BALKAN SOCIETY FOR THEORY AND PRACTICE MISSION 

 

The Balkan Society for Theory and Practice (BSTP) is an academic society based in Kosova. The mission of BSTP is to create a platform for critical research and academic and artistic collaboration in the Balkans. BSTP provides a platform for the expression and realization of subversive and challenging ideas, exchange of research and projects, and a space for networking and solidarity building between local and international scholars, activists, journalists, and artists. As a women-led society, BSTP aims to build a safe environment for discussion between people of all genders, sexual orientations, races, and abilities. Our mission is to draw attention to places traditionally deemed unphilosophical as sites of theoretical and practical resistance.

The primary project of Balkan Society for Theory and Practice is our annual workshop. These workshops ask how contemporary international political issues uniquely impact Eastern Europe. BSTP’s first workshop was held in 2018, in Prizren, Kosova. The goal of this workshop was to orient current decolonial and postcolonial discourses towards post-socialist Balkan countries as well as to critically dissect the implemented neoliberal reforms in these countries. The 2019 workshop, which was held in Prishtina, Kosova, considered whether nationalism is obsolete. For more information on this workshop, click here.

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BALKAN SOCIETY FOR THEORY AND PRACTICE  WORKSHOP MISSION 

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The goal of the BSTP annual workshop is to establish and expand a diverse community of local and regional scholars to produce well-grounded discussions and research focused on contemporary economic and political issues in Eastern Europe. We believe that a workshop, as opposed to a traditional conference environment, is especially well suited to fulfil our mission of collaboration and research development. Participants share works in-progress, which encourages collaboration and the transformation of ideas.

The goal of BSTP annual workshops is to discuss themes that are crucial to the socio-political and socio-economic situations in the Balkans. We invite local and international lecturers and panellists to hold talks for the general public, and we provide a safe space that incentivizes discussion on topics that are traditionally deemed controversial.

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BALKAN SOCIETY FOR THEORY AND PRACTICE HISTORY 

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The Balkan Society for Theory and Practice was established in 2017 by Jeta Mulaj, Deniza Mulaj, and Jasmine Wallace. BSTP was a response to hierarchical academic workshops and conferences, of which the founders wrongly prioritized the work of invited speakers at the expense of conference participants’ own research. BSTP was also a response to the underrepresentation of Eastern Europe as a region, and European studies, in discussions about contemporary international politics. Issues emerging from decolonial and post-colonial discourses, for example, raise important critiques of Western Europe. However, these critiques all too often ignore the effects of colonialism internal to the European continent between Eastern and Western Europe. BSTP seeks to expand these important political conversations to include themes such as Orientalism, post-socialism, and borders as they are uniquely expressed in and through the Balkans.

Coming from backgrounds of philosophy and anthropology, the three founders of BSTP recognize the importance of expanding left-wing discourses and academic trends that focus exclusively on Western Europe to include Eastern Europe. BSTP was therefore established with several goals in mind: to create opportunities for Eastern European scholars, to support the work of international scholars, intellectuals, activists, artists, and students, to promote the work of regional thinkers on an international scale, and to expose international participants to the work of contemporary Balkan thinkers.

The Balkan Society for Theory and Practice is sensitive to the oppression of people based on their gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and abilities. We are committed to ensuring a safe space for oppressed gendered people of all backgrounds including cis-gendered women, trans men and women, and those who identify as non-binary.

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BALKAN SOCIETY FOR THEORY AND PRACTICE TEAM

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Jeta Mulaj is the co-founder and executive director of the Balkan Society for Theory and Practice. Dr. Mulaj is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Toronto Metropolitan University. She works on social and political philosophy, feminist philosophy, critical theory, and Marxism. Dr. Mulaj is currently completing her manuscript on the dialectic of stability and instability in capitalist society.

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Deniza Mulaj is the co-founder and program manager at the Balkan Society for Theory and Practice. Deniza is a Ph.D. candidate of Mass Communication at Ohio University and holds an M.A. in Anthropology from North Carolina State University. Her work focuses on the intersection of news media, political violence, and ethnicity in the Balkan region, as well as the impact of technology, traditional media, and social media on social change. Before starting her PhD, Mulaj worked for Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN Kosovo) as a grant writer and project lead, covering issues in the legal framework on inheritance and women's right to property in Kosova, investigative journalism, and monitoring of public procurement, auditing, and recruitments in public institutions. 

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Jasmine Wallace is the co-founder and program manager at the Balkan Society for Theory and Practice. Wallace is a philosophy PhD student at Villanova University working on black queer studies, philosophy of race, and trans* theory.

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Jeta Luboteni is a Ph.D. student in Religious Studies at Boston University, interested in the racialization of Islam, particularly as it relates to the Albanian diaspora. Jeta completed a M.A. in Middle East and Islamic Studies at George Mason University and a B.A. in International Relations with a minor in Sociology at American University in D.C.

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BSTP DONORS AND PARTNERS 

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Transform! Europe

Feminist Critique

Critical Theory Workshop 

Kino Armata

Kino Lumbardhi

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