The past two decades of political and social disintegration in Bosnia and Herzegovina have given birth to literary counterreactions against hegemonic ways of imagining social life in the country. This thesis deals with a particular practice in BosnianHerzegovinian war and post-war literature, which uses infantile perspectives to critically address issues related to the socialist history of Bosnia as part of Yugoslavia, the war in the 1990s, and the socalled transitional post-war period. Drawing on an old Western literary tradition of using the child character to estrange conventional experiences of the world, the texts (by authors such as Miljenko Jergović, Nenad Veličković, Alma Lazarevska, Aleksandar Hemon, and Saša Stanišić) use the skewing and dislocating outlook associated with the infantile subject to expose and undermine perceivably problematic mechanisms in socialist, ethnonationalist, and Western liberal hegemonic discourses. In contrast to previous research on the topic, which has primarily focussed upon the narratological conditions for the infantile perspective, the focus here is on the subversive infantilisation of hegemonic discourse—that is, the very discursive act of representing and contesting dominant concepts, narratives, and representations. The texts are seen as transitional areas through which input from the social world passes and, in this process, is restructured and ultimately transformed into a configuration slightly or radically different from the original input. Theoretically inspired by discourse theory and ideas from New Historicism, the study isolates and investigates a set of techniques through which this reconfiguration occurs. Apart from discussing the use of the basic infantile perspective as such a technique, the study also considers how the notion of the infantile influences techniques of dichotomisation (the production of positional counterpoints), appropriation (the critical subsuming of dominant discourse), and blending (the mixing of dominant and childish imagery). The thesis also addresses the possible political implications of the strategy of subversive infantilisation. Here the approach is influenced by the political philosophy of Jacques Rancière, which enables an understanding of the aesthetic reconfiguration of how Bosnian social life is imagined as a way of constituting a new form of subjectivity that evades the excluding and oppressive framework of hegemonic discourse.

After the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991, Bosnia and Herzegovina erupted into ethnic conflict and ultimately genocide. Nearly 100,000 people, mainly Bosniaks, died in the Bosnian War. Two decades later, the violence has ended but the conflict is still present in Bosnia; the societal segregation of the 1995 Dayton Accords, intended only as an immediate solution to the violence, still stands. Population and language distribution are evidence of this segregation. Bosnia’s two entities are home to two different ethnic majorities: Serbs in the Republika Srpska and Bosniaks in the Federation of BiH. In an environment so sensitive that the government recently feared that merely releasing statistics on ethnic populations might cause violence, the languages that represent these populations are important indicators of social presence and power. In order to evaluate the presence of the Serbian and Bosnian languages, as well as the English language, in Bosnia, signage on the main streets in the country’s capitals were photographed in great detail. It was hypothesized that linguistic majority would match ethnic majority on both main streets, and that English would appear frequently in advertisements. The number of photographs in which each language appeared was tallied up in order to determine how often the languages are typically used. Analyses of these results demonstrated that the English language is the second-most ubiquitous on both streets, after Bosnian, and the comparatively small presence of the Serbian language on both streets indicated that the linguistic environment in Bosnia is not conducive to peace and reconciliation.

To understand the reasons for the increase in recent years of the Bosnian population in Bowling Green, Kentucky and their adaptation problems as refugees in their host country, this study focused upon the Bosnian community in Bowling Green and addressed what the role of their challenges is in the shaping of refugees’ new life in their host country. Extensive literature review helped to emerge that for an understanding of the situation of the refugees, their interaction in the host country is more meaningful topic for research. This study employed qualitative research methods, drawing from existing empirical studies addressing resettlement in the context of the informants’ wartime experiences. Initially, the researcher approached patrons at Bosnian restaurants and worshipers at local mosques to find Bosnian people. Snowball sampling used to identify Bosnian refugees living in the Bowling Green community. Twenty-five in-depth interviews were conducted for needs assessment and issue identification. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed in an attempt to understand the difficulties of adaptation among Bosnian refugees living in Bowling Green. A qualitative case study approach was chosen because it was the most effective way to gain knowledge of refugees’ experiences and perceptions in the context of the societies in which they resettled. Findings revealed that interviewed group struggled with mostly language and employment challenges to integration. Social support was provided through organizations that included Americans aided integration and the families resettled before as they provided significant support is directing resettlement. Banki’s (2004) and Jacobsen’s (2001) indicators of refugee integration were used to in order to determine to the extent to which this sample of Bosnian refugees are integrated into their host county.

