Sorry, here it is!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hOst_NExGI

It's a six-part documentary; as I recall, it's not terribly long.

"Once Brothers"

Here is the link to a great documentary produced by ESPN about two NBA basketball players from former Yugoslavia, Vlade Divac and Dražen Petrović. It tells the story of how the relationship between two young, impressionable players in the US changes while developments back home worsen - this happens concurrent with the disintegration of Yugoslavia. After having read Jansen's dissertation and Kelly's post, I've been thinking more of the ways in which asserting your supposed "private" identity in the public sphere can be problematic, especially as competing ideologies are vying for currency in a diverse society and crumbling political structure. Also, how do sports play into this private/public dichotomy? In the documentary, you see that the falling out between these two players happens as a result of performances of identity (dictated by an ideology). It also begs the question of how we are perceived by others. Often when we don't confirm those perceptions, we agitate those onlookers who had made previous assumptions about our identity, basing their conviction on signifiers such as last name, place of birth, etc. etc.

Beyond Antinationalism

Jansen talks about jugonostalgija as a subversive practice that relied on the apolitical character of life before Yugoslavia's collapse. As a desire for"normalcy", for urban identity that goes beyond ethno-nationalist belonging, and, finally, for depoliticization of everyday life, jugonostalgija exposes its limits as a (temporary, contextual) strategy of resistance. Its potential was most subversive in Croatia, it could be argued, where Tudjman's regime relied on mass amnesia and destruction of the Yugoslav past to secure its legitimacy. But my question is to what extent does the insistence on the apolitical character of life in Yugoslavia--conceived here as "normalcy"--repudiate the subject as "always already" political? To use a cliche, "you may not care about politics, but politics cares about you." (See Jansen's informants who felt that relative prosperity and security stunted them from any public political involvement, until it was too late.) In this sense, we are always implicated in and condemned to politics. There is no way that we can not communicate politically, since silence and refusal to speak is also a form of political communication, a potential answer to politics. 

When we read Zograf's graphic "novel" we'll see other strategies of resistance, involving mass revolt against the Milosevic regime. This time, jugonostalgija took a backseat, but perhaps it prepared the ground for public, mass resistance against the authoritarian regime.

Here's an article about forms of political resistance that developed after Jensen's fieldwork in Serbia. It sheds some light on the current events in Egypt as well.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/02/16/revolution_u?page=full

Antinationalism

To start, I have to say I enjoyed Jansen's dissertation very much. I've always been interested in the anti-nationalist current in the former republics of Yugoslavia, especially because it is not something that's usually discussed or even easily accessible for that matter. However, I took issue with parts of the author's narration of conversations he had with various citizens of the former Yugoslavia, in particular his argument that anti-nationalism was a refusal to articulate nationality into a moment of everyday life (85). I was puzzled by Jansen's preoccupation with this "moment in everyday life." I'm actually not so convinced by this point. Would such a definite articulation disrupt the notion of a benign, contented identity. I think that the common denominator in these accounts was that being a Yugoslav was a way of life, part of one's biography, something that was by and large taken for granted. Yes, once the "situation" in Yugoslavia changed, the disintegration effectively began, there were instances in which one's identity was threatened or one had a need to announce his/her identity; thus, they retold special experiences they had in order to illustrate this. But, I think that Yugoslav-ness could be articulated just as well in these specific moments, and they have. Maybe I've misinterpreted Jansen's point, but I am interested to hear what others think of this.

Historical Maps of Yugoslavia

Changing Territories in the Western Balkans 1815-1999

                                      

Yugoslav Kingdom (aka. The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes)

Socialist Federalist Republic of Yugoslavia (1945-1991)

Jansen and Antinationalism

I found Jansen's reading to be extraordinarily successful; these chapters call into question issues and concepts, which we've been discussing all semester, yet really push us to reformulate those issues. I'd like to start the discussion on Monday by doing just that--reassessing some of the questions we've raised, but forcing ourselves to restructure the context in which we evaluate those questions, and our answers, for that matter.

In The Human Condition, Hannah Arendt emphasizes (and this is simply my own reading; Vlad, perhaps you can elaborate much better than I can) the risk of blurring the public and the private spheres. The public, she says, is a crucial arena necessary for humanity to unfold, but at the same time, the public realm is dependent on the private. Thus, not only if the private sphere is destroyed do we, in turn, destroy the public, but if these two spheres are blurred, the interdependent relationship between the two realms is destroyed as well. Arendt argues that the public realm is needed to equalize. As a member of the public sphere, unity and understanding can be created by distinct individuals who can act in that world together. If people are deprived of being able to act in the public sphere, inequality prevails.

At the same time, the public sphere, in my reading of Arendt, is not confined to a physical space. Instead, it's a world where human relationships form, where people may act together, possibly towards some sort of worldly objective. This action does not belong to the private sphere--only the public. Both worlds are places for certain activities, but activities in the private, for instance, should not be blurred with the public, and vice versa.

