17.S916; 17.955 | Subjects

17.S916; 17.955
War and Identity in the Balkans

War and violence powerfully shape identities of individuals and collectives. This course examines these processes as they have played out in the Balkans, a region that has produced abundant material for studying the relationship between war and identity. The states that now comprise this region were born from war; they experienced periods of violence during the 19th and 20th Centuries that shaped collective identity. The course concentrates on how war and violence both shaped and interacted with three forms of identity over time in the Balkans: religious identity, national identity, and ideology.