Ana Sekulić

Croatia declared free of landmines after 31 years Interior Minister Davor Božinović announced Friday that Croatia is officially free of landmines. Thirty-one years after the end of the Homeland War, all known minefields have been cleared — a major mi...

Croatian interior minister announced today that demining is now fully complete - 31 years after the war in Croatia ended.

The MIS portal also shows no suspected areas remaining: misportal.hcr.hr/HCRweb/faces...

Karl Lanzedelli, Eine Hochzeit in der Wallachei (A Wedding in Wallachia, Vienna, c. 1840), Romanian Academy Library via Wikimedia Commons)

"The Marriage Customs of the Romanian Peasants" - last year I discovered an unknown study from 1837 by Romanian historian Mihail Kogălniceanu and republished it with a commentary. (In Romanian)
Now #OpenAccess in @researchgate.bsky.social
www.researchgate.net/publication/...

The Afterlife of Ottoman Europe is now available in paperback. Plus take advantage of @stanfordpress.bsky.social Valentine’s Day Sale for a few more days.
www.sup.org/books/histor...
🗃️ #menasky #ottoman #bosniaandherzegovina #bosnia #muslims #austriahungary

Growing Pains — Women* Write the Balkans In my more-or-less adulthood, I sometimes have coffee with my mum, often by the sea. We talk quite a bit now. To my surprise, I am not sure that words lead to a better understanding.

Check out Growing Pains, a new essay in our Bodies of the Balkans winter special. Iva Jelušić explores parental expectations that eschewed words, living instead in bodies, gestures, and things.
www.womenwritethebalkans.com/essays/growi...

Latest podcast! We talk to Simone Kenyon, choreographer + artistic creator of the place-sensitive performance piece Into the Mountain, inspired by the lyrical & embodied prose of Nan Shepherd’s 1974 book.
shorturl.at/ac6QE
@anasekulic.bsky.social @annamfleming.bsky.social @papayranger.bsky.social

So I wrote something about ethnicity and gender, and the feeling of being "Other" in both. Thanks so much to @womenwritebalkans.bsky.social for publishing it, hope people find it an interesting read!

On Classification — Women* Write the Balkans When rights in a society are determined by what group one is considered part of, aggressive attempts to police the boundaries of who “really counts” are almost inevitable. It is not enough to just be ...

The third essay of our winter special Bodies of the Balkans is now on the website! @alexsaysstuff.bsky.social writes about bodies—national and personal—and costs of classification.
www.womenwritethebalkans.com/essays/on-cl...

Across the River — Women* Write the Balkans A small, cold weight lodged in the body. I have held it there, contained, neither mastered nor erased. It rises only rarely, most often when I cross a state border.

In the second part of our winter special, Bodies of The Balkans, Magdalena Crăciun guides us through the river crossing between socialist Romania and Bulgaria, exploring the shadow economy and the delicious pleasures on the other side with a touch of life-changing suspense.
tinyurl.com/3v24vamk

Epistle on a Mnemonic — Women* Write the Balkans Numerous tests are being conducted on its centenarians without providing persuasive answers on why Ikaria is on the list of what the world called Blue Zones: is it the diet, the air, the sea, genetic...

Our winter special, "Bodies of the Balkans," begins with a piece by Alja Gudžević that takes us to Ikaria, where stories of hunger and long life unfold.

Join us for our first podcast! We talk with the amazing Alexandra Cotofana about landscape sentience in the Romanian Carpathians and the concept of xenophobic mountains.
shorturl.at/DfOrj
@drdavidcooper.bsky.social @timhannigan.bsky.social @issygapp.bsky.social @asleuki.bsky.social

The Claims of Close Reading - Boston Review Literary studies have been starved by austerity, but their core methodology remains radical.

I wrote an essay for @bostonreview.bsky.social about what I learned about close reading when I taught at West Virginia University

www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...

Publications by Non-Tenure-Track Historians Since we began publishing in 2019, Contingent has published end-of-year lists of books and articles by non-tenure-track historians released in the past calendar year. To submit something for inclusion...

Each year, we publish lists of books, journal articles, and chapters published by historians working off the tenure track. It's never too early to start collecting, so if you or someone you know has something with a 2025 publication date to submit, have at it!

Call for Pitches: Bodies of the Balkans

We’re looking for nonfiction—of any length or form—that dives into the many meanings and manifestations of embodiment in and of the Balkans.