Jansen's research and some of the interviews with informants reveal that in former Yugoslavia the national issue, for one, came to be appropriated both in the public and private spheres of life; ergo, "Antinationalist narratives then proceeded to explain that nationality, sadly, had become a key issue in people's everyday lives, even in the intimate sphere of love and romance." My questions, then, are as follows: Is it even possible, in the world in which we live, to keep the public and private spheres separate (perhaps, even, think in terms of the John Edwards scandal, just as an American example that we're all familiar with)? Furthermore, do we "buy" Arendt's argument that the two should be separate? How personal, or private, is nationality in terms of one's identity? Do we live in a world where nationality is still only one element of our identities? If nationality is a private part of identity, for example, is it actually and can it be completely private? If nationality is such a crucial societal issue when we think in terms of former Yugoslavia, or anywhere for that matter, if that privacy is violated, is our ability to act in the public sphere, together, doomed?

Building on this, as well as on Ugrešić's novel, I think it would be useful to discuss memory and nostalgia in terms of their vulnerability and interdependence. We have seen, throughout the semester, how vulnerable and arbitrary memory can be. That said, is it possible in today's world to not define ourselves--and others--by a moment through memory? Is it still possible to envision our memories and longing, and the way we perceive ourselves individually and in the context of others through a narrative instead of by, in Jansen's terms, "a defining moment" ? Is Ugrešić's approach to this issue of memory successful in portraying a narrative? Or can we pinpoint one or two moments in the novel by which the narrator defines herself?

The Hole in the Subject

In fact, every one of us carries some fault within oneself, right. Everyone. The only question is what we should do with this fault. What? Because the presence of a fault is precisely the catalyst for activity, for the correction of that fault, for its neutralization, that is to say, for the search for an "ideal situation" (a situation without a fault)... Every one of us therefore carries within oneself this "hole," due to which he is propelled to fill it in (to level oneself)... The question that remains is how to do that, how to arrive from the fault, the hole, and from the need to remove the fault and fill in the hole to the creative process. How to act "positively" towards oneself? How to create? That is the only question... In essence, when we find this crucial activity, this creativity, which fulfills us, only then do we realize that we are happy precisely because we posses a "fault" ("hole"), right. We are happy that we are "ailing" (that we are not "healthy," "ideal," that is to say, that we aren't "empty"), right.

--Žarko Radaković, "Events That Will Not Be Of Any Historical Significance," Sarajevo Notebooks. 

Kazimir Malevitch, Black Square

Exile and Schizophrenia

„Šizofrenija“ kojoj sam se prepuštao nije bila samo proizvod nego i cilj stanja u kome sam se u svom stranačnom životu nalazio, stanja koje je pretilo da mi oduzme sposobnost prosuđivanja i izbora. Pretilo je da se svedem na nekoga ko je samo još opažao i doživljavao svet koji je delovao samo još u „jakim“ slikama. Pretilo je da zauvek ostanem „na tripu“: da zauvek zaboravim svoje poreklo, svoju povest, svoje „sadržine“; da, u strahu od „pada u rupu“ gubljenja identiteta, učestalo produžujem „stanje“ burnog „senzacionalnog“ doživljavanja „sadašnjosti“, dakle, da postanem neka vrsta „narkomana“, „alkoholičara“ i „strastvenog pušača“ moje savremenosti.
Sećanje, razmišljanje, promišljanje i mišljenje je, „u takvim stanjima“, bilo neminovno. Bilo je izlaz u borbi za mentalni opstanak.

(Žarko Radaković, "Pred- i post-nomadska stanja", Sarajevske sveske, br. 23/24)

"Schizophrenia" to which I surrendered myself was not only the product but also the goal of the state in which I found myself while living in a foreign land, the state which threatened to take away my ability to make judgments and form selections. It threatened to reduce me to someone who was now only observing and experiencing the world, which now only appeared as a series of "intense" images. It threatened to make me never come down from "my trip": to make me forever forget my own origin, my own history, the "contents" of my own self; it threatened that--in fear of "falling into the void" that is the loss of one's identity--I persistently prolong "the state" of ecstatic, "sensational" experiencing of the eternal "now", in essence, to become some sort of an "addict," "alcoholic," and "passionate smoker" of my contemporaneity.

Remembering, reflecting, deliberating, and thinking  in "these states" proved indispensable. It was a way out in a battle for mental survival.

(Žarko Radaković, "Pre- and Post-nomadic States", Sarajevo Notebooks, br. 23/24, my translation)

Rabbit a la Berlin

A short film that I was reminded of while reading.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEHi4DE2uAY

Apples

While reading The Museum of Unconditional Surrender I was surprised by the amount of times apples were referred to by each character while considering their own memory and nostalgia. This can't necessarily be considered unusual since apples are indigenous to the area of the Balkans. I'm familiar with apples mainly as religious symbolic of the forbidden fruit, but couldn't necessarily see how this fit into the stories. Perhaps the apples were symbolic of a better time in which they area was not pitted in war? I'm not sure the importance of the apples, but was hoping that there was a deeper meaning that someone else knew of?

