Индивидуални проекти

The purpose of this comparative research is to analyze similarities of modernist literatures of two port cities – Odesa and Tel Aviv, both in terms of direct influence and in broader typological terms. By pointing to these cities’ seaport aspect, the project foregrounds the common denominator of this research – the hybrid nature of port cities, evidenced in their literary output, which transgresses assumed ethno-linguistic boundaries. While the hybrid characteristics of port cities are well researched in general and in particular with regard to their Levantine and Black Sea examples, scholars have confined their research predominantly to urban and sociocultural intra-contextual analysis, whereas Dr. Waysband's project combines intra- and inter-textual analysis of their literature, drawing upon interdisciplinary Levantine studies with an emphasis on the concept of hybridity. The project foregrounds a reciprocal process of cultural transmission between Mediterranean/Levantine and Black Sea cultural areas, (1) highlighting the Ukrainian constituent of Hebrew modernist poetry and (2) analyzing thematic and linguistic forms of expression of the Levantine self-perception of Odesa’s modernist writers. By pointing to the interconnectedness of these processes, the project aims at cross-fertilization of  Mediterranean/Levantine, Black Sea, and Ukrainian cultural studies.

This comparative study, the first of its kind, will answer several questions: how do disputes over history and identity in international politics unfold and what actions are taken by states? Can historians work simultaneously as servants to nation-states and as independent trans-national professionals? What are the roles of history professionals in domestic politics and identity formation in the “age of memory”? Having surveyed twenty-plus joint historians’ commissions created in Europe and Asia since the 1990s, I plan to spend three months at CAS in Sofia in 2025 to fill the only remaining gap: an in-depth examination of N. Macedonia’s JHCs with Bulgaria and Greece. By including these two little-studied JHCs, my book will be truly comprehensive, and will be a significant and original contribution to the growing literature on the entanglement of history and identity in international politics.

This project will trace the nexus between infrastructure, politics, and emotions in Southeast European history, focusing on the entangled Bulgarian and Turkish history. In order to operationalize the insight that “infrastructures are a critical site through which politics is translated from a rationality to a practice,” I have developed the term developmentality to capture both discourses on and practices of infrastructure. I investigate both official and partisan discourse on and practice of infrastructure development and their relationship to the hegemonic order as well as signs of discord, dissent, and resistance from the advent of modernity to that of postmodernity. In this political discourse, connectivity is initially seen as a prerequisite for creating prosperity, but, following an intellectual reduction, the traffic infrastructure often becomes a signifier of happiness itself. Moreover, the infrastructural source of future bliss justifies suffering in the present, manifested in violent suppression of protest, forced labor, tolls and levies, and the destruction of property, housing, landscapes, eco-systems, or archaeological heritage. My stay with CAS Sofia serves to write up my monograph manuscript based on archival and library research in Frankfurt, Sofia, and Istanbul.

This project delves into the understudied realm of late Soviet photography, particularly focusing on the phenomenon of fotografika, a term encompassing various manipulative techniques employed by amateur photographers to transform their images into the likeness of graphic pieces. Despite its prevalence, it remains largely unexplored in scholarly discourse, presenting an opportunity to unravel its significance within the Eastern Bloc and on an international scale. Drawing upon a diverse range of sources, including periodicals and exhibition catalogues, the project aims to analyse the reception of fotografika in Soviet critical literature, shedding light on its dual existence within both official and non-official spheres. By examining the material gathered from the Museum of the Kharkiv School of Photography and similar collections, supplemented by materials from other ex-socialist countries and FIAP salons, the project seeks to construct a comprehensive understanding of fotografika's role in amateur photo club movement of the 1960s-1980s.

The project explores how various local communities in medieval Byzantium engaged with hope through Byzantine saints’ cults, which served as a performative space of negotiating life crises, experiences of disability and illness. It examines miracle accounts as both reflections of and catalysts for the underlying discourses of hope in these communities. By illuminating the intersection between hope as an emotional practice and lived religion, via a novel methodology approaching the miraculous healings as a constantly evolving repertoire of collaborative practices between members of social-material actor networks, the project will provide fresh insights into how the Byzantines navigated their life crises, contributing, at the same time, to the broader conversation between the history of emotions, experiences, and social history.

