25. 04 - 26. 04. 2013

Blagoevgrad

XXII INTERNATIONAL ROUND TABLE

      He on the Balkans

The aim of the Round table is to reconsider critically the various notions and ideals about manhood and masculinity during different historical epoques, social strata and countries on the Balkans.  The specific male roles, societies, rituals and languages, identities and representations will be discussed.  We would like to challenge the traditional idea of the Balkans as a patriarchal society considering the variety of male identities, social roles and biographical experiences.

• Men and religion: manhood as a spiritual overcoming of the Self : priests, monks, hermits. The ascetic societies and identities
• Men and war: manhood as strength/violence: warriors, heroes, rebels, plotters – realities and mythologies. Commemorating heroes: monuments, jubilees, national feasts
• Men, ideology and power: male utopias, ideal/real politics. “Mutrata” ‘mug’as a hero (politic, businessman and criminal) in the societies of crisis and transition. Is the criminality only a male phenomenon?
• Men and nation: the national man: sexualizing the nation, strategies of mythologizing and deconstruction
• Man and intellectual life: male intellectuals – a corrective of the society or   hirelings
• Men and feminism: patriarchy, modern emancipation, and postmodernity as a play of feminities and masculinities. Male and female notions of masculinity. The effect of the inverted mirror: male woman, men as minority, women as majority
• Men and marginality: eccentrics, “zevzek”’joking man’, beggars, native artists. Marginal male spaces: men as outsiders and losers of the transition
• Men and globalization: real and virtual masculinities. Male internet societies and languages. Unisex, metro-man, homosexual – Balkan interpretations and media representations.    
• Fathers, sons and grandsons: generation continuity and conflicts.
• His secret fears: impotence, masturbation, venereal diseases. 
• Male honor, nobility, responsibility: deficit or change.