SEESA
Report for 2014-2018
February
22, 2018
During
the past four years, SEESA has continued to support research in the various
fields of South East European Studies in accordance with its mission as a
scholarly, non-profit, non-political organization devoted to an exchange of
knowledge among scholars whose interest encompasses the area of Southeastern
Europe.
Among
the main elements of SEESA’s work during the last four years have been the
following.
SEESA
Travel Grants have successfully been reinstated. These grants are offered annually
to graduate students from all over the world, whose papers are accepted for
presentation at conferences related to South East European Studies. The call
for applications is now sent out every year in September. Every two years these
grants go exclusively to graduate students who present at the Biennial Conference on Balkan and South Slavic
Languages, Literatures and Cultures, which has traditionally been held
at a North American university.
In
2017, three grants were awarded to support the travel expenses of the awardees:
Danica Jenkins, University of Sydney (Australia), Boban Karapejovksi, Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts / Faculty of
education, International Balkan University, and Jack Kudera, University of Wrocław (Poland).
In 2018, the SEESA travel grants have gone exclusively to
graduate students whose papers were accepted for presentation at the Biennial
Conference on Balkan and South Slavic Languages, Literatures and Cultures, which
will take place at the University of Montana, Billings. The recipients of these
grants are: Kristina Mihajlovic University of Arizona (USA); Rexhina Ndoci, The
Ohio State University (USA); Vesela Simeonova, University of Ottawa (Canada);
and Zerina Catovic, Justus
Liebig University, Giessen (Germany).
A
key component of SEESA’s academic activities concerns the journal Balkanistica. The Editor of Balkanistica,
Professor Donald Dyer of the University of Mississippi, reports that during the
timeframe 2014 to 2018, four volumes of the refereed journal were
published: Balkanistica 27, 28, 29 and 30, the latter of which
was a double issue (30:1 and 30:2). Volume 27 (2014), at 231 pages, contains
seven articles, four review articles and 11 book reviews. Volume 28 (2015),
subtitled Од Чикаго и назад Papers to Honor Victor A. Friedman on the
Occasion of His Retirement, at an amazing 640 pages, contains 28 articles
written by a veritable who’s who of scholars in the field of Balkan languages
and cultures dedicated to Victor A. Friedman on the occasion of his retirement.
Volume 29 (2016) contains ten articles, one report, three review articles, 14
book reviews and one In memoriam. Number 1 of Volume 30 (30:1),
together with Balkanistica 30:2, subtitled Proceedings
from the Eighth Macedonian-North American Conference on Macedonian Studies,
comprises the journal’s second double issue. Number 2 of Volume 30 (30:2) is
subtitled Macedonia Past and Present: Proceedings from the Ninth
Macedonian-North American Conference on Macedonian Studies. It runs 379
pages in length and contains 15 articles written in both English and
Macedonian.
During the same timeframe, SEESA, under the auspices of Balkanistica,
also published two small books, as part of “The Kenneth E. Naylor Memorial
Lecture Series in South Slavic and Balkan Linguistics”: No. 8, From
Phonological Analysis at my Desk to Linguistic Activism with Slovene in the
Austrian Alps, by Tom M.S. Priestly (2014), 60 pp., and No. 9, Albanian
Historic Syllabics, by Eric P. Hamp (2015), 73 pp. Professor Brian Joseph
of The Ohio State University is the series editor. The run for the Balkanistica volumes
was 150, and the run for the Ken Naylor volumes was 125.
Another
very important achievement over the past four years, one that will greatly
influence and advance SEESA’s professional activities in the future was the
improvement of the Constitution and Bylaws of SEESA. The amended version of the
Constitution which will go into effect after March 2018 has been thoroughly updated
and was approved unanimously by the Executive Board of SEESA in February 2018.
During
these four years SEESA has continued to maintain
and update the SEESA website (http://www.seesa.info/ ), which
includes a variety of useful resources for anyone interested in the Balkan area
and detailed information about SEESA and its activity. We also continue to update the blog (http://blog.seesa.info/) with
different announcements about current events in the field.
SEESA
is deeply grateful to all scholars in the area of South East European Studies
for their interest in our activities. The organization will continue to be
devoted to the support of research and teaching in this area in the coming
years.
Catherine
Rudin, President of SEESA
Bavjola
Shatro, Vice President of SEESA
Donald
Dyer, Editor of Balkanistica