Museum of Unconditional Surrender

Elephant seal Roland IV moved in to the Berlin Zoo in 1955. By the time he died in 1961,

he weighed over a ton. He died from injuries sustained by swallowing a foreign object

that had been thrown into his enclosure.

— Der Spiegel 

 

 

 

                                      
Literary theorist Yuri Lotman has argued that the beginning, the conclusion, and the title are structurally the most privileged places in a literary work. This seems to be especially true in Ugrešić's novel, where the author decided to separates (or frame) the two opening fragments from the main "narrative," if we can call it such.  In fact, the photograph and the beginning narrative fragment, describing the visitor's encounter with the walrus in the Berlin Zoo, tell us much about how we should read this work and how we should not read this work. We would say that the Roland fragment is metatextual--it comments on the work that we are about to read, giving it a certain interpretive framework. It also announces the major themes, motifs, and places that will repeat throughout the novel: photography, three women, Croatia (Yugoslavia), Berlin exhibit or display, archeological site, objects, fragments, fate vs. chance, reading and the reader (suitable for this kind of literary work), connections or correspondences, poetry, autobiography, and police (political authority). (Also, pay attention to the titles of individual chapters. They contain important clues as to the text's meanings and Ugrešić's literary strategy.)

How do these themes and motifs recur in the rest of the text? What purpose do they serve? What is the best analogy for this type of novel: archive, museum, art installation, archeological site, scrapbook? Why does Ugrešić insist that we do not read this novel as an autobiography? And finally, what do you make of the novel's title, The Museum of Unconditional Surrender?

Muzey bezogovorochnoy kapitulatsii fashistskoy Germanii v voyne 1941-1945 (Berlin)

            

Communist souvenirs, 1990
 

Postmodernism and Body as Aesthetic

I was reminded of Jameson's piece today while reading for another class. Just as in this seminar, in my anthropology seminar we discuss the meaning of "self" all the time, but more in relation with health and the body. One of the readings was about the complete face transplant that was completed in 2009 in France. The question was brought up about whether people would have difficulty dealing with such a drastic change in appearance, going from looking like yourself, to being mauled and then to looking like someone completely different post-op. The woman how had the transplant surgery coped with this drastic change in aesthetic much better than would be expected which brings up another question: do we place so much emphasis on personal aesthetic and aesthetic in general in our postmodern society as Jameson says? He looks down upon Warhol's superficial depiction of shoes and comments that this is a primary characteristic of post-modern society but I feel as though our we aren't as superficial as Jameson thinks...if our face, the image of ourselves, can be completely transformed and yet we still can name ourselves as ourselves, then "self" lies deeper then just in the aesthetic.

'Code Red'

Slavoj Zizek discusses the concept of superego, using A Few Good Men as an example. He explains the idea of a 'Code Red' situation in which "an act of transgression" is condoned (p. 54). Zizek believes that this, inevitably, creates a greater group cohesion. I tried to make a connection between this and Praxis, but I'm not sure I believe that it's the same in both cases. Especially since the Praxis group is concerned with self-realization.

Jameson and Warhol

I found Jameson's reading of Warhol as commodification particularly interesting and enjoyable. That said, what then, do we make of his reading when we juxtapose the Campbell's soup piece against this:

http://remixtheory.net/remixImages/cheWarholRemix.jpg

What does this say in terms of the commodification of counter culture, or, in terms of how we may agree or disagree with Jameson's reading?

AGIG Fim Screening

Written Biography = Self

"A Tomb for Boris Davidovich" fits perfectly in our discussion about the idea of "self." The battle of writing the perfect biography, fought between Novsky and Fedukin is interesting and scary in that how you are remembered in history is as much about what other people think of you and want to think of as it is about what you think of yourself and what you actually did. The thought of Novsky killing himself is not tragic to me for that reason. It is heroic and beautiful, because it is his last chance to have autonomy over his life. Even though he is not marked in the history books as a great revolutionary hero (as Kis stated at the beginning) and his biography was rewritten, he ultimately had the last say.

Kis' Writing Style

In "The Magic Card Dealing," Kis writes about Tarot cards. In his description of the cards he writes, "Two sides of the same coin. The head and the tail. Light and dark. Tragedy and comedy. A parody of one's own grandeur. The proximity of sex and laughter. Sex and death" (p. 66). When I read this, I was immediately struck by how this description could also be said to describe the style in which Kis writes, specifically "Tragedy and comedy". On the previous page discusses a game involving lice, which is equally comedic and desolate. I noticed many similar passages, which create a feeling of realism in Kis' work.