On Monday, 19 January 2026, the Dean of the Postgraduate School ZRC SAZU, Asst. Prof. Dr. Jani Kozina, awarded six new Doctors of Philosophy their degrees as part of the third-cycle Comparative Study of Ideas and Cultures doctoral programme.

 

Vita Zalar earned her PhD in the Cultural History module with the dissertation Anti-Roma Racism and Punitive Governance in the Habsburg and Yugoslav Monarchies, 1848-1941.
Supervisor: Prof. Dr Oto Luthar; Co-supervisor: Prof. Dr Ari Joskowicz.
Dissertation abstract.

 

Lucija Mandić earned her PhD in the Literature in Context module with the dissertation A Computational Reading of Slovenian Narrative prose of the Long 19th Century in the Context of Literary Canonisation.
Supervisor: Assist. Prof. Dr Andrejka Žejn; Co-supervisor: Assist. Prof. Dr Monika Deželak Trojar.
Dissertation abstract.

 

Vilja Lukan Pišek earned her PhD in the Cultural History module with the dissertation Musealisation of Difficult Heritage: Concentration Camp Ljubelj at the Intersection of Museology and Memory.
Supervisor: Assist. Prof. Dr Saša Poljak Istenič; Co-supervisor: Prof. Dr Oto Luthar.
Dissertation abstract.

 

Adriana Sabo earned her PhD in the Cultural History module with the dissertation “Me Fancy, You Nothing”: Mechanisms of Producing Empowered Femininity within the Contemporary Balkan Music Industry.
Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr Ana Hofman.
Dissertation abstract.

 

Boris Mihalj earned his PhD in the Transformations of Modern Thought – Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, Culture module with the dissertation Thinking Play.
Supervisor: Prof. Dr Mladen Dolar; Co-supervisor: Prof. Dr Urban Kordeš.
Dissertation abstract.

 

Rok Mrvič earned his PhD in the Slovenian Studies – Tradition and Modernity module with the dissertation Swearing Forms in Contemporary Slovene Folklore System. A Folkloristic and Semiotic Analysis of Swearing.
Supervisor: Assist. Prof. Dr Barbara Ivančič Kutin; Co-supervisor: Assist. Prof. Dr Saša Babič.
Dissertation abstract.

 

This year’s doctoral dissertations reflect the programme’s strong interdisciplinary orientation and thematic diversity. Topics range from cultural history and memory studies to museology, literary studies, folklore, music, philosophy, and social criticism. Together, they demonstrate the programme’s commitment to rigorous and critical research into complex cultural and social phenomena.

 

The ceremonial event also included a cultural programme. Maks Zakrajšek and Vitja Kovačević, students of the Academy of Music, provided the musical accompaniment, and their guitar performance helped create a solemn atmosphere.

 

We extend our sincere congratulations to all the new Doctors of Philosophy on this important academic achievement.

 

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Photo: Marko Zaplatil

We cordially invite you to a lecture as part of the Lexicology, Lexicography, Gramaticography module by Vlad A. Neacșu, on Friday, 23 January 2026 at 2:00 PM:

 

Deciphering Languages Without Knowing Them: Linguistics Olympiad, Humans, and AI.

 

Linguistics Olympiad problems (LOPs) are a special genre of puzzles that present linguistic features and phenomena in an encrypted form. These problems are used in the International Linguistics Olympiad and related national olympiads and consist of a scaled-down corpus of sentences/phrases/words representative of certain linguistic phenomena. From this, the solver must infer/deduce a primitive set of grammatical rules of the language and then translate a new set of elements. In recent years, large language models (LLMs) have shown impressive performance on many language-related tasks, raising the question of whether such systems can also solve Linguistics Olympiad problems. And if so, how?
In this talk, I bring together two perspectives: empirical research on the performance of LLMs on LOPs, and pedagogical insights from training students for the International Linguistics Olympiad. I discuss why current AI systems often struggle with these problems despite their apparent fluency, focusing on issues such as memorisation and tokenisation.
By comparing how humans and machines approach the same tasks, the talk argues that Linguistics Olympiad problems offer a unique lens on the distinction between pattern recognition and genuine reasoning. I conclude by reflecting on what these findings imply both for the future of AI and for the educational value of linguistics competitions.

