SEESA
NEWSLETTER
MAY
2025(1)
Greetings!
The Southeast
European Studies Association (SEESA) is pleased to present you with issue 2025(1)
of the SEESA Newsletter.
Our
organization has a history that spans four decades and an authentic legacy in
the studies of this region. Our members are scholars with distinguished contributions
to their fields of Balkan studies, and many of them have an international
reputation in their respective areas of expertise. With this issue, we are
reinstating the SEESA Newsletter in an attempt to make our
members’ achievements known and accessible to the public, thus supporting further
research and communication among experts in multiple fields.
In this issue of
the newsletter, we are including publications, conference presentations, grants,
awards, invited lectures and announcements on important academic events that have
taken place in 2024 and in the first trimester of 2025. We invite partner
organizations to circulate this Newsletter among their members and their academic
networks and welcome news about academic events in these fields that they would
like to share with us and see included in the next issue of the SEESA Newsletter:
2025(2).
Dr. Bavjola Gami Shatro
Associate Professor and President of SEESA
Ø Academic Events in 2024
§ The 23rd Biennial Conference on Balkan and South Slavic Languages,
Literatures and Folklore, sponsored by SEESA, was hosted by the College of
Liberal Arts at the University of Mississippi, Oxford (May 2-4, 2024). Scholars
from universities in the United States, Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom,
Albania, North Macedonia, Hungary, France, Italy and Kosovo met in Oxford,
presented their work and engaged in academic discussions on various topics in
linguistics, literature, anthropology, ethnology, geography and other fields in
southeast European studies. Thirty papers were presented, which were offered in
nine thematically organized panels. The conference offered an online session as
well, followed by discussions that enriched the range of academic dialogue and
exchange of ideas.
Victor A. Friedman (University of Chicago) and Brian Joseph (The Ohio
State University) delivered the keynote address: “The Big Balkan Book: The
sprachbund Unleashed.”
§ SEESA supported students’ research and their participation at the above
conference with its annual Harrison Travel Grants by awarding two grants to the
following graduate students on competitive basis: Lindon
Dedvukaj, The Ohio State University; and Marija Pandeva and Boban Karapejovski,
“Ss. Cyril and Methodius” University in Skopje, the “Krste Misirkov” Institute
for Macedonian Language.
§ In 2024, a SEESA Harrison Travel Grant was awarded to Aytac
Yurukcu, a doctoral researcher at the University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu
Campus. The awardee will present at the XIII Congress of South-East European
Studies Communication and Exchange: South-Eastern Europe within Global Social,
Political and Cultural Processes, XIII AIESEE Congress, Skopje-Macedonia, 2025.
§ Balkanistica the iconic peer-reviewed journal of Southeast European Studies
Association published at the University of Mississippi, issued volume 37 in
2024 and volume 38 in 2025. Dr. Donald L. Dyer, who has served as the editor of
the journal for more than two decades, provides us with reports on the two
volumes below.
Volume 37 of Balkanistica, subtitled Language, Performance and
Persistence: Proceedings from the Eleventh Macedonian-North American Conference
on Macedonian Studies, was published and distributed to members of SESA in
good standing in March of 2024. It featured papers from the conference
held at Arizona State University, November 4-7, 2022, in Tempe, Arizona. The
volume was co-edited by Keith Brown, Donald Dyer and Marjan Markovikj and was
comprised of fourteen papers on Macedonian language, literature, culture and
folklore, in both Macedonian and English.
Volume 38 of Balkanistica was printed and distributed to members
of SESA in good standing in March of 2025. The volume consists of seven
independently submitted articles, one biography and two book reviews. The
volume also includes an In Memoriam section for Howard I. Aronson, a
Professor of Slavic, Balkan and General Linguistics at the University of
Chicago, who passed away in 2024. The articles span themes in history, culture
and economics, literature, law and political science. For detailed information
on the journal, please see the link to the journal: https://olemiss.edu/modernlanguages/research/balkanistica/.
