SEESA Report for 2014-2018

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