28–30 September 2026
From 28 to 30 September 2026, the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research hosted the international scientific and artistic conference „Affective Regimes of Normality and Discomfort“, organized by the research group Normality and Discomfort (NORMANEL). More than 50 speakers participated in the conference panels.
The keynote lectures were delivered by Boris Buden (“Wars Are Normal, Robots Are Uncanny and We Are Getting Lost”), Heike Karge (“Charming Schizophrenia or How to Conceptualize Trauma in Eastern Europe”), Maja Šeparović-Lisak (“Perfectionism – Characteristics and Impact in Contemporary Society”), and Miranda Levanat-Peričić (“Discomfort Around Rats: Grin, Grass and King”).
The conference was accompanied by exhibitions