seeFField

SNAKLAB Regensburg Southeastern Europe Research Seminars
2025-11-24 16:00 - 18:00 UTC | IOS, Landshuter Str. 4, R 017
Olivier Winistörfer (Universität Zürich) will give a talk on…
“The Balkans and the Sprachbund. The impact of language contact on the languages of the Balkans”
Time: 4-6 pm
Venue: IOS, R 017, Landshuter Straße 4, 93047 Regensburg
Abstract:
The languages of the Balkans have fascinated linguists for almost two centuries. Researchers have documented striking structural parallels that make the Balkans a textbook example of a sprachbund, since Jernej Kopitar’s (1829) comparative work on Albanian, Balkan Romance, and Balkan Slavic.
In this talk, I bring together quantitative data (from linguistic typology and genetics) and qualitative evidence (from dialectology) to explore how areality, and thus, language contact, has shaped these systems. I’ll show not only where Balkan languages have converged structurally, but also why the absence of certain linguistic features can be just as revealing as their presence. This perspective sheds light on how linguistic systems influence each other over time and how we can detect those connections in the present.
Snacken with Balkans Snacks

SNAKLAB Regensburg Southeastern Europe Research Seminars
2025-12-10 16:00 - 18:00 | IOS, Landshuter Str. 4, R 017
Prof. Dr Josip Glaurdić (Université du Luxembourg) will give a talk on…
“Contagions – Nationalism, Populism, and the Pandemic at Europe’s Edge“
Time: 4-6 pm
Venue: IOS, R 017, Landshuter Straße 4, 93047 Regensburg
Abstract: What happens when a public health crisis collides with fragile democracies and deeply polarized societies? Why did some Southeast European states initially outperform expectations in managing COVID-19, only to later suffer some of the world’s highest mortalityrates? And what can this region – often dismissed as peripheral – reveal about the resilience and fragility of democracies everywhere?
This talk presents Contagions: Nationalism, Populism, and the Pandemic at Europe’s Edge, a forthcoming book that explores how ideology shaped the trajectory and memory of the pandemic in Southeast Europe. Based on original surveys, cross-national comparisons,and a wealth of empirical evidence, the book argues that the pandemic was not only a health emergency but also an ideological stress test – one that exposed the ways nationalism and populism structure public trust, compliance, and collective memory.
Join us for a discussion of the book’s core questions: How did nationalism and populism interact with crisis governance? What does Southeast Europe teach us about the vulnerabilities of liberal democracy under strain? And how might the pandemic’s legacies continueto shape political life long after the virus has receded?
Snacken with Balkans Snacks

Journalist Talks: Investigativer Dokumentarjournalismus auf dem Westbalkan
2026-01-20 18:00 - 19:30 | VHS, Thon-Dittmer-Palais, Haidplatz 8, R 219
Investigativer Dokumentarjournalismus ist auf dem Westbalkan entscheidend für die Aufdeckung von Machtmissbrauch, Korruption, sozialer Ungleichheit und den langfristigen Folgen von Krieg und politischer Instabilität. In diesem Journalist Talk spricht die preisgekrönte Journalistin und Dokumentarfilmerin Vjosa Cerkini über ihre langjährige Arbeit in der Region und die Herausforderungen, unter politischem Druck, eingeschränkter Pressefreiheit und gesellschaftlichen Spannungen zu recherchieren.
Anhand konkreter Beispiele aus ihren Dokumentarfilmen und Reportagen für internationale Medien zeigt sie die Unterschiede zwischen journalistischer Arbeit auf dem Westbalkan und in Zentraleuropa – etwa im Umgang von Polizei, Justiz und Behörden mit Korruption, Nepotismus und familiären Netzwerken.
Der Talk beleuchtet journalistische Methoden, ethische Fragestellungen und Sicherheitsrisiken vor Ort, betont die Verantwortung, marginalisierten Stimmen Gehör zu verschaffen.
Kurzbiographie
Vjosa Cerkini ist eine preisgekrönte internationale investigative Journalistin, Reporterin und Dokumentarfilmerin aus Pristina, Kosovo. Sie arbeitet seit über zehn Jahren für internationale Medien in Deutschland, Europa, den USA. Ihre journalistische Arbeit konzentriert sich auf Kriminalität, Politik, Menschenrechte, Korruption, politische Machtstrukturen und die Stimmen von Frauen in Konflikt- und Transformationsgesellschaften. Cerkini ist europäische Repräsentantin von Women’s Voices Now in Los Angeles und leitet internationale Medien- und Dokumentarfilm-Workshops für junge Frauen. Ihre Filme und Recherchen wurden international gezeigt und ausgezeichnet.

Journalist Talks Series is a part of the seeFField project of the University Regensburg in cooperation with the Volkshochschule Regensburg.

SNAKLAB Regensburg Southeastern Europe Research Seminars
2026-01-28 17:00 - 19:00 | IOS, Landshuter Str. 4, R 017
Vassilis Petsinis (Institute of Global Studies, Corvinus University of Budapest, Budapest, Hungary) will give a talk on…
“Echoes of the War in Ukraine: Political Ramifications in the Baltics and the Balkans“
Time: 5-7 pm
Venue: IOS, R 017, Landshuter Straße 4, 93047 Regensburg
Abstract:
In a cross-regional approach, Vassilis Petsinis generates new insights about how developments of groundbreaking significance in regional and global politics (here, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine since 24 February 2022) can exert powerful ramifications on the domestic politics of other states and societies. Inside the geopolitical context of Central and Eastern Europe, this monograph examines this ‘external impact’ on selected empirical cases from Northeastern (Estonia and Latvia in the Baltic States) and Southeastern Europe (Croatia and Serbia) through the spectrum of idiosyncratic and fluctuating intersections among ethno-nationalist, nativist, Eurosceptic, and ‘other’ trends (e.g. Occidentalism inside the political and sociocultural context of Serbia) at the level of domestic politics.
This is a highly relevant contribution inside an increasingly unpredictable international system where the responses of major actors (Russia, China, and the US) to armed conflicts, or other global crises, can vary from peculiar alignments all the way to alarming friction.
Snacken with Balkans Snacks
