. At its inception, many of its promoters suggested that the term stood for the lingering effects of colonial empires on the world after their apparent demise. With time, the term became something of a normative positive without descriptive capacity, and many people associated with postcolonial theory disavowed the term postcolonial, even as it could justifiably be claimed that we are all postcolonial now. But what does it mean? Who invokes it? Is it now a claim to exceptionalism and/or the redressal of historic grievances among victimised peoples? Does it have any universalist claims that could be binding upon those who do not share the historical background of victimhood? Does it replace rationalist with moralist thinking?
Short Bio of Benjamin Zachariah
Dr. Benjamin Zachariah is Senior Research Fellow at the Leibniz Institute for Educational Media | Georg Eckert Institute since September 2021. He read history at Presidency College, Calcutta, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he completed a Ph.D. at the end of the previous century. He taught for several years at Sheffield University in the UK, before moving to Germany, where he was a Senior Research Fellow at the Karl Jaspers Centre for Advanced Transcultural Studies, Heidelberg University, and thereafter at the DFG Leibniz Research Group “The Contemporary History of Historiography” at Trier University. His current research interests include historical thinking in public arguments, historiography, and historical theory, the movements of ideas in the twentieth century, international revolutionary networks, and global fascism.