Interest in Balkan Studies, especially among scholars from the Balkans, has increased considerably. Being such a unique region, the Balkans have stirred the imagination of writers, travelers, scholars and the like. The aim of the conference is to gather together scholars from the Balkan region and worldwide who share an interest in Balkan studies. The conference promises to offer multidisciplinary perspectives in various fields of Balkan studies, namely in literature, cultural and language studies. It will be open to complementary and alternative ideas and interpretations. One of the main ambitions will be tackling taboo topics with the intention to overcome any forms of ordinary fanaticism, bias, fabricated antagonism, prejudices and stereotypes.

The region offers loads of potential for investigation. In this regard, we hope that the topic of this conference would prove challenging enough to attract scholars to share their research in the field. 

Some possible topics the conference aims at addressing include:

1. Balkan linguistic links: coincidence or lawfulness.
2. Issues of hierarchy in Balkan linguistic links.
3. Balkan linguistic links: neighbouring or genetic sources.
4. Essential balkanisms in the languages of the region: the presence of the schwa phoneme, the postpositive definite article, double definiteness, evidentiality, loss of synthetic infinitive.
5. Antibalkanisms (afterAndrej Sobolev etc.)
6. Balkan linguistics and Eurolinguistics
7. Languages in contact: language border and state border
8. Bilingualism, the language of the other
9. Language islands in the Balkans as issues in Ethnolinguistics and Anthropolinguistics
10. Language “disintegrations” in the Balkans in the last 25 years
11. Living in an aloglot environment
12. Native languages and second languages after the latest censuses in the Balkan countries
13. The medieval background of folk ballads in the Balkans
14. Pagan ritual songs in the Balkans
15. Evangelical spirit in ritual songs (llazore, ristozi, evanghelismos, motmoti,Pentecost)
16. Bilingual bards as a Balkan phenomenon
17. The theory of oral-formulaic composition according to Homer scholars Milman Parry and Albert Lord.
18. The other in the Balkan oral tradition
19. Is there empathy in the Balkan oral tradition?
20. The Battle of Kosovo Field (1389) in the Balkan epic poems
21. The lute and the gusla
22. ‘Kumbaria’in the Balkans
23. The Albanian man in the pre-writing tradition in the Balkans
24. Ethnonyms, endonyms, exonyms, archeonyms in the Balkans
25. Bilingual writers in the Balkans
26. Balkan literary symmetry: PetarNegošandGjergjFishta
27. GjonBuzuku’sMeshari (The Missal): in search of the paratext
28. Poetic similarities and affinities:Migjeni, SreckoKosoveland Miroslav Krleza
29. Resemblances from folk paratexts: Ismail Kadare, NikoKazanzakisand Ivo Andric
30. Social literature in the Balkans and zenitism
31. Social realism/s in the Balkans
32. The literature of the other in scholarly studies
33. Results of comparative literature in the Balkans
34. The model of Latin-American literature, the model of Scandinavian literature. Is there such a thing as Balkan literature?
35. Writing in the language of the other. The case of literatures of the former Yugoslavian peoples
36. Minority literatures in the Balkans
37. Ethnocentrism and eurocentrism in the Balkan cultures
38. Protagonism and antagonism in the Balkan cultures
39. Intercultural Balkan overlapping
40. Hate speech in the Balkan cultures
41. Looking at yourself in the mirror: a utopia in the Balkans?
42. Scientific volunteering and its implications in the Balkan cultures

Papers are welcomed from but are not limited to:

• Linguistics
• Anthropology
• Literary studies
• Cultural studies
• Translation studies
• Intercultural communication
• Communication studies
• Media studies
• Discourse analysis
• Semiotics
• Pragmatics

The conference languages are English, Albanian and Serbian. Please send your abstracts (about 250 words) for papers (20 min) as an MS word attachment to the following Email-addresses:

bledar.toska@univlora.edu.al (for paper proposals in English and Albanian)

merima.krijezi@fil.bg.ac.rs (for paper proposals in Serbian)

by 15 July 2017.