Lecture series
DEAGENCY team has been inviting a number of experts from diverse scholarly disciplines to give lectures on chosen topics related to the project research. The lectures are held at the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Dr. Mišo Kapetanović
Inštitut za habsburške in balkanske študije, Avstrijska akademija znanosti, Dunaj, Avstrija
The Death of Hamam: Decoupling of Homosociality and Homosexuality in the Post-Ottoman Balkans
October 28, 2024, 16.20
Faculty of Arts, OEIKA, Ljubljana
The Balkan hamams, brought by the Turkish Empire, established a setting for social interaction in the Eastern Mediterranean where individuals of the same gender could bathe, receive massages, engage in physical contact, unwind, and engage in conversation. Some of patrons used the space to engage in sexual intercourse discreetly. Westerners were both shocked and amused by this behavior, which they portrayed in Orientalist literature and art. With the emergence of the Habsburgs, Yugoslav kingdom, and communist nation states, the hamams ceased to exist in public life in the western lands of the Empire. This paper investigates the degree to which the implementation of contemporary hygiene systems played a role in this vanishing, as well as its connection with the growing social disapproval of homosexuality. The study focuses specifically on investigating the rumors and folklore associated with hamams, in order to examine the shifts in gender regimes.
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Asist. Martina Mravlja
Univerza na Primorskem, Inštitut Andrej Marušič, Slovenski center za raziskovanje samomora
Dolgotrajna osamljenost med starejšimi po izgubah bližnjih oseb
November 11, 2024, 16.20
Faculty of Arts, OEIKA, Ljubljana
Osamljenost je prepoznan javnozdravstveni problem, ki je povezan s številnimi neugodnimi izidi fizičnega in duševnega zdravja ter zgodnjo umrljivostjo. Predstavlja subjektiven občutek pomanjkanja socialnih odnosov, ki se lahko pojavi čeprav v soodvisnosti a hkrati tudi ne glede na obkroženost z ljudmi ali pogostost socialnih stikov. Iz preliminarnih ugotovitev naše raziskave o osamljenosti med starejšimi z uporabo narativnih intervjujev izhaja, da je osamljenost, ki se pojavlja v družbi drugih, izkušnja, ki od posameznika zahteva specifične strategije spopadanja. Razreševanje tega konfliktnega doživljanja, ki ga intuitivno navajajo starejše osebe kot osrednjo izkušnjo osamljenosti, je prežeta z družbeno pogojenimi pogajanji in zasebnimi zmožnostmi prilagajanja. V takšnih situacijah oddaljenost od drugih ni utemeljena v fizičnem smislu, kot je denimo v samoti, temveč z različnimi oblikami neenakosti, ki posegajo v identiteto posameznika. Izgube bližnjih zaradi smrti predstavljajo enega najpogostejših vzrokov za pojav dolgotrajnega občutka osamljenosti v katerem koli življenjskem obdobju. Vendar pa raziskave kažejo, da je osamljenost ne glede na pogoste izkušnje izgub v poznem življenjskem obdobju, bistveno odvisna predvsem od kulturnega konteksta. V iskanju kulturno-specifičnih intervencij za zmanjševanje osamljenosti je zato pomembno razumeti kulturni kontekst, ki ob življenjsko pomembnih dogodkih, kot je smrt bližnjih, varuje pred dolgotrajnimi občutki osamljenosti.
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Asist. dr. Jelena Seferović
Znanstvena sodelavka na Inštitutu za antropologijo v Zagrebu in Inštitutu za novejšo zgodovino v Ljubljani
“Upon this child, beasts have ripped its head”: Infanticide in the police narrative at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century
December 16, 2024, 16.20
Faculty of Arts, OEIKA, Ljubljana
Police reports and records from crime scenes dating from the transition between the 19th and 20th centuries, concerning cases of infanticide, are characterized by diverse narrative styles that, despite apparent contradictions, collectively provide a complex depiction of the criminal act. On one hand, there is a style similar to fiction, featuring rich figurative language and dramatic elements. On the other hand, naturalistic descriptions include explicit and often brutal details about the condition and appearance of the dead infant's body, as well as the surroundings, ensuring a faithful representation of the harsh reality and gravity of the crime. These reports also reveal the social and familial dynamics of that era. Particularly interesting is the phenomenon of female solidarity that manifested through radical measures for preserving family honor and avoiding social stigmatization. In some cases, mothers-in-law acted as accomplices in the act of infanticide, supporting daughters-in-law who became pregnant through extramarital affairs. Psychiatric reports and documentation of women who committed or attempted to commit infanticide from the same historical period contain psychiatric observations providing insight into the intense internal conflicts faced by these women, such as feelings of guilt, shame, despair, and depressive symptoms. Although technical terms were used in these archival materials to describe various psychopathological conditions or emotional reactions induced by trauma or stress related to this crime, descriptive and naturalistic depictions of changes in the behavior and physical condition of women who attempted or committed infanticide were often used. The synthesis of near-fiction and naturalism in police reports from the transition between the 19th and 20th centuries allowed police officers, recorders, and the psychiatrists of the time to simultaneously enhance the drama of the crime itself while somehow mitigating its brutality through descriptive style.