This study is concerned with the particular relationship between the process of nationalism and a group’s salient identity. It proposes that nationalism as the independent variable serves as a principal factor and facilitator for a change of identity, which is seen as the dependent variable. The Bosnian Muslim emergence as an independent nation with the new salient Bosniak identity was used as a case study to test the main proposition. The inquiry was completed through a mixed research method, using grounded theory and the historic process tracing technique, a large survey analysis collected specifically for this study, and a logistic regression as a concluding test. The historic process tracing method describes the Bosnian Muslim group’s development from a distinct Balkan Ottoman religious millet group, through a stage of its own ethno-religious cultural crystallization, another stage of nationality during the Communist era, to an independent nation that now shares the country of Bosnia-Herzegovina with two other nations. Through their struggle to survive and re-assert themselves as an important local political entity, Bosniaks built their nationalism upon three important themes: B-H integrity, Bosnian Islam, and the Bosnian language. A 68-question survey regarding these three themes designed specifically for this study was conducted, and 670 survey responses were collected from the Bosnian Muslim diaspora population living throughout the Midwestern and Eastern U.S. in their Appadurai-type neighborhoods. The data collected from those surveys were manipulated in preparation for a final analysis. The two nationalism indexes measuring intensity and type, and six categories of Bosniak identity, were constructed to observe interactions between nationalism and identity. As the final step, a statistical analysis with multinomial logistic regression confirmed the proposition and showed that the factor which stimulates selection of a new desired salient identity is intensity of nationalism, not type of nationalism . This work contributes to the ongoing discussion on the true role of nationalism as a collective action. At the same time, it provides the field of comparative politics with a comprehensive description of the emergence of Bosnian Muslims as a nation, and with details of their nationalism project and their now salient Bosniak identity.

After World War II, Europe has only experienced two wars, in the 1990s when Yugoslavia dissolved and now in 2022 when Russia went to war with Ukraine. Regardless of the outcomes of wars, it is clear that wars continue to recur in a continent that prides itself on its peaceful aspirations. During the breakup of Yugoslavia, the war in Bosnia was, in terms of scale,  the most terrible of all wars in the Balkans. In addition, it was the war that received extensive media coverage. This affordance has not been fully utilized. After the war ended, the Bosnians went a long way in rebuilding their devastated community. Based on a semiotic analysis of media representation of war-torn reality in this community, it was found that community subjectivity built up at a similar rate to the media's representation of their reality. The results show the five most commonly used terms to describe Bosnians in connection with the Bosnian War. These terms are 1. Genocide 2. Crime 3. Tragedy 4. Invaders 5. Victims. And,  results show that realistic depictions of war presented in the media reduce victim identification in war-devastated communities.

This study considers the ontological value of metaphor as a site of ceaseless interaction among multiple (gendered) subjects, drawing on the theoretical work of Max Black, Victor Turner, Jacques Derrida, Paul Ricœur, George Lakoff, and Mark Johnson. Its focus is on the particular function of metaphor, locally and internationally, in three of the “new wars” of the twentieth century. The first chapter examines how the bridge metaphor, undergirded by cultural discourses on Mostar’s Old Bridge and Ivo Andrić’s The Bridge on the Drina, shaped knowledge of gendered experiences in the Bosnian War. The second chapter historicizes the cockroach metaphor, which features in many representations of the Rwandan Genocide, and identifies how “the cockroach” is gendered by metaleptic reference to ubuhake, or pastoral clientship—which gained metaphoric significance through populist movements in the 1950s, when Saverio Naigiziki published The Optimist. The third chapter explores depictions of female civilians, combatants, and suicide-bombers as “prisoners,” considering this metaphor’s gendered variations from Aleksandr Pushkin’s “Prisoner of the Caucasus” to discourses on the Chechen Wars. These three metaphors are of central importance to the production of knowledge about how and in what ways post-cold-war conflicts are gendered. Frequently, the international community objectifies “distant conflicts” through the same metaphors that, for local agents, articulate political self-identifications and enact gendered violence. Locally-initiated metaphors, thusly circulating among multiple discourses, produce interactive sites of semantic investment and imaginary exchange. Global and regional representations in metaphor of the Bosnian War, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Chechen Wars enter into common if asymmetrical networks of geopolitical and temporal interactions structured in part by human rights norms in the 1990s. By tracing the historical, cultural, and modal transformations of bridge, cockroach, and prisoner metaphors, this study investigates how fiction, poetry, journalism, memoir, testimony, film, and performance gender knowledge of the Bosnian War, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Chechen Wars.