Ø Announcements for 2025
§ The 24th Biennial Conference on Balkan and South Slavic Languages,
Literatures and Folklore will be held at the University of
Newcastle in Newcastle, Australia, in
2026. For the conference’s Call for Proposals, please see SEESA’s blog [https://blog.seesa.info/] and the website of the host institution.
§ The 2026 SEESA Harrison Travel Grants will be awarded to graduate and
undergraduate students for attendance and presentation at the 24th Biennial
Conference on Balkan and South Slavic Linguistics, Literature and Folklore,
which will take place at the University of Newcastle, in Newcastle, Australia,
on May 20-23, 2026. SEESA plans to
fund, on a competitive basis, two awards of $1,000 each.
Applicants must be undergraduate or graduate
students in Southeast European Studies or a related field. Students may only
receive one SEESA Graduate Student Travel Grant over the course of their
undergraduate or graduate studies. Applicants should submit their conference
paper abstract of no fewer
than 500 words, proof that the abstract has been accepted, a C.V., a
short bibliography of their paper and proof of student status as an email
attachment to Dr. Bavjola Shatro [seesa.travel.grants@gmail.com]. Author
name(s), affiliation(s) and contact information should be written below the
title of the paper. The applications will be evaluated by SEESA’s Committee for
Travel Grants. The quality of writing of the abstract as well as its
content will be considered.
Questions
about the conference may be directed to Dr. Shatro.
Application
submission deadline: January 31st, 2026.
Acceptance notification date: February
15, 2026.
SEESA Member Research and Achievements (2024-25)
The following
are some of the accomplishments of our members during the past year and the
beginning of 2025.
·
Dr. Eduard
Baidaus, Lakeland
College, Lloydminster, AB, Canada.
Member, SEESA
E-mail: baidaus@ualberta.ca
Publication
Article: “The River That Killed and Saved:
Illegal Border Crossing of the Dniester in Romania during Stalin's
Collectivization and Great Soviet Famine in the Late 1920sEarly 1930s,” Journal
of Romanian Studies 6(1), pp. 5-26 (2024).
· Dr. Georgeta Connor, Georgia Gwinnett College.
Member of the Executive Board, SEESA
Email: gconnor@ggc.edu
Book Chapter: “Urbanization,” Introduction to Human Geography, edited by David Dorrell and Todd
Lindley (2024).
Book Review:
“Geopolitical Rivalries in the ‘Common Neighborhood’: Russia’s Conflict
with the West, Soft Power, and Neoclassical Realism,” Balkanistica 38, pp. 255-59 (2025).
Conference
Presentations
1.
“Julius Popper: A Jewish Romanian Explorer in Tierra del Fuego (1886-1893),” paper presented at the 28th Annual Conference on the Americas,
University of Georgia, Athens, GA (February 21, 2025) and the History Slam/Conference,
History-Geography Department, Georgia Gwinnett College (March 25, 2025).
2.
“Religious
Pilgrimages in Romania: Symbol of the Unity of Orthodoxy,” paper presented at the 23rd Biennial Conference on Balkan and South
Slavic Languages, Literatures and Linguistics, sponsored by the Southeast
European Studies Association,
University of Mississippi, Oxford, MS (May 2-4, 2024).
3.
“Reconstructing
Historical Geographies of the Former Greek Colonies in Dobrogea, Romania:
Ancient Urban Network,” paper presented at the Association of American Geographers annual meeting,
Honolulu, HI (April 16-20, 2024) and at the History Slam/Conference,
History-Geography Department, Georgia Gwinnett College
(October 29, 2024).
4.
“Slow Food Movement
USA: Conviviality and Localism in Georgia,” paper presented at the Georgia Archives Symposium Commemorating 150 Years of Georgia’s
Department of Agriculture, Morrow, GA (April 6, 2024).
Grants
1. Spring 2025: ALG Grant (team):
Round 27. Ancillary material for the
updated version (Version 3) of the existing OER textbook, Introduction to Human Geography, Team (PI): David
Dorrell, Todd Lindley, Joseph Henderson, and Georgeta Connor. Funded (team): $8,000.
2. Spring 2024:
ALG (Affordable Learning Georgia) Grant (team): Round 25. Funded (team):
$10,000.
