Tag: Ljubica Spaskovska

Funded PhD Studentship: ‘Cold War Socialism, Non-Alignment and Anti-Colonialism in the Yugoslav Press, 1961 – 1979’

Published on by CIGH Exeter

‘Cold War Socialism, Non-Alignment and Anti-Colonialism in the Yugoslav Press, 1961 – 1979’: AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP) PhD Studentship Ref: 5853

Deadline 5 May 2026

About the award

Supervisors

Dr Ljubica Spaskovska University of Exeter – Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences

Milan Grba, the British Library

The University of Exeter and the British Library are pleased to announce the availability of a fully funded Collaborative Doctoral Studentship from 1 October 2026 under the AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership Scheme.

The project Cold War Socialism, Non-Alignment and Anti-Colonialism in the Yugoslav Press, 1961-1979 proposes an innovative investigation into Yugoslavia’s multifaceted role during the Cold War, specifically its involvement with the Non-Aligned Movement and anti-colonial efforts.

This project will be jointly supervised Dr Ljubica Spaskovska and Professor James Mark at the University of Exeter and by Milan Grba and Savka Andic at the British Library.  The student will spend time with both the University of Exeter and the British Library and will become part of the wider cohort of AHRC CDP funded PhD students across the UK.

The University of Exeter and the British Library are keen to encourage applications from a diverse range of people, from different backgrounds and career stages, and particularly welcome applications from Global Majority students and those currently underrepresented in doctoral student cohorts.  

The Research Project

The project centres on Yugoslavia’s global role in the Cold War, emphasizing its advocacy of non-alignment, anti-colonialism, and support for newly independent nations and liberation movements. The project will draw upon the recently digitised and largely unexamined Joint Translation Service (JTS) bulletins, a sole archive housed at the British Library. The project’s core purpose is to apply advanced digital methods and interdisciplinary research to the Joint Translation Service Archive, uncovering fresh insights into Cold War socialism and anti-colonialism from a Yugoslav perspective, and aiming to understand how Yugoslavia, a founding Non-Aligned Movement member, forged a ‘third way’. The student will be engaged in creating a fully digitally searchable Joint Translation Service resource, deriving new datasets, and helping to establish a global network of Non-Aligned Movement-related archives with a view to creating a digital repository. The successful applicant would be able to build upon this and develop their own specific approach and themes. In addition to the focus on the JTS archive, applicants could potentially bring this material into dialogue with other archives and primary materials.

Continue reading “Funded PhD Studentship: ‘Cold War Socialism, Non-Alignment and Anti-Colonialism in the Yugoslav Press, 1961 – 1979’” →

Jacobin interview with Prof. James Mark: When Eastern Europe Left the World Behind

Published on by CIGH Exeter

We at the Forum are delighted to draw your attention to the magazine Jacobin, which has just published an interview with Prof. James Mark about the new book 1989: A Global History of Eastern Europe, co-authored with Exeter colleagues Bogdan Iacob, Tobias Rupprecht, and Ljubica Spaskovska. Here is the introduction:

When Eastern Europe Left the World Behind: An Interview with James Mark

On the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, commemorations of the “end of communism” proved rather muted. The Washington Post lamented the dismantling of the democratic institutions so hard-won in 1989, accusing Hungary’s far-right premier Viktor Orbán of antics that would make his communist predecessors “blush.” Writing in the Guardian, liberal historian Timothy Garton-Ash also felt that the “dictators [are] coming back,” but insisted the “spirit of 1989” could resist the spread of so-called “illiberal democracy.”

Both readings conform to a commonplace understanding of what happened in central-eastern Europe after 1989 — a wave of democratic mobilization, cruelly beaten down by new Moscow-aligned autocrats who do not want to embrace “Western values.” This perception has been fueled by the public declarations of many leaders in the “Visegrád” countries (Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia) who have insisted on the preservation of their Christian and national culture as against “globalism” and multiculturalism. Continue reading “Jacobin interview with Prof. James Mark: When Eastern Europe Left the World Behind” →

The 1963 Skopje earthquake and its international significance: an interview with Ljubica Spaskovska

Published on by CIGH Exeter

Centre Director Richard Toye interviews Dr. Ljubica Spaskovska (University of Exeter) about the 1963 Skopje earthquake and its international significance (8 November 2018).