This study considers the ontological value of metaphor as a site of ceaseless interaction among multiple (gendered) subjects, drawing on the theoretical work of Max Black, Victor Turner, Jacques Derrida, Paul Ricœur, George Lakoff, and Mark Johnson. Its focus is on the particular function of metaphor, locally and internationally, in three of the “new wars” of the twentieth century. The first chapter examines how the bridge metaphor, undergirded by cultural discourses on Mostar’s Old Bridge and Ivo Andrić’s The Bridge on the Drina, shaped knowledge of gendered experiences in the Bosnian War. The second chapter historicizes the cockroach metaphor, which features in many representations of the Rwandan Genocide, and identifies how “the cockroach” is gendered by metaleptic reference to ubuhake, or pastoral clientship—which gained metaphoric significance through populist movements in the 1950s, when Saverio Naigiziki published The Optimist. The third chapter explores depictions of female civilians, combatants, and suicide-bombers as “prisoners,” considering this metaphor’s gendered variations from Aleksandr Pushkin’s “Prisoner of the Caucasus” to discourses on the Chechen Wars. These three metaphors are of central importance to the production of knowledge about how and in what ways post-cold-war conflicts are gendered. Frequently, the international community objectifies “distant conflicts” through the same metaphors that, for local agents, articulate political self-identifications and enact gendered violence. Locally-initiated metaphors, thusly circulating among multiple discourses, produce interactive sites of semantic investment and imaginary exchange. Global and regional representations in metaphor of the Bosnian War, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Chechen Wars enter into common if asymmetrical networks of geopolitical and temporal interactions structured in part by human rights norms in the 1990s. By tracing the historical, cultural, and modal transformations of bridge, cockroach, and prisoner metaphors, this study investigates how fiction, poetry, journalism, memoir, testimony, film, and performance gender knowledge of the Bosnian War, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Chechen Wars.

Cette thèse procède à une comparaison des expressions figées entre les langues BCMS (bosniaque/bosnien, croate, monténégrin, serbe) et le français en vue de la traduction. Dans la première partie, l'étude commence par la définition des expressions figées et des critères de figement. Après avoir fait le point sur la question des langues BCMS, on présente le corpus des expressions figées en BCMS et en français, avec leur répartition dans différents domaines culturels et la distinction de trois types d'expressions : calques, expressions transparentes, expressions opaques. La seconde partie est consacrée à l'analyse comparative des expressions figées en BCMS et en français. Elle commence par un parcours de leurs différentes origines, puis on examine les fondements culturels des expressions figées, en fonction de différents domaines fournisseurs. On développe ensuite une analyse linguistique comparée des expressions figées, en détaillant les noms composés et les différentes locutions (verbales, adjectivales etc.) et en intégrant la dimension rhétorique, notamment les métaphores. Pour finir, après une mise au point générale sur la traduction, on examine les problèmes d'interprétation et les différentes solutions de traduction des expressions figées dans les deux sens, entre français et BCMS. / This thesis makes a comparison between the idioms of the BCMS languages (Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, Serbian) on the one side, and the French language on the other, in the domain of translation.In the first segment, the study begins with the definition of idioms and the criteria for fixation. After the explanation of differences among BCMS languages, we present the corpus of idioms in BCMS and in French, with their distribution within different cultural domains, while distinguishing among three types of idiomatic expressions: literal, transparent, and opaque.The second part is devoted to the comparative analysis of idioms in BCMS and French. It begins with a record of their different origins, after which we examine the cultural foundations of expressions, depending on different domains. We develop a comparative linguistic analysis of idioms, giving details on various compound names and phrases (verbal, adjectival, etc.), and integrating the rhetorical dimension, including metaphors. Finally, after an overall focus on translating, we examine issues found in interpretation and translation solutions for different idioms between French and BCMS.

The main goal of this paper is to examine the perceptions related to Bosnia and Herzegovina as a country that fosters terrorism. The concepts of radicalization, extremism and terrorism are examined as separate entities in the context of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the confusion of these contexts is particularly harmful, prompting negative attitudes and conclusions. It includes a review of the origins of Jihad in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the 1992-1995 war and transformation into the Salafi Movement after it. Some theoretical concepts consider the popular perspective on the Salafi community, relations between the Salafi Community and the Islamic Community the responses of media who propagate both the valid and stereotypical information, the motivations that drive the Salafist community, but also the motives of Bosnia and Herzegovina's society for the exploitation of this community. Other focuses are the changes that take place after the September 11th terrorist attacks, and their effect on Bosnia and Herzegovina are discussed in the context of the fight against terrorism and the re-examination of the intentions of the Salafi communities. Finally, conclusions are drawn about the perception of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a terrorist threat. In addition, the relationship between the Salafi...

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