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Ddr. Andrej Pleterski
Zaslužni raziskovalec Znanstvenoraziskovalnega centra SAZU, v društvu Srebrna nit - združenju za dostojno starost pa vodi skupino za uzakonitev pomoči pri prostovoljnem končanju življenja.
Ko je smrt odrešitev
January 6, 2025, 16.20
Faculty of Arts, OEIKA, Ljubljana
Razprava o uzakonitvi pravice do pomoči družbe pri prostovoljnem končanju življenja posameznika je v pomembnem delu razprava o spoštovanju in varstvu človekovega dostojanstva in enakega upoštevanja enakih interesov vseh ljudi. Zaradi enakega upoštevanja interesov je to tudi razprava o pravičnosti. Pravica do končanja lastnega življenja je v tej luči integralen del pravice vsake osebe, da avtonomno vodi svoje življenje v skladu s svojimi ideali in prepričanji, del katerih je tudi ocena o lastnem zdravju in stopnji dostojanstva, ki mu jo zdravje, ko to začenja pešati, še pušča. Zlasti pogosto je odločitev končati svoje življenje razumna ob bolezenskem izteku življenja, ko človeka pestijo neznosno trpljenje, pešanje moči in turobni obeti. Osebe, ki se znajdejo v takšnih okoliščinah in se odločijo končati svoje življenje, svojo odločitev le težko udejanijo brez pomoči drugih. Številni uzakonitvi takšne možnosti nasprotujejo. Kdo so in zakaj to počnejo?
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dr. Tamara Banjeglav
Institute of Culture and Memory Studies, raziskovalna sodelavka na Inštitutu za kulturne in spominske študije, prejemnica štipendije Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions ERA
Commemorating victims in a post-conflict and post-disaster setting (Obeleženje spomina na žrtve v okolju po konfliktih in katastrofah)
March 31, 2025, 16.20
Faculty of Arts, OEIKA, Ljubljana
Commemorating violent or destructive past events and victims of those events is an important part of cultural memory of the community around shared feelings of grief and mourning. (...)
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dr. Janko Lozar Mrevlje
Redni profesor, FF
The Dying of Death as the European Cultural Legacy (Umiranje smrti kot evropsko kulturno izročilo)
April 14, 2025, 18.00
Faculty of Arts, OEIKA, Ljubljana
Death and dying. It is indeed no wonder that the cultural endeavours of Europe in their entirety circle around this ultimate issue. And since ages ago, European culture, us Slovenians being no exception, has struggled to provide the answer to the question how to pull off a victory over death. It is also well known, again in the European context, that the spiritual roots of these metaphysical endeavours point in two main directions: one being Athens and the other Jerusalem. Ancient Greek Platonism and Judeo-Christian tradition, each in their own specific way, offer ample ideological resources as well as written sources for the human mortal – at least such is the ambition – to win this ultimate victory.
One of the most avid proponents of human finitude and mortality among the philosophers of the 20th century is Martin Heidegger, German phenomenologist, who set his acute mind to awaken metaphysically nurtured European human beings back to mortality. His basic phenomenological claim, stemming from the basic Husserlian motto “back to the things themselves”, was that if we are to come back to the immediacy of the things themselves, we are to fully embrace what is phenomenologically most evident: the human being’s finality, finitude, mortality, inescapable thrownness into time and history – as well as admit to the impossibility of escaping the clutches of time, the progresses and regresses of history, admit to the impossibility of escaping the finitude into ahistorical, extratemporal heavenly state of immortality and eternity.
This modern thanatology may sound fine and self-evident to us humans of the 21st century. However, the question remains, and this lecture will try to address this ellusive issue, as to why is it so difficult today to fully realize the post-metaphysically luxurious character of life; that this life (and Earth) is all we have got – and why is it so difficult to change our lives accordingly: how come we cannot and cannot simply bring to the fore the fragile beauty of it all in its transient magnificence? Key words: death, Plato, Christ, Europe, Heidegger, metaphysics