Memories of Imvros: Transformed Spaces of Identity and Belonging on an Aegean Island

Research Area 1 – Displacements, “Dépaysement” and Discrepencies: People, Knowledge and Practices

Research Area 3 – Objects, Traces, Mapping: Everyday Experience of Spaces

Contact: laura.brody(@)alumni.duke.edu

Fitting into the wider context of studies on diasporic transformation, the purpose of this research is to investigate intergenerational differences in the relationship that members of the Greek-speaking Imvriot diaspora have to Imvros (Gökçeada), one of the islands ceded to Turkey in the aftermath of WWI. The project seeks to take an alternative approach to understanding the experiences of ‘being Imvriot’ and ‘belonging to Imvros’ through an exploration of both the individual and collective relationships that members of the Imvriot diaspora exhibit towards both the island as a whole and to specific sites across the island.

Continue reading Laura Brody: Research & CV →

Metonymy and Stereotypes: theoretical perspectives and immigration discourse in German language

Research Area 1 – Displacements, “Dépaysement” and Discrepencies: People, Knowledge and Practices

Contact: ciro.porcaro(@)cefres.cz

The project has as its object metonymic phenomena in German Language. In the project, special attention is paid to the German migration discourse and to the metonymic models underlying social stereotypes (cf. Lakoff 1987). More specifically, metonymic phenomena which contribute to the stereotypical comprehension of the category of “migrants” (understood as category of practice in the migration discourse) are identified and analyzed, with particular reference to the tabloid Bild-Zeitung and to the news magazine Der Spiegel. In order to analyze the topics of displacement and migration, the methods and the instruments of Cognitive Linguistics are adopted as part of a discourse-analytical approach (cf. Ziem 2013).

Continue reading Ciro Porcaro: Research & CV →

Intergenerational transmission of the memory of the war: The Cases of Families in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Bosnian diaspora in Europe

Research area 1 – Displacements, “Dépaysement” and Discrepencies: People, Knowledge and Practices

Contact: emina.zoletic@cefres.cz

The doctoral research project deals with the intergenerational transmission of memory, with the focus on the first generation of Bosnians who experienced the 1992-1995 war and their children, born after the war in Sarajevo and currently living in the EU countries, UK and the U.S. The study of war memory transmission has great social and political significance. The past does not simply disappear; lived experience eventually becomes a narrative curated among one generation and passed on to another. What is more, collective memory may lie dormant ready to emerge generations or even centuries later. The principal aim of this project is to explore the dynamics of intergenerational transmission of the memory of war among families living in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the EU Bosnian diaspora, with particular focus on how the past is remembered, e.g., selection, emphasis, recalibration, and for what purpose, e.g., identity construction, esteem needs, empowerment, social change etc.

Continue reading Emina Zoletic: Research & CV →

Preaching the Passion in 14th-century Bohemia: The rhetoric of Good Friday sermons

Contact: olga.kalashnikova(@)cefres.cz

My dissertation aims at shedding light on the nature of late medieval Bohemian piety by tracing the evolution and peculiarities of preaching techniques for Good Friday in fourteenth-century Bohemia, from the 1330s till the end of the century. Good Friday sermons were one of the most elaborated forms of late medieval preaching and became crucial in shaping the devotion and religious experience of the time, which increasingly focused on intensified forms to actively commemorate the Passion of Christ. The main goal of the dissertation is to examine the theological and communicative methods of composing and presenting Good Friday sermons, the peculiarities of Bohemian preaching styles, and possible reasons for these characteristics.

Continue reading Olga Kalashnikova: Research & CV →