 

The lecture will be held in English in the conference room of ZRC SAZU, Novi trg 2, 1. floor, Ljubljana and at ZOOM (link, Meeting ID: 865 3030 1071, Passcode: 371494).

 

Vlad A. Neacșu is a PhD student at the “Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” Institute of Linguistics of the Romanian Academy. His research focuses on the use of linguistics olympiad problems in academic research. He is a member of the International Board of the International Linguistics Olympiad and the Asia-Pacific Linguistics Olympiads and has extensive experience in training students for national and international linguistics competitions. His problems were featured in many national Linguistics Olympiads (among which, Slovenia, Romania, Republic of Moldova, Hong Kong, China, India, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Japan), as well as for the Asia-Pacific Linguistics Olympiad and the International Linguistics Olympiad.

 

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Photo bySiora Photography on Unsplash

We cordially invite you to a lecture as part of the Cultural History module by Iva Kosmos, PhD, on Tuesday, 20 January 2026 at 1:00 PM:

 

Yugoslav travel writers in the Third World: socialist contact zones and the anti-colonial production of knowledge.

 

In the first part of the lecture, I will provide a brief overview of my Marie Skłodowska-Curie ERA project at the University of Zagreb. I will present the project’s general rationale, scope, research questions and outputs, including a bibliography of Yugoslav travel writing on the Third World. The second part of the lecture will focus on one of the project’s central aims: to shed light on the anti-colonial – as Yugoslavs would have termed it – strategies in travel writing. Yugoslav travel writers were acutely aware that they inherited and naturalized imperial, colonial and orientalist imagery of Africa and Asia shaped by Western European literature, art, media and popular culture. As part of the broader Yugoslav project of establishing partnerships with post-colonial African and Asian states, travel writing emerged as the important discursive space for questioning and negotiating these relationships. Yugoslav travel writers sought to undo and unlearn their preconditioned reactions to and perceptions of Others by incorporating socio-historical education on the Third World countries, class and economic analysis, and constant self-reflection on one’s own production of knowledge. Considering the specific material conditions of Yugoslav travels and its distinct discursive orientation, I argue that these encounters unfolded within a specific socialist “contact zone” (cf. Pratt). Through a case study of travelogues and diary accounts by the Slovenian painter Jože Ciuha from Southeast Asia (Okameneli smehljaj (1963), Potovanje v deseto deželo (1966)) I will demonstrate the possibilities and limitations opened up by socialist contact zones and the perspective they produced.

 

The lecture will be held in English in the library of the Institute for Cultural and Memory Studies at ZRC SAZU, Trg francoske revolucije 7, 2nd floor, Ljubljana.

 

Iva Kosmos is a cultural studies scholar whose work brings together literary sociology, cultural and memory studies. Her research focuses on Yugoslav and post-Yugoslav literary and cultural production, examining it in relation to broader social, cultural, and political frameworks and contexts. In parallel, she explored the memory narratives of socialist industrial workers. She was a researcher at ZRC SAZU (2017-2024) and currently holds MSCA ERA Fellowship at the University of Zagreb. She has co-edited the monograph Social Impact in Arts and Culture. The Diverse Lives of a Concept (2022) and Stories from the Can: The History of Fish Processing and Canning in the Northeastern Adriatic (in Slovenian and Croatian, 2020).

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Photo by Eugenia Ai on Unsplash

The Postgraduate School ZRC SAZU participates as an Associated Partner in the international Momentum MSCA Premium Postdoctoral Fellowship Programme and invites researchers to apply for the second call (Call 2).

 

Momentum MSCA is a postdoctoral fellowship programme co-funded under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA), aimed at fostering scientific excellence, international mobility, and the development of independent research careers. As an associated partner, the Postgraduate School ZRC SAZU may act as one of the potential host institutions for selected postdoctoral researchers.

 

Selected candidates may be awarded a fellowship for a period of up to 36 months, including mandatory short-term international secondments. The programme offers competitive funding conditions as well as support for professional development, training, and networking within an international research environment.

 

The second call is open from 1 December 2025 to 31 January 2026.
The call is open to outstanding researchers from all research fields who wish to pursue their postdoctoral career in an internationally competitive research environment.

