A great man is one who collects knowledge the way a bee collects honey and uses it to help people overcome the difficulties they endure - hunger, ignorance and disease!
- Nikola Tesla

Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.
- Franklin Roosevelt

While their territory has been devastated and their homes despoiled, the spirit of the Serbian people has not been broken.
- Woodrow Wilson

Mladen Mrdalj

Mladen Mrdalj is a PhD candidate who focuses on research and teaching in Comparative Politics, International Relations and Research Methods. His dissertation investigates significance of external factors in the dynamics of domestic political violence in the Yugoslav civil wars. Mladen’s thesis will analyze inter-connected case studies chosen from the context of the collapse of the former Yugoslavia. The central focus of Mladen’s dissertation is how perceptions of the international system influenced domestic elites’ strategic use of violence. The dissertation will also attempt to deal with more theoretical questions, such as: how domestic actors differentiate between the official and actual positions of international actors, how are they trying to manipulate international actors, and what can we learn about conflict management by answering these questions.

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In the fall of 2012, Mladen received support from the Humanities Center at Northeastern University to set up a research group to expand upon the study of the international sources of domestic political conflict and violence. Other topics of his academic interests are: civil-military relations, international security, the ideology of Yugoslavism, Balkan politics and trilateral relations between the US, EU and Russia.

Since 2010, Mladen has been actively involved in designing and leading the Dialogue of Civilizations program which introduces Northeastern students to the Western Balkans. In this Balkans Dialogue, students visit important institutions, sites, politicians and activists in the former Yugoslavia, and learn firsthand about ethno-nationalism, post-conflict reconstruction and EU accession. In addition to these activities, Mladen lectures on various aspects of conflict and politics in the post-Yugoslav space.

Mladen earned his LLB and MA in Security Studies from the University of Belgrade, Serbia. He is an alumnus of The Fund for American Studies and Georgetown University’s summer programs in Prague as well as in Washington D.C., where he also interned at the Institute of World Politics. He served in the Serbian Armed Forces’ Guard Brigade. In his spare time Mladen is passionate about his hobbies: genealogy, eating ice cream, basketball and literature. A New England aficionado, Mladen has embraced the charms of Nantucket, apple crisp and resenting New Yorkers.

Source: Northeastern University


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People Directory

Charles Simic

Charles Simic (born May 9th, 1938) is an American poet. He was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia (now Republic of Serbia), his childhood was very traumatic, as in the WWII Nazi and Allied bombers ravaged his homeland. Simic emigrated to the USA in 1953 to rejoin his father, who was living in New York City. They moved to Chicago shortly after his arrival. Simic first started to write poetry in high school, when he realized "that one of my friends was attracting the best-looking girls by writing them sappy love poems".

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Publishing

The Christian Heritage of Kosovo and Metohija

THE HISTORICAL AND SPIRITUAL HEARTLAND OF THE SERBIAN PEOPLE

Published by: Sebastian Press, Los Angeles. Co-publishers: Institute for Balkan Studies, Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Belgrade • The Episcopal Council of the Serbian Orthodox Church in North and South America • Faculty of Orthodox Theology, University of Belgrade • BLAGO Fund • Serbica Americana • Interklima-grafika, Vrnjci

“This book on Serbia’s Christian Heritage in Kosovo and Metohija, its heartland in medieval times and through Ottoman domination, is intended to introduce to a wide reading public the oldest and richest treasury of Serbian medieval history and culture. Its authors are leading specialists in the fields in which they write, so readers may place complete reliance on the factual accuracy of the material.”

“The editor and publisher have the fervent hope that today’s peoples in Kosovo and Metohija will be able to begin their discussions not from what divides them but from what unites them, emphasizing in positive and constructive ways the areas in which a Serbo-Albanian ethnic symbiosis has existed. This book invites all to consider their differences in the light of history and of the future.”

Authors: Gojko Subotić • Alex Dragnich • Slavko Todorovich • Thomas A. Emmert • Sima M. Ćirković • Arthur Evans • G. K. Chesterton • Boško Bojović • Atanasije Jevtić • Alexander F. Hilferding • Rebecca West • Rebecca West • Stamatis Skliris • Dušan T. Bataković • Radovan Samardžić • Dimitrije Djordjević • Dimitrije Bogdanović • Sava Janjić • Andrew Wermuth • F. W. Harvey and others

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