PoSIG Teacher Academy 2025: Historical Taboos & Integration

The PoSIG Teacher Academy 2025 will take place from 1 to 5 September 2025 in Gorizia, Italy.

For organisational details, please contact Giuliana Parotto GIULIANA.PAROTTO@dispes.units.it

Attenzione! Gorizia has been designated a European Capital of Culture for 2025. For more information on the activities planned as part of this initiative, please visit the official website.

Overview of the Teacher Academy Programme

Detailed Programme

Panel 1 – Competing Histories and Narratives in European Integration (Coordinator Adnan Huskic, Moderation Franz Kok)

• Marijana Markovikj,  Eleonora Serafimovska, Ganka Cvetanova, Milka Dimitrovska (University of Skopie): The Burden of the Past: Accession to the EU or Political Deadlock – The Northmacedonian Case (ONLINE)
• Klodiana Beshku (University of Tirana) : The Belgrade-Pristina EU sponsored dialogue as a tool for mitigating past ethnic conflicts
• Florian Çullhaj –  (European University of Tirana):  From Totalitarian Shadows to European Horizons: Reevaluating Albania’s Democratization Process
•  Anton Vukpalaj (moved from Panel 4, Pristina University): The Contradictions of EU Enlargement Policy: Normative Commitments vs. Geopolitical Realities in Serbia’s Revisionist Memory Politics

Panel 2 – Memory, Nationalism, and Historical Revisionism in Southeastern Europe (Coordinator and/or Moderator Maja Savic-Bojanic)

• Roman Karapetyan (Yerevan State University): The impact of territorial conflicts on the European integration path of former Soviet Republics: The case of Armenia
• Nikola Zečević  (University of Montenegro): Historical Revisionism in the Western Balkans: Implications for Regional Cooperation and European Integration
• Anjeza Xhaferaj (European University of Tirana): From Silence to Strategy? Confronting the Communist Past and the Dynamics of Integration
• Ruslan Baramidze (Batumi Shota Rustaveli State University): The Presidential Institute in the South Caucasus: From Election Speeches to Memory Wars  (ONLINE)

Panel 3 – Post-Communist Legacies and Institutional Reform (coordinator and/or Moderator Maja Savic-Bojanic)

• Harutyun Aleksanyan   (Yerevan State University):   Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflict Resolution and EU-Armenia Integration.
• Adnan Huskić  (Sarajevo School of Science and Technology): Mutually reinforcing dimensions of EU contestation and illiberal actors in BiH – Connecting domestic and international dimensions.
• Stefan Surlić  (University of Belgrade): Far from Memory, far from the State: The Unwanted Matrix Pill in Balkan Post-Conflict State-Building
•  Lasha Gogidze  (Georgian Institute of Public Affairs):  The Soviet/Russian Policies of ‘Divide and Rule’ in Georgia. Implications for Georgia’s EU Integration

Panel 4 – Transitional Justice, Civil Society, and Reconciliation Pathways (Coordinator Eugene Senesenig, Moderator Adnan Huskić )

• Azra Imamović ( Sarajevo School of Science and Technology): Exploring Presentation of Contested Spaces in Social Media and Blogs: Memorial Sites from the World War II and 1992-1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina 
• Veran Stančetić  (University of Belgrade): The EGTC Model of Cross-Border Cooperation as a Policy Instrument for Building Lasting Stability and Trust in the Western Balkans
• Aleksandar Kovačević – Local government as an actor in post-conflict stabilisation in the former Yugoslavia
• Ajna Jodanović  (Sarajevo School of Science and Technology): Institutional reforms for reconciliation: addressing War Crimes and Strengthening Legal Frameworks to Meet EU Accession Criteria in Bosnia and Herzegovina

• Public Panel – Hiking to Peace?  (Coordinator Eugene Sensenig/Moderator Franz Kok)

• Eugene Sensenig (Lebanese Emigration Research Center) – Intersectional-Bordering of Contaminated Landscapes: Thana-Tourism and History Hikes in the Middle East and Mitteleuropa
• Mirjam Karoly (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) – Troika of the Committee of the Genocide of the Roma) – Genocide of Roma and Sinti: Recognition and Education
• Marko Attila Hoare (University Sarajevo School of Science and Technology) – Srebrenica and beyond: Toward a holistic commemoration of the genocide and mass violence in Bosnia–Hercegovina of 1991-1996
• Marta Verginella (Department of History, University of Ljubljana) – For a transnational story. Violence and traumas in border memory
• Matthias Schreckeis and Jakob Thuswaldner (Verein für aktive Gedenk- und Erinnerungskultur)– The Alpine Peace Crossing: Potentials, Problems, Localization

Project 5 Lab (ONLINE) (Coordinator and/or Moderator Giuliana Parotto) – Participants:

• Saniya Nurdavletova – Ethnocultural and Language Policy of the European Union: Integration Experience
• Davor Trlin and Adem Olovčić – Challenges and criticisms of the normative and actual status of the legal framework for combating denialism in the Western Balkans
• Ashot Aleksanyan – The Geopolitical Role of Post-War Armenia in the European Integration of the South Caucasus: Crossroads of Peace vs. Managed Enmity
• Sarina Bakić – The Denial of the Srebrenica Genocide as Cultural Practice
• Sead Turčalo – Genocide Denial and the Struggle for Historiycal Truth: The Case of Srebrenica Genocide 30 Years On
• Osman Sušić –  Politics of Memory and Historical Revisionism in Post-Yugoslav Space