 

Further information on the call, eligibility criteria, and the application procedure is available in the official broschure and on the official programme website: https://momentummsca.mta.hu

 

Researchers are warmly invited to apply.

We cordially invite you to a lecture as part of the Cultural History module, which will be given by Jelena Tešija.

 

Navigating a divided labor universe: Social democrats and communists in the International Co-operative Women’s Guild, 1920s–1960s

 

This lecture examines a complex relationship between social democrats and communists in the International Women’s Co-operative Guild (ICWG), a women-only organization closely connected to the leading co-operative organization, the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA). The ICWG was established in the early 1920s to represent working-class housewives, and it addressed peace issues, co-operative economics, reproductive labor, women’s position in the co-operative movement and women’s civil and political rights. The co-operative movement – including both the ICA and the ICWG – was distinctive in the international labor movement for its ideologically mixed membership and collaboration between social democratic and communist activists throughout the interwar and post-World War II periods. My analysis focuses on three primary dimensions. First, I explore how the ideological split within the international labor movement shaped relationships within the ICWG. Second, I investigate how communists and social democrats, including activists from socialist Yugoslavia, navigated tensions there. Third, I look at how the dynamics between social democrats and communists influenced the ICWG’s relationships and collaborations with the rest of the labor movement.

 

The lecture will be held in English on Thursday, 11 December 2025 at 16:00 in the conference room of the Institute for Cultural and Memory Studies at ZRC SAZU, Trg francoske revolucije 7, 2nd floor, Ljubljana (bell: ZRC SAZU).

Jelena Tešija is a PhD candidate at the Central European University in Vienna and a research affiliate in the ERC Advanced Grant research project ZARAH. Currently, she is participating in a 4-month Erasmus+ traineeship as an external associate at the ZRC SAZU Institute of Culture and Memory Studies in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Her PhD dissertation focuses on the gender and labor history of the International Co-operative Women’s Guild (1921–1963). Her research interests include the gender history of the (Yugoslav) co-operative movement, the history of feminisms and women’s labor activisms, and historical perspectives on gender and social reproduction. Before starting her PhD in Comparative History, she covered topics related to labor and women’s movements as a feminist journalist and editor, an independent researcher, and an activist. In 2025, she co-authored a collaborative research monograph titled Women’s Labour Activism in Eastern Europe and Beyond. A New Transnational History. (London: UCL Press) with her colleagues from the ZARAH project. The book is available in Open Access: https://uclpress.co.uk/book/womens-labour-activism-in-eastern-europe-and-beyond/.

 

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Photo: Conference of the International Co-Operative Women’s Guild in Stockholm in 1927. 1927. U DCX/2/3 Conference File for Stockholm. Hull History Centre, Hull, England.

We cordially invite you to two guest lectures at Anthropology: Understanding World-Making Practices module by Prof. Aleksandar Bošković, PhD. 

 

Wednesday, 10 December 2025 at 3:00 PM:

History of Anthropology as an Anthropological Problem

 

Debates about anthropological research, as well as about individual anthropologists, are profoundly shaped by attempts to understand the discipline’s history and the different trajectories that led to its institutionalization across diverse cultures and social contexts. These attempts unfold amid complex sociopolitical crises that prompt renewed questioning of dominant ideological narratives. Because such interpretations emerge in a specific contemporary moment, they also place actors from the past in the present, often with unexpected consequences. Like any other sphere of human life, anthropology is shaped by particular stories; some of these will be explored in the lecture. Special emphasis will be placed on grounding anthropologists in their own time and place in order to contextualize their work. Such an approach helps illuminate contemporary critiques and underscores the importance of rigorous research in any field. Any attempt to produce a definitive history of anthropology is bound to fail – and ultimately reveals more about its author(s) than about the discipline itself.

 

Thursday, 11 December 2025 at 3:00 PM:

Women in the History of Anthropology: Forgotten or Marginalized?

