“Tea party” with Mitja Velikonja: The perception of Yugoslavia through graffitis

Thirty-three years after the bloody collapse of socialist Yugoslavia, urban walls in its successor states are still full of pro- and anti-Yugoslav graffiti and street art.

On the level of denotation, these graffiti and street art can be divided in different types of pro-/anti-Yugoslav, often directly confronted in graffiti-battles. On the level of connotation, three major ideological antagonism appear: socialist federalism vs. nationalism, Tito vs. his opponents, and antifascism vs. fascism.

The questions which Mitja Velikonja attempts to answer is how, where and why Yugoslavia, its socialism, its anti-fascist roots and its leaders are (de)constructed, praised and condemned in this specific urban subculture. He will analyse expressive strategies of such urban production like provocation and criticism, affirmation and continuity, territory marking, constant antagonisation and semiotic guerrilla.

The lecture of Mitja Velikonja Yugoslavia after Yugoslavia: Graffiti about Yugoslavia in Post-Yugoslav Urbanscape is based on a longitudinal and ongoing research, which uses different methodological approaches and tools.

Mitja Velikonja is a professor of cultural studies and head of a research center at University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. Main areas of his research include new Central-European and Balkan political ideologies, subcultures and urban cultures, subversive art, collective memory and post-socialist nostalgia. He was a full-time visiting professor at many universities, among others Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Columbia University in New York, University of Rijeka, Yale University, and a Fulbright visiting researcher at Rosemont College in Philadelphia. His recent book Post-Socialist Political Graffiti in the Balkans and Central Europe (Routledge, 2020) was so far translated in six languages (English, Serbian, Macedonian, Albanian, Slovenian and Ukrainian).

The lecture is а part of the Regional Tea party titled “Yugoslavia” which is organized together with the Academic Network for Cooperation in Southeast Europe. It takes place in the Main hall of the Institute of social sciences, can be followed also online and will be moderated by Irena Ristić (IDN).

https://zoom.us/j/97067508307?pwd=azraZ8a48YEDljqAryWIBXA5AZfPUz.1

Meeting ID: 970 6750 8307
Passcode: 967381