Forgotten Future: The Politics of Poetry in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Dr. Damir Arsenijevic

doi:10.5771/9783845225647

Summary

The book documents and critically evaluates contemporary poetry within the dynamic field of cultural production in Bosnia and Herzegovina since the late 1980s. Its context spans three historico-political phases: firstly, the cusp on which socialism was already losing its primacy and ethno-nationalism was gaining dominance; secondly, the subsequent collapse of Yugoslavia and the ensuing war led by ethno-nationalist elites; and thirdly, the period of the aftermath of war — the so-called “post-war transition”.

This new approach to thinking about poetry in Bosnia and Herzegovina focuses on alternative cultural practices, which have articulated a more equitable organisation of Bosnian society. Such practices have the capacity not only to tell us how unfree we are, but also to shift the criteria of possibility of our freedom towards a more hopeful politics.

Dr. Arsenijeviæ’s knowledge of and passion for his research in cultural and literary studies and his art-theory political interventions shed scholarly light on the terror of inequality, the solidarity of unbribable life, relevant knowledge production, and material memories of war and genocide. He works throughout former Yugoslavia.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2010
ISBN-Print: 978-3-8329-5700-1
ISBN-Online: 978-3-8452-2564-7
Publisher: Nomos, Baden-Baden
Series: Southeast European Integration Perspectives
Volume: 4
Language: English
Pages: 214
Product type: Book Titles

Titelei/Inhaltsverzeichnis No access Pages 2 - 8 Damir Arsenijevic
Acknowledgments No access Pages 9 - 10 Damir Arsenijevic
Introduction No access Pages 11 - 18 Damir Arsenijevic
1. Principle of Collection and Selection of Poetry No access Pages 19 - 23 Damir Arsenijevic
2. Translation and Ideology No access Pages 23 - 28 Damir Arsenijevic
1. Introduction No access Pages 29 - 30 Damir Arsenijevic
2. Cultural Materialism and Ideology No access Pages 30 - 33 Damir Arsenijevic
3. Cultural Materialism and the Real No access Pages 33 - 34 Damir Arsenijevic
4. Cultural Materialism and the Subject No access Pages 34 - 37 Damir Arsenijevic
5. Imagining the “art of the Impossible”: Dissidence and the Political Act in the Conceptualisation of Cultural Practices No access Pages 37 - 44 Damir Arsenijevic
6. “Embracing the Act”: Re-articulating the Conditions of Practice in the Literary Historiographies of Bosnia and Herzegovina since the Late 1980s No access Pages 44 - 46 Damir Arsenijevic
7. Prewar Bosnian Literary Historiographies No access Pages 46 - 53 Damir Arsenijevic
8. Bosnian Literary Historiographies of the War No access Pages 53 - 60 Damir Arsenijevic
9. Postwar Bosnian Literary Historiographies No access Pages 60 - 67 Damir Arsenijevic
10. Conclusions No access Pages 67 - 70 Damir Arsenijevic
1. Contextualising the debates and voices No access Pages 71 - 82 Damir Arsenijevic
2. The poetry of re-ethnicization and the poetry of false universalization in the period of crisis and the collapse of Yugoslav socialism No access Pages 82 - 93 Damir Arsenijevic
3. “These sudden shifts”: the poetry of differences and the crisis and the collapse of Yugoslav socialism No access Pages 93 - 94 Damir Arsenijevic
4. Writing-as-personal-as-political: transformation of identity in the poetry of differences No access Pages 94 - 98 Damir Arsenijevic
5. “I know that I, too, exist at last”: gendered identity in the poetry of differences No access Pages 98 - 104 Damir Arsenijevic
6. Inscribing the mute word: the collapse of the socialist narrative in poetry of differences No access Pages 104 - 109 Damir Arsenijevic
7. Conclusions No access Pages 109 - 112 Damir Arsenijevic
1. Contextualising the debates and voices No access Pages 113 - 117 Damir Arsenijevic
2. “And remove the darkness from their eyes”: poetry of re-ethnicization during the war No access Pages 117 - 118 Damir Arsenijevic
3. Heroes and leaders of the past: beacons for war killings No access Pages 118 - 120 Damir Arsenijevic
4. Words from eternity: re-writing cultural memory as a warning to ethnic identity No access Pages 120 - 122 Damir Arsenijevic
5. The flocking of the Volk: homogenizing into People No access Pages 122 - 125 Damir Arsenijevic
6. On God’s path: the illumination and promise of the second death No access Pages 125 - 128 Damir Arsenijevic
7. “In war, reality is diluted in details”: poetry of false universalization during the war No access Pages 128 - 133 Damir Arsenijevic
8. Constructing the language of the pharmakos: the poetry of differences during the war No access Pages 133 - 134 Damir Arsenijevic
9. When “fidgeting” means life: re-inscribing and re-affirming symptomatic Otherness in the poetry of differences No access Pages 134 - 139 Damir Arsenijevic
10. “Look here, that’s the right way to look History in the face, not like you”: regendering the war in the poetry of differences No access Pages 139 - 146 Damir Arsenijevic
11. Bodies that count: re-politicising corporeal limit experiences in the poetry of differences No access Pages 146 - 152 Damir Arsenijevic
12. Conclusions No access Pages 152 - 156 Damir Arsenijevic
1. Contextualising the debates and voices No access Pages 157 - 166 Damir Arsenijevic
2. The poetry of re-ethnicization and the poetry of false universalization in the postwar period No access Pages 166 - 175 Damir Arsenijevic
3. In no-man’s land: poetry of differences and the postwar period No access Pages 175 - 175 Damir Arsenijevic
4. “At the gunpoint of the past”: the traumatic past and transition in the poetry of differences No access Pages 175 - 182 Damir Arsenijevic
5. “No-man’s women”: negotiating the traps of transition through the new community in the poetry of differences No access Pages 182 - 182 Damir Arsenijevic
6. “The woman with the knife”: women and the traps of transition No access Pages 182 - 186 Damir Arsenijevic
7. “A different idea of happiness”: the transition and the new community in poetry of differences No access Pages 186 - 193 Damir Arsenijevic
8. Conclusions No access Pages 193 - 194 Damir Arsenijevic
Afterword No access Pages 195 - 200 Damir Arsenijevic
1. Primary sources No access Pages 201 - 203 Damir Arsenijevic
2. Secondary sources No access Pages 203 - 214 Damir Arsenijevic