 

Recent research in the history and theory of anthropology has brought to light new information about the role of women in shaping the discipline. Even in cases where female scholars were crucial for the establishment of anthropology (such as Winifred Hoernlé in South Africa), they were – until very recently – curiously absent from many narratives of the field’s heroic past. Anthropological research is deeply influenced by efforts to understand the discipline’s history and the trajectories that led to its institutionalization across different cultures and social settings. These efforts also unfold during sociopolitical crises, which encourage questioning of dominant ideological narratives. Like any other part of human life, anthropology is shaped by contemporary political discourses – some of which will be examined in the lecture. The lecture will focus on the intellectual trajectories of scholars such as Zora Neale Hurston, Ruth Landes, and Germaine Tillion, and the ways in which they carved out their place in the discipline. Other examples (such as the renaming of Kroeber Hall at UC Berkeley) will also illustrate the – more or less subtle – attempts to erase women from anthropology’s history.

 

Both lectures will be held in English in the Gosposka Hall ZRC SAZU, Gosposka ulica 16, Ljubljana.

 

Prof. Aleksandar Bošković is a Principal Research Associate at the Institute of Archaeology in Belgrade, Visiting Professor of Social Anthropology at UFRN in Natal (Brazil), and a ULAM Visiting Research Fellow at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. His research interests include the history and theory of anthropology, psychoanalysis, myth and religion, semiotics, ethnicity, nationalism, and gender studies. He has taught at numerous universities across Europe, Africa, and South America. He is co-editor of the Anthropological Journal of European Cultures and author or editor of several monographs and edited volumes on anthropology, myth, and religion.

 

Welcome!

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Photo: Professor’s personal archive

Two Lectures by Dr. Debbie Bargallie organized by the ZRC SAZU Institute of Philosophy, in collaboration with the doctoral programme Comparative Study of Ideas and Cultures (Postgraduate School ZRC SAZU) and the Department of Sociology, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana.

 

1. Unmasking the Australian Racial Contract: Indigenous Exploitation and the Racial Regime of Recognition and Reconciliation

 

Monday, 3 November 2025, at 17:00

ZRC SAZU Institute of Philosophy & Postgraduate School ZRC SAZU

Gosposka Hall, Gosposka 16, Ljubljana

 

Beneath Australia’s national narrative of reconciliation lies a “racial contract” built on dispossession, denial, and exploitation.

 

Dr. Debbie Bargallie, Indigenous sociologist and critical race scholar, exposes how this contract is maintained through state recognition and controlled inclusion of Indigenous peoples. Drawing on her award-winning book Unmasking the Racial Contract: Indigenous Voices on Racism in the Australian Public Service, she reveals the racial regime embedded in settler institutions and highlights Indigenous refusal as an assertion of unacknowledged sovereignty.

 

The lecture will also engage with her collaboration with Alana Lentin, author of The New Racial Regime: Recalibrations of White Supremacy.

 

Introduced and moderated by: Prof. Dr. Marina Gržinić, ZRC SAZU.

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2. Punjabi Dreaming: Tracing Our Roots and Pathways

 

Tuesday, 4 November 2025, at 16:30

Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana – Department of Sociology

Blue Room, Aškerčeva 2, Ljubljana

 

Using the term “Dreaming” as a broader concept linking ancestry, tradition, and collective memory, this lecture explores identity as a process of being and becoming, following Stuart Hall’s cultural theory.

 

Dr. Bargallie examines how Indigenous and diasporic identities are shaped through rupture, relation, and return—drawing on critical Indigenous studies, critical race theory, and oral, poetic, and genealogical traditions of the Mirasi knowledge-keepers.

 

Her interdisciplinary method combines theoretical analysis, autoethnography, and decolonial research practices, emphasizing oral testimony and community memory as living archives.

 

Introduced and moderated by: Assist. Prof. Dr. Nina Cvar, University of Ljubljana.

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About Dr. Debbie Bargallie

 

Dr. Debbie Bargallie is Associate Professor (Principal Research Fellow) at Griffith University, Honorary Professor at Macquarie University, and Visiting Professor at Universitas Pesantren Tinggi Darul Ulum Jombang (Indonesia).

 

A proud Kamilaroi and Wonnarua woman from New South Wales and descendant of the Jat Langrial Muslim community of the Indian subcontinent, she works at the intersections of race, Indigeneity, and decolonial justice.

 

She chairs the Queensland Muslim Historical Society, directs the Queensland Muslim Cultural and Heritage Centre, and is a researcher at the Centre for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (CEVAW), where she leads projects on racial literacy at work.

