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

Evaporating Borders

The Njegos Foundation for Serbian Language and Culture presents EVAPORATING BORDERS a film by Iva Radivojević.

Friday, September 25, 2015, 6:00pm, Marshall D. Shulman Seminar Room (1219 IAB, 420 West 118th St.)

Originally from Yugoslavia, a country that no longer exists except in books and films, Iva Radivojević’s family immigrated to Cyprus to escape political unrest. Raised in Cyprus, she is approaching the film as a personal exploration of what it means to have a hybrid existence in which one is always searching for an identity.

The title “Evaporating Borders” corresponds to the idea that the erosion of boundaries and borders (both physical and metaphoric) defamiliarize the narratives of selfhood through which identities take shape and reproduce themselves. The flow of populations, commodities and information is associated with loss of traditions, memories and histories. This poses a threat to national identity and translates to discrimination, prejudice, and intolerance. What is apparent in Cyprus is emblematic of hierarchical racial structures around the world, looking to cultures and peoples outside Western borders from a position of superiority.

While the film examines what it means to disassociate from these beliefs, it also explores the principles of inequality precipitated by certain cultures over others, classes against other classes, the concept of motherland, and an essentialized conception of identity. Though the film is told from the director’s personal experience and point-of-view, it is less about her own story than an exploration of the mentioned themes.

The director of the film will join us for the Q&A section.

This event is co-sponsored by the Program of Hellenic Studies at Columbia.


SA

 

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Dimitrije Vasiljević

Dimitrije Vasiljević is a New York-based award-winning pianist and composer who has been hailed by jazz masters as one of the most promising names in the jazz world. His is a new voice combining the gentle flavor of European jazz with intricate musical landscapes full of exotic rhythms and sophisticated harmony. This multi-talented pianist is today among the most exciting new artists on the NYC jazz scene.

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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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