Global Neoliberalisms: Lost and Found in Translation

Published on by CIGH Exeter2 Comments

This conference aims to provide a truly global account of the rise and entrenchment of the modern neoliberal order. Contributors will consider how neoliberal ideas travelled (or did not travel) across regions and polities; and analyse how these ideas were translated between groups and regions as embodied behaviours and business practices as well as through the global media and international organisations. As the fate of neoliberalism appears in question across many regions, it is an opportune moment to make sense of its ascendancy on a global scale.

Convenors:
Professor James Mark, University of Exeter
Professor Richard Toye, University of Exeter
Dr Ljubica Spaskovska, University of Exeter
Dr Tobias Rupprecht, University of Exeter

Speakers include:
Professor Jennifer Bair, University of Virginia
Professor Susan Bayly, University of Cambridge
Professor Johanna Bockman, George Mason University
Professor Stephanie Decker, Aston Business School
Mr Julian Gewirtz, University of Oxford
Professor Vanessa Ogle, UC Berkeley
Professor Daisuke Ikemoto, Meijigakuin University
Professor Artemy Kalinovsky, University of Amsterdam
Dr Alexander Kentikelenis, University of Oxford
Professor Pun Ngai, Hong Kong University
Professor Pal Nyiri, University of Amsterdam
Professor David Priestland, University of Oxford
Professor Bernhard Rieger, University of Leiden
Professor Quinn Slobodian, Wellesley College and Harvard University
Dr Jorg Wiegratz, University of Leeds

Registration:
A registration fee is payable at the time of booking. For further information and details of how to book please click on ‘Book event’.

Standard Admission: £95 for both days; £50 for one day
Early Bird booking (before 31 January 2018): £75 for both days; £40 for one day
Concessions: £36 for both days; £20 for one day

Date

Thu 7 Jun 2018 09:00 to Fri 8 Jun 2018 17:00

Location

The British Academy, 10-11 Carlton House Terrace, London, SW1Y 5AH

BOOK EVENT

Non-Aligned Punk: The Last Yugoslav Generation

Published on by CIGH Exeter2 Comments

Ljubica Spaskovska
University of Exeter

‘As a regular reader of NME I feel insulted by the way you write about Yugoslavia in your issues of May 3 and May 17′, wrote a New Musical Express reader from Zagreb in 1975.

In your ‘Teazers’ column you worry about »How will the Communist Bloc take to British pub rock when Kilburn And The High Roads tour Yugoslavia and Poland in August.« Now try to get this: Yugoslavia does not belong to any bloc, so you better don’t try to make jokes about something that may be irrelevant to you, but is of principal meaning for Yugoslav people […] This is not fair toward your Yugoslav readers and many other rock fans in our country. The same singles, albums, groups and singers that top the Pop Polls in Britain are very popular in Yugoslavia, too.[1]

Similarly a Tomaz Domicelj from Ljubljana complained in a 1978 issue of Melody Maker that he was ‘fed up with reading again and again about Yugoslavia being behind the Iron Curtain. We are, if anything, on the border of that Curtain, which MM staff and other British people involved in the music business should know by now. Remember 1948, when we told Stalin off? If not, ask some historians about that.’[2] Two years later, Melody Maker columnist Chris Bohn visited Yugoslavia, a visit that he summarised in a two-page article entitled ‘Non-aligned punk’.[3]

The geopolitical positioning of Yugoslavia had a significant impact on the way the youth conceptualised and articulated their self-identification and sense of belonging in wider global terms. It also enabled the development of a burgeoning youth culture. Continue reading “Non-Aligned Punk: The Last Yugoslav Generation” →