 

Her books include:

• Unmasking the Racial Contract (AIATSIS Press, 2020)
• Critical Racial and Decolonial Literacies: Breaking the Silence (Bristol University Press, 2024, co-edited).

 

(Photo from her personal archive)

We kindly inform you that on Wednesday, June 11, 2025, at 12:00 PM, Adriana Sabo will publicly defend her doctoral dissertation as part of the third-cycle doctoral study programme Comparative Study of Ideas and Cultures, module Cultural History. The title of the dissertation is:

 

“Me Fancy, You Nothing”: Mechanisms of Producing the Empowered Femininity within the Contemporary Balkan Music Industry.

 

Abstract of the dissertation.

 

Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Ana Hofman, PhD

 

Committee: Research Fellow Mojca Kovačič, PhD, Prof. Tanja Petrović, PhD and Asst. Prof. Mojca Piškor, PhD.

 

The defence will be held in English in the Gosposka Hall of the Geographical Museum of GIAM ZRC SAZU, Gosposka ulica 16, Ljubljana.

 

You are warmly invited!

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Photo source.

We cordially invite you to two guest lectures at Interdisciplinary study of institutions and society in the 21st century module by Prof. Werner Bonefeld, PhD.

 

Tuesday, 3 June 2025 at 4:00 PM:

Money and its Power.

 

The session examines the money form of capitalist wealth. It argues that the satisfaction of needs is secondary to the requirement of making money out of money. In this context, it explores capital as a process of making money out of money, argues that in capitalism time is money, and examines the corporeality of its power. In capitalism money rules – what cannot be exchanged for money is worthless. Why, how, and with what consequence?

 

Wednesday, 4 June 2025 at 4:00 PM:

Economic Compulsion and the Critique of Suffering.

 

Marxʼs overriding concern in his critique of political economy is the conceptualization of the capitalist social relations. He asks, »What is necessary and unavoidable in a given production system?« For Adorno, capitalism is most perceptible where it hurts. He turns towards human suffering as the key to comprehending capitalism’s social reality. My concern is not whether Adorno’s turn towards human suffering is core to his negative dialectics and whether Marx is a logician of the capitalist social nature. My concern is rather in reading what Marx calls his ‘critique of the entire system of economic categories’ through Adorno’s determinate negation. The term economic compulsion’ lends itself to this reading.

 

Both lectures will be held in English in the Gosposka Hall ZRC SAZU, Gosposka ulica 16, Ljubljana.

 

Werner Bonefeld is Emeritus Professor in the Department of Politics at the University of York, UK, and Adjunct Professor at the Postgraduate School ZRC SAZU (Ljubljana, Slovenia). He teaches Contemporary Critical Theory in Western Marxian Thought at the University of Peking. Recent book publications include Adorno and Marx, which he co-edited with Chris O’Kane, and A Critical Theory of Economic Compulsion (Routledge, 2023). With Chris O’Kane, he is co-editor of Bloomsbury’s Critical Theory and the Critique of Society series.

 

Welcome!

You are kindly invited to the presentation of doctoral dissertation topics as part of the requirements for Independent Research Work within the third-cycle doctoral study program Comparative Studies of Ideas and Cultures.

 

On Friday, April 25, 2025, at 4:00 PM, as part of the module Interdisciplinary Study of Institutions and Society in the 21st Century, Krešimir Dabo, PhD will present the topic of his second doctoral dissertation titled:

 

Art and Artists between Clickbait and Criticism: Media Narratives in the Contemporary Digital Environment.

 

(Presentation summary)

 

Proposed supervisor: Full Prof. Dr. Marina Gržinić Mauhler.

Committee: Assist. Prof. Dr. Nina Cvar (Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana), Assist. Prof. Dr. Boris Kern (ZRC SAZU), and Research Fellow Dr. Uroš Kranjc (Postgraduate School ZRC SAZU and ZRC SAZU).

 

The presentation will take place in the conference room of ZRC SAZU, Novi trg 2, 1st floor, Ljubljana.

 

Attendance is mandatory for all students enrolled in the Comparative Studies of Ideas and Cultures doctoral program as part of fulfilling the requirements for Research Seminar I (Year 1) and Research Seminar II (Year 2). Attendance will be recorded via a sign-in sheet.

 

All other interested parties are also warmly invited!