Never on Sunday: Feminist questioning of dominant epistemology and philosophical tradition

Through the interpretation of the movie Never on Sunday (1960) by Jules Dassin, this paper opens some important epistemological questions from the feminist perspective. Namely, the film is set in the contemporary Greece, while the main characters are a prostitute Ilia and an American tourist Homer, who is at the same time disappointed in Greece and in the beautiful woman he meets. His inability to understand people and social context in which he finds himself, as well as his effort to educate Ilia and impose her his own values and ideas about ancient Greece reveal much of chauvinism and cultural colonialism, opening questions crucial for feminist and other critical epistemologies which are: who produces knowledge, for whom and how to approach it critically. Finally, through the interpretation of Ilia?s attitude to knowledge, I will turn also to the feminist notion of embodied feminist subject. Apart from that, I will deal with hegemonic attitude of the West towards ancient Greek past.

Introduction to the anthropology of photography in Serbia

Despite significant strides from the beginning of the 20th century, there was no systematic or institutionalized reflection on photography in Serbian ethnology and anthropology until the 1980s. Until then, photography was mainly used as an additional technical tool for field recording, documenting, and presenting field materials in museums or scientific institutions. However, since the end of the 20th, and especially at the beginning of the 21st century, an increasing number of social scientists have included photography in their works, either through historical and theoretical reflection or through practical use in specific research. This step can be related to the institutionalization of the sub discipline of visual anthropology in Serbia. The paper presents the assumption that both flows are part of a broader process called the visual turn, and the associated flourishing of systematic thinking about visual culture. In this paper, we aim to reconstruct the main features of the visual turn in the local academic community and point out some of its consequences. In addition, our goal is to present the most important achievements related to the mentioned turn, and consider their impact on recent examples of thinking about photography, i.e. its use in ethnological and anthropological research in Serbia. This paper emphasizes the examples that are important in the theoretical, methodological, or applied-scientific framework.

Ottoman heritage: Strategies, topoi and agents

In the first part of the introductory text, I present a theoretical framework that places the attitude towards the Ottoman heritage in a broader socio-cultural context. I distinguish between the two basic strategies in relation to the Ottoman heritage in the Balkan modern societies, and they are: de-Ottomanization (neglecting of Ottoman influences) and internalization. Furthermore, I point out that both strategies were created under the direct influence of the discursive practice of Orientalism, with which they share rhetoric and internal logic. Furthermore, I show, based on several examples of linguistic and cultural practices, how both strategies have been implemented in Serbia. In the second part, I present the papers in this thematic issue and identify the topics presented in it, namely: interreligious dialogue, negotiation of ethnic and religious affiliation in everyday life, religious conversion, inherited institutions of the Ottoman society and attitude towards them, (re)presentation of historical figures and events in literary narratives, Muslim religious organizations in the past and present. The thematic issue aims to contribute to academic dialogue in domestic and international context, in which strategies, topoi and actors related to the Ottoman heritage, Muslims and Islam are very current.

Streets in Niksic as a mirror of urban life and culture

The paper deals with history, culture and urban life portrayed through the life of streets. This topic is particularly interesting bearing in mind that this town is extremely significant cultural center in Montenegrin framework. Its story has mostly been written informally, in a street or a caf?. It covers the period from late XIX century until the end of XX century. The text represents a particular interrelation between certain urbanity characteristics which are connected to different aspects of life and work. It also deals with relationships between streets and bohemian lifestyle of this town, literary inspirations, heroic figures and certain peculiar persons who found their place in the spirit of a place of turbulent history and rich culture. Few monuments, being important stops and symbols of Niksic past, have also been described. Abundance of quotations and references permeate through the text, covering historical, scientific and theoretical sources and thus allowing us to have an integral overview on the life of a street in this town. The paper belongs to the field of urban culture research's and encompasses different kinds of sources - from scientific papers and literary works and travelogues to newspapers articles.

Conversion of the population of Gora and Opolje to Islam, according to the ottoman cadastral registers

The Islamisation of the population of two neighbouring regions south of Prizren, Gora and Opolje, occurred in varying degrees during the centuries-long rule of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans. In Gora, inhabited by the Slavic population, it was extremely slow, while in Opolje, inhabited by the Albanians, it was incomparably more intensive. This paper aims to elucidate, based on the analysis of the Ottoman 15th and 16th century cadastral registers, the factors that affected the rate of conversion to Islam among the inhabitants of these two former Serbian medieval counties (zupas), later Ottoman nahiyes. Among the most important are the highly developed church organisation in the region of Gora on the one hand, and on the other hand, the proximity of Prizren, the military and administrative centre of the Prizren Sanjak in which high ranking officials of Opolje origin operated.