While there is no lack of documentary and biographical literature treating the socialist period in Bulgaria, the perception of insufficiency remains, both among the specialized and the general audience. My aim is to employ creative nonfiction to tell the stories of a category of people who have rarely discussed their life experience, namely those members of the Communist Party who exhibited both ideological conviction and pragmatic life attitude but at the same time their interactions with the Zhivkov regime were far from peaceful. Their stories remain largely untold, a situation which does not entail a fuller understanding of the socialist period.

The project examines how East European Jews, a population bedeviled by grinding poverty and economic and residential restrictions, viewed another maligned population – Black Africans and African Americans – with whom they had no contact. Although most of them would not see a Black person throughout their lives, or only upon their arrival in America, East European Jews already acquired some level of information, however skewed, which served as a basis for imagining Black people as savage and primitive. This study critically revises the existing literature and provides an invaluable insight into the process of combining traditional and modern elements in the acquisition of knowledge. The project's findings are significant to the larger context of immigration history. They demonstrate how would-be immigrants have had preconceived imagery of Blacks prior to setting foot in America (same notions are true for those who stayed in the Old Country). Parallel cases of imagining people without meeting them can be shown with other ethnic groups who also hailed from areas that had no Black population, whether in Europe or Asia. Those themes are especially relevant to studying the dynamics of racism, as they expand our understanding of the genealogy of knowledge. In that respect, this study is also important to fields such as translation studies and history of science, as it examines how literature, scientific texts, and travel accounts were transformed when disseminated in a different culture.

Проектът е продължение на работата на Иво Данчев върху темата "Зад маските", където той се занимава с участието на различни етнически и социални групи в старите български кукерски обичаи със специален акцент върху ромското малцинство. Той си е поставил за цел да създаде разтърсващ и социално ангажиран визуален разказ не само за същината на кукерските маскаради, но и да допринесе към актуалния дебат за културното наследство и включването в него на различни социални групи.

Ever since the Upper Palaeolithic, communities have been making miniature figures, with a peak in figurine usage in the Balkan Neolithic - Chalcolithic (6200 – 3500 cal BC). While endlessly fascinating, these figurines remain enigmatic. The principal shift in approach has been from “What did these figurines mean?” to “What do these figurines do?” – viz., studies of performance and figurine agency. Many see figurines as vehicles for exploring people’s relationships with human bodies. Yet in the last two decades, the pendulum has swung towards agency and away from meaning, leading to a lack of integration of research results. This state of affairs offers an opportunity for new research in which context is central, performance is meaningful and human and object agencies are in dialogue. My main research question is “how were figurines embedded in domestic and mortuary performances through time and space in prehistoric Bulgaria?” I shall answer this question by studying reports on figurine assemblages and first-hand examination of some figurine collections in Bulgarian museums in order to discover the figurines’ depositional circumstances and performative roles. The output would be a chapter in an invited book in the Cambridge Elements “Archaeology and Gender” series on “Female figurines in European prehistory”.

This interdisciplinary project studies the geological exploration of the Balkan Peninsula, focusing on the descriptions and analyses of thermal water that were produced by traveling naturalists and scientists from the beginning of the sixteenth century until the end of the nineteenth. Placing the texts in their proper historical contexts and considering the authors’ agendas and the broader developments within the travel writing genre, the project examines how the exploration of the geology and thermal hydrology of the Balkans was situated in the overall study of the peninsula and what role it played in shaping the travelers’ perceptions of Balkan societies and cultures. I look into how Southeast Europe’s affinity for the healing and sacral properties of spring water informed Western travelers’ perceptions of the region as ‘other’ vis-à-vis the places they were coming from and how the study of the hydrothermal landscapes of the Balkans influenced the formation of a comprehensive image of the region. I use insights from cultural geography and anthropology to show how thermal water played an essential role in place-making in the Balkans and how its scientific exploration was ultimately linked to the study of human culture.