Send us your pitches (50–100 words) by October 1 and join us for our first-ever Virtual Open House on September 24:

www.womenwritethebalkans.com/specials

"Although I didn’t understand it at the time, nature could cradle us and root us, while borders and nations spat us out like bitter, sinewy morsels."

Threads of Life — Mangal Media I finally found a thread that leads from the land she came from to the bristled leaves that sprouted from it, to the grazing flocks of sheep that my grandmother tended and whose wool she shore, from t...

A couple of years ago I read an essay by Ana Sekulić (@anasekulic.bsky.social ), "Threads of Life", which explained my situation exceptionally well, and I felt seen for the first time. I am really grateful. I strongly recommend you read it. [12/12]

www.mangalmedia.net/english/find...

Here is a little story about the #earlymodern emoticon "<3" and the complex symbolic meaning of this typographical entity that I posted yesterday. Follow me, for catholic symbolism and some #bookhistory, dear #skystorians of the blue skies. Here we go...

My article on the etymology of 'kukuruz' is now published in "Zeitschrift für Balkanologie" - get in touch if you would like a copy
www.zeitschrift-fuer-balkanologie.de/index.php/zf...

Super proud of @evrenko.bsky.social 💜 Check out this gem of late Ottoman printing now in English.

enjoyed this lovely piece. it appears that in scholarship, writing, and life really, the richest insights come from the dislodged. "Disciplines are homes that I don’t belong to anymore and I can’t say that’s something I regret."

I luoghi della memoria adriatica Scopri la memoria storica dell'Adriatico orientale attraverso testimonianze orali, mappe interattive e dati storici.

È online Digital Adriatic!

Un archivio orale #digitale per esplorare voci, luoghi e identità che hanno attraversato frontiere e regimi lungo l’Adriatico orientale.

La #mappa della memoria è ora disponibile in versione beta!

🔗 digitaladriatic.eu

#firstpost #introduction #digitalhistory #dh

" I don’t know much about asparagus, just as I don’t know much about about mushroom foraging, butchering a pig, or driving away curses. I can’t know because my grandmother won’t teach me. She says I have what I learn in books and that is better because she only finished four years of school and this is a hard life and who would want the skills for a hard life. But I want to know." Rebecca Duras: A Few Things I Know About Asparagus (and A Few More That I Don't)

Not all Balkan blooms are soft and fragrant—some are green, spiky, and delicious. This week, Rebecca Duras takes us to Istria for a hands-on introduction to the art of wild asparagus picking and shows us what to do with it once we’re back in the kitchen.🌱
www.womenwritethebalkans.com/essays/a-few...

“The birch tree, the washing lines, and the way the pavements crackled with meltwater from the rooftops one day and froze over the next. This seemed to illustrate, the more I observed, that birth was not one event but a painful series of coming in and out of life.” Madeleine Corcoran: Mothers Who Eat the Good Strawberries

Spring is late and somewhat treacherous this year, but our first essay in the Balkan Blooms series is here, brought to you by Madeleine Corcoran.
www.womenwritethebalkans.com/essays/mothe...

Such a moving piece, and in so many ways. I am particularly interested in women doing house construction as mentioned here: "my father pointed at a wall in the house and, referring to the stone within, said, “Baba brought all of it from the river on her back.”

hvala!

Habsburg people and anyone in the know: what should I read about the construction of the Trieste-Vienna railway? Monographs, anything at all. Thanks!

The cover art is set against an orange background, with white text reading "Ancient Pasts for Modern Audiences. Public Scholarship and the Mediterranean World." The cover art shows a series of ancient artifacts (sculptures, busts, vases) set on shelves as if being displayed to an audience.

We are so excited to reveal the cover for “Ancient Pasts for Modern Audiences: Public Scholarship and the Mediterranean World” designed by the amazing @flaroh.bsky.social! 🤩
Pre-orders begin Feb 7th and the volume will be GOLD open access! Find out more here:
www.routledge.com/Ancient-Past...

ugh i know, another example of not being able to watch things

Did you write a dissertation on the environmental history of Europe the past two years? Know someone who did? The deadline for the ESEH Tallinn Dissertation Prize is Jan. 15! @eseh.bsky.social @esehnextgate.bsky.social

eseh.org/call-for-sub...

Happy 2025!

And yes, I’m bringing my “door handle of Lower Silesia” cycle to Bluesky. As a reminder that one gesture is enough to open up new opportunities. After all, door handles are a perfect midpoint between you and something new.

Here’s to new beginnings✨
Let’s go.