· Dr. Donald
L. Dyer, University of Mississippi.
Member of
the Executive Board, SEESA, and Editor of Balkanistica
Email: mldyer@olemiss.edu
Publication
Co-Authored article with Dorin Uritescu: “Slavic-Romance
Contacts,” Encyclopedia of Slavic Languages and Linguistics Online.
Editor-in-Chief: Marc L. Greenberg, General Editor: Lenore A. Grenoble. Leiden. 2020. First published online in 2024.
Organization of International Conferences
23rd
Biennial Conference on South Slavic Languages, Literatures and Folklore, University of
Mississippi, Oxford, MS (May
2-4, 2024).
·
Dr. Victor Friedman, The University of Chicago
Member of the Executive Board, SEESA
Email: vfriedm@uchicago.edu
Publications
Book with Brian D. Joseph: The Balkan Languages, Cambridge
University Press (2025).
Articles:
1. “Balkan Obscenities and the Balkan Sprachbund:
The Lessons of History,” Mediterranean Language Review 31, pp. 69-80
(2024).
2. “The Problem of Long versus Short Present Tense
Forms in Balkan Romani,” Voicing Plurality in an Open World, Grond,
Agnes, Angelika Heiling, Oana Hergenröther and Daniela Unger-Ullmann (eds).
Wiesbaden: Reichert, pp. 121-31 (2024).
3. “Velat deka sme gărci, ama ne sme:
Transnational Voices from Visheni,” Balkanistica 37, pp. 97-111
(2024).
4. “Obscenity,” Encyclopedia of Slavic Languages
and Linguistics Online. Editor-in-Chief: Marc L. Greenberg, General
Editor: Lenore A. Grenoble. Consulted online on 26 August 2024 Leiden:
Brill <http://dx.doi.org.proxy.uchicago.edu/10.1163/2589-6229_ESLO_COM_036293> 2020. First published online in 2024.
5. (with Brian D. Joseph): “Vowel Harmony in
Contact Situations: The Case of the Balkans,” The Oxford Handbook of Vowel
Harmony, van der Hulst, Harry, and Nancy Ritter (eds). Oxford: Oxford University
Press, pp. 554-59 (2024).
6. “Studimet për gegërishten në Britaninë e Madhe
në fund të shekullit XX dhe në fillim të shekullit XXI” [“Studies on Geg in
Great Britain at the End of the XX and Beginning of the 20th Century,” Studimet
për shqiptarët në Britaninë e Madhe dhe në vendet e Evropës veriore [Studies
on Albanians in Great Britain and the Countries of Northern Europe], Ismajli,
Rexhap (ed.). Prishtina: ASHAK (2024).
·
Dr. Bavjola Gami Shatro, University of Mississippi
President, SEESA
Email: bgami@olemiss.edu
Publications
Book: Essays on the Awareness of Loss in Contemporary Albanian Literature;
Voices That Come from the Abyss. Lexington Books (2024).
Articles:
1. “Discovering the Self in
the Negative Space: Re-Visiting the Past under Communism in Luljeta
Lleshanaku’s Poem Negative Space,” Mediterranean
Studies 33(1). Spring 2025.
2. “(Re)Discovering the Poetry of the (Un)Known: Silence and Loss in the
Poetry of Eqrem Basha,” Balkanistica 38 (2025).
Book Reviews:
1. “Bożena Karwowska, The Witness
and the Body in Auschwitz: Early Literary Accounts of the Camp Experience,” Slavic and East European Journal (2025).
2. “Stalin’s Terror,” Slavic and East European Journal 68(3) (2024).
Awards
Honorary
Mention: Awarded by The Society for
Albanian Studies for their Annual Book Prize for the monograph Essays on the Awareness of Loss in Contemporary
Albanian Literature: Voices that come from the Abyss. Lexington Books (2024).
Conference Presentations
1.
“The Rhetoric of Silence
and (Self)Censorship: Drita Çomo’s Diary under Communism (Light That Comes from
the Abyss),” paper presented at the
annual conference organized by the Michigan Academy of Science, Arts and
Letters, Alma College, Michigan (February 28, 2025).
