Starting with summer term 2023, seeFField welcomes four scholars from the region.

Daniela Koleva is a professor of oral history and memory studies at the Department for History and Theory of Culture, Sofia University. Her research interests are in oral history and the anthropology of socialism and post-socialism, biographical and cultural memory, the politics of memory and heritage, ageing studies, and the social history of medicine. From April to July, Professor Koleva will teach two courses at our university, one lecture series titled “Toppled statues and re-written histories in Eastern Europe: An introduction to memory studies” and the advanced seminar “Oral history and biographical methods: What to do with them and how “.

Our two Visiting Fellows are Katarina Damčević and Hikmet Karčić. Katarina is currently completing her PhD at the University of Tartu (Estonia), being a junior researcher at the Department of Semiotics. She is originally from Rijeka, Croatia, where she will be based in the future. Her research focuses on hate speech and contested symbols in post-conflict societies. During her seeFField fellowship, Katarina will work on a project titled “Semiotics of Hate Speech: “Ready for the Homeland” in Contemporary Croatia”. Hikmet Karčić is a Research Associate at the Institute for the Research of Crimes against Humanity and International Law at the University of Sarajevo. Bosnia and Herzegovina. His main research interests involve holocaust and genocide studies, international criminal law, islamophobia and political extremism. During his seeFField fellowship Hikmet will work on a project titled “The Drina River Valley: Troubled Pasts and Contested Parallel Histories”.

Last but not least, Silvana Farruku is our first predoc fellow.  Silvana holds a master’s degree in Modern Linguistics and a bachelor’s degree in Language and Literature from the University of Tirana. Apart from pursuing an academic career, Silvana has been engaging in various training programmes in connection with youth activism in Albania and the implementation of relief and social projects. During her stay in Regensburg (from April to September 2023), she will design and write a new research proposal on the topic “The identity contradiction of being Muslim and Albanian — A multi-layered Critical Discourse Analysis of hate speech and islamophobia in Albania and Kosovo: A case study of two Muslim majority countries in Southeast Europe”.