This semester, the Southeast European Studies programme had the pleasure of welcoming another distinguished guest professor. Prof. Dr. Danijela Majstorović from the University of Banja Luka taught the seminar “Feminist Epistemologies: Situating Knowledge in Context.”
The course explored the intersections of class, race, gender, and national/ethnic identity within the broader framework of global inequalities, war, and violence. Emphasising feminist, non-hierarchical, and participatory methodological approaches, the seminar introduced and critically examined feminist and affect theories, qualitative research methods, and discourse analysis. Drawing on examples from post-socialist Bosnia and Herzegovina, Prof. Majstorović highlighted questions of positionality and intersectionality in global (post)war contexts.
Her guest professorship was funded by the Bavarian State Ministry of Science and the Arts through its programme for attracting international guest professors.
Prof. Danijela Majstorović is a full professor in the Department of English Linguistics at the University of Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, where she teaches courses in discourse analysis, communication, media, and cultural studies.
She is a recipient of both the Fulbright and Alexander von Humboldt fellowships and has published extensively on public language use, ethnicity and identity politics, gender, and migration. Beyond her academic work, she co-founded the Center for Social and Cultural Repair, a nongovernmental organization that conducts independent social research focused on marginalized groups, including women and sexual and ethnic minorities.
She is also the author of two documentaries: Counterpoint for Her (2004), which explores sex trafficking, and Dream Job (Posao snova, 2006), about East European women in the entertainment industry.
We especially recommend her latest book: “Discourse and Affect in Postsocialist Bosnia and Herzegovina: Peripheral Selves”. This volume offers an empirically rich, self-reflexive account of the making and breaking of peripheral selves in and from postsocialist Bosnia, through the lens of political, economic, and ideological developments. It will be of interest to scholars in linguistics, sociology, post-Yugoslav studies, cultural studies, and anthropology.