2.
“Women, Writing and Politics in Interwar
Albania (Musine Kokalari’s Life Writing, Political Involvement and Persecution
in Communist Albania), paper
presented at the International Conference on Feminism and Politics in the Interwar
Balkans and East Central Europe, organized by the University of Crete, Rethymno
(November 28-30, 2024).
3.
“Light That Comes from the Abyss: Drita Çomo’s
Diary under Communism, an (Un)silenced Voice,” paper presented at the international
conference Girl, Interrupted: Testimonies,
Silences, and Self-Censorship in Eastern European Women's Life-Writing,
organized by the Institute of Linguistics and Literary History, Sextil
Puscariu, Cluj, Romania (September 29, 2024).
4.
“Silence and Loss in Contemporary Albanian Poetry;
The Poetry of Eqrem Basha,” paper presented at the 23rd Biennial
Conference on South Slavic Languages, Literatures and Folklore, University of
Mississippi, Oxford, MS (May 2-4, 2024).
·
Dr. Motoki
Nomachi, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan.
Member of the Executive Board, SEESA
Email: mnomachi@slav.hokudai.ac.jp
Publications
Book: Co-edited with
Sofija Miloradović: Sećanje na akademika Milku Ivić. Delanje i naučno
nasleđe (SES 36/Posebna izdanja Instituta za srpski jezik SANU knj. 1), 175
pp.
Articles
1.
Co-author with Sofija Miloradović: “Reč unapred,” Sećanje na akademika Milku Ivić. Delanje i naučno nasleđe (=SES 36/Posebna izdanja Instituta za srpski jezik SANU knj. 1), Miloradović, Sofija, and Motoki
Nomaći (eds), pp. 7-9.
2.
Co-author: “Akademik Milka Ivić u
Tokijskom institute za lingvističke studije 1968. godine,” Sećanje na akademika Milku Ivić. Delanje i naučno nasleđe (=SES 36/Posebna izdanja Instituta za srpski jezik SANU knj. 1), Miloradović, Sofija, and Motoki
Nomaći (eds), pp. 19-38, 119-58.
Conference Presentations
1. (with Robert
Greenberg): “The Concept of Language Affirmation and the Emergence of New
Languages Evidence from the Balkans,” paper presented at the 23rd Biennial Conference
on Balkan and South Slavic Linguistics, Literature and Folklore, Oxford, MS
(May 3, 2024).
2. (with Robert
Greenberg): “The Concept of Language Affirmation and the Emergence of New
Languages: Evidence from the Balkans,” paper presented at the 21st International
Congress of Linguists (September 8, 2024).
3. “Existential
Clauses in Kashubian: A Historical and Typological Analysis,” paper presented
at the First Periodic Meeting of the Commission on Slavic Micro Languages of
the International Committee of Slavists (December 1, 2024)
4. “Contested
Registers in Serbian in the Late 18th and Early 19th Centuries: The Case of
Avram Mrazović,” paper presented at SRC 2024 Winter International Symposium
Languages “Nations and Standardization in Slavia: So Similar and Yet So Different”
(December 19, 2024).
Invited Lecture
“Slavic Dialects/Languages at the Crossroads
of Politics of Scholarship,” organized by the Department of Slavic languages
& literatures at the University of Washington (May 24, 2024).
Award
Blaže Koneski Medal, The
Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts, November 27, 2024.
Organization of International Conferences
1.
The First Periodic
Meeting of the Commission on Slavic Micro Languages of the International
Committee of Slavists (December 1, 2024)
2.
Slavic-Eurasian
Research Center Winter International Symposium “Languages, Nations and
Standardization in Slavia: So Similar and Yet So Different” (December 18-19,
2024)
·
John
Polemikos, Harlem
High School in Machesney Park, Illinois
Member, SEESA
Email: jpolemikos@hotmail.com
Publication
Book Co-author:
Wallachian
Mobility and Settlement along the Carpathian Arc, Routledge (2025).
May 2025
