Sixth International Colloquium
on
Bosnian Oral Tradition in World Culture
International Forum Bosnia is pleased to announce its Sixth International Colloquium on Bosnian Oral Tradition in World Culture. The Colloquium will take place at the IFB Offices in Sarajevo (Ulica Sime Milutinovića 10) on Saturday, the 9thof December, 2023, to start at 11:00 am.
Introductory note
We, in cooperation with the Museum of Herzegovina from Mostar and the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Tuzla, have to date organized five colloquia.
The first colloquium focused on the academic research and legacy of Milman Parry, the American Classicist credited with having resolved the Homeric Question and of having established the fields of Oral Epic and Oral Tradition, largely as a result of his major research program into the living South Slavic oral tradition during the first half of the 20th century. That venture resulted in perhaps the most significant collections of written and audio documents of oral tradition and it is consists largely of Bosniak/Bosnian material.
Participants at the second colloquium presented research on various aspects of Bosnian oral tradition and work done since the 1930s. The program of the third colloquium focused on research methodologies and the relationship between orality and literacy. The main subject of the fourth colloquium was oral tradition under conditions of the development of literacy, literary traditions, and post-literacy – the Bosniak case. The fifth colloquium included discussion on the role of oral tradition in the construction of the ideologies of ethno-nationalism, the hierarchization of oral traditions, and their use in representing the other and the different.
The members of the Organizing Committee of the Sixth International Colloquium Bosnian Oral Tradition in World Culture have decided to invite researchers to revisit the legacy of Milman Parry’s work and to look at the Sorrowful Lament of the noble wife of Hasanaga.
It is now ninety years since Milman Parry and his associates began their work. Their discoveries and conclusions form a solid basis for studying the influence of Bosnian/Bosniak heritage within world culture. Next year is also the 250thanniversary of the first publication of the Sorrowful Lament of the Noble Wife of Hasanaga, an epoch-making event not just in Southern Slavic culture but within the history of European Romanticism and its rediscovery of folk and oral traditions. The ballad transcends any ethno-nationalist construction of history and culture, and as such has continued to provoke interest ever since its first publication. Unfortunately, both the oral heritage discovered and presented to the world by Milman Parry and his associates and the Sorrowful Lament of the noble Hasanaginica have suffered similar fates, namely to be excluded from the knowledge framework and so self-awareness of both the academic and the general learned public in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This awareness must be renewed if we are to succeed in deconstructing the ethno-nationalist anti-Bosnian ideology.
Goal
Participants at the Sixth International Colloquium on Bosnian Oral Tradition in World Culture will further our discussion on the relationship between orality and literacy and how to develop the work of Milman Parry and his predecessors and successors with a living field of Bosnian oral tradition. Special attention will be given to the Sorrowful Lament of the Noble Wife of Hasanaga and its reflection in the world culture.
Method
The colloquium will take place over a full day. Participants will present their results in two panels, which will then be discussed by the attendees:
·Milman Parry''s research project and deconstructing the ethno-nationalist understanding of Southern Slavic orality, and
·The Sorrowful Lament of the Noble Wife of Hasanaga and its reception
Place and time
The Sixth International Colloquium on Bosnian Oral Tradition in World Culture will be held on Saturday, December 9, in Sarajevo, at the offices of International Forum Bosnia (Sime Milutinovića 10), to start at 11:00 a.m. We request all interested in participating to fill out and return the attached registration form by 19 October. The working languages of the conference will be Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, Montenegrin, and English.
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The Committee
Amra Hadžimuhamedović
Asim Krhan
Mirsad Kunić, chair
Rusmir Mahmutćehajić
Desmond Maurer
Fatima Veispahić