COVID-19 as a Badiouian event? A global insight into theoretical interrogation of Zizek’s pandemics

The rapidly burgeoning literature surrounding COVID-19 pandemic fetishistically and prematurely tried to catch the academic momentum, taking almost an a priori, non-debatable, starting point of the conceptualization of the pandemic as the ?new normal?. In Pandemic: COVID-19 Shakes the World and Pandemic! 2: Chronicles of a Time Lost, Slavoj Zizek frames the pandemic as multiple global crises, arguing it will aggressively and drastically rupture the global societal norms and dynamics creating a new order. However, did it? This essay debates this question through the theoretical lenses of Badiou?s Event. It starts by laying down the fundamental theoretical principles and mapping the necessary criteria needed to be fulfilled in order for a happening to be named an Event. Further, it navigates through ideas and arguments presented in Zizek?s publications localizing the pandemic?s global characteristics. Finally, it theoretically deconstructs them providing us with the fundamental answer to the question what COVID-19 pandemic is: a Badiouian event that has/is/will construct the global ?new normal?, multiple consequential crises, or just a temporary situation that reaffirms the existing societal normatives worldwide.

(Un)equal and defiant to patriarchy: The first female Serbian doctors Draga Ljocic Milosevic and Smilja Kostic-Joksic and their place in the society

This paper analyses professional biographies of the first female Serbian doctor Draga Locic Milosevic (1855-1926) and Smilja Kostic-Joksic (1895-1981), a female paediatrician and a professor at the Faculty of Medicine in Belgrade. Although they did not belong to the same generation, their biographies have so much in common. Similarities are obvious especially considering their social status and political and intellectual elite?s attitude towards first educated women. Draga Locic, the first woman with diploma in medicine from Zurich University, was not able to find the job in the state medical institutions after returning to Belgrade. Only after being persistent and taking additional professional exams she managed to get position but only as a medical assistant, with twice lower salary than her male colleagues. She did not manage to achieve equal status until the end of the professional career. Doctor Draga Locic was a philanthropist, feminist and active suffragette. Her professional and educational heiress, female paediatrician and scientist Smilja Kostic-Joksic, managed to become a part of the intellectual elite but to a limited extend. Before the beginning of World War II she had an assistant status and was a woman with the highest academic status in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. In the socialist Yugoslavia due to ideological disagreements, she was dismissed from the University. These two biographies are evident examples how concept of public patriarchy functions in practice. Public patriarchy is not conditioned with any chronological nor ideological context but instead, it is always present and dominant within the discourse of women?s position in the society.

Contextualizing gender in XII century Byzantine discourse: Women and power in Ioannes Zonaras’ epitome historiarum

The paper investigates Ioannes Zonaras? Epitome Historiarum, a Byzantine XII century world chronicle for normative conceptions of gender in Byzantium. The article explores two gender-appropriate women?s roles in Byzantine society. It focuses on the behaviors, activities, and attributes attached to and prescribed for the widows and mothers to reiterate the patriarchal social structures. Also, this research intends to uncover the interplay between text and language through crucial gender signifiers, which influenced the balance of social and political power in the Medieval Roman Empire.

Counter-urbanization and “return” to rurality? Implications of COVID-19 pandemic in Bulgaria

The studies of the movements between the city and the village generally (especially in Southeastern Europe) refer to analyses of the processes of urbanization, and rarely focus on the so-called counter-urbanization. However, over the past decade, the increasing environmental sensitivity of a part of the urban population in active age, as well as the emergence of social movements that promote a slow and environmentally friendly lifestyle have intensified the anti-urban trends. The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and the measures introduced to limit its spread have created a new social reality in which people continue their lives in ways that for many differ from the previous routine, influencing also the mobility patterns. Hence, the article aims at analyzing the urban-rural migration in Bulgaria within the context of the current coronavirus crises. Our thesis is that the pandemic enhances internal mobility in the medium term, since the physical distancing motivates people to spend more time outdoors and away from the urban environment. At the same time, some of them are able to seek spatial freedom in rural areas due to the opportunity to work and study from distance. In this respect, the ethnographic case studies presented in the text show the peculiar impact the constantly alternating imposition and lifting of certain restrictions has on the mobility decision-making and lifestyle of individuals and entire families.

The pandemic: A breeding ground for authoritarian power grabs

This article attempts to demonstrate that the COVID-19 pandemic provided possibilities for numerous (non)democratic governments to impose new restrictions on civil liberties, persecute opponents, limit protests and introduce new mass surveillance techniques, thus turning a devastating biological virus into a damaging political virus that has markedly eroded the overall state of freedom in the world in just a few months. In countries considered non-democratic, but also in so-called democratic ones, the restriction of freedoms is justified in the name of preservation of mere biological life (zo?). This new historical event unveils the fact that the crisis has not been handled using democratic means, even in democratic states, but rather by means they have in common with all states, including the most authoritarian ones: by using tracking technologies, without any due process or control by intermediary bodies, by taking decisions by a few, and by using the urgency of the situation in order to be granted excessive powers. Using the interpretive framework of Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze and Giorgo Agamben, we illustrate the new direction of late capitalism and the dormant political effects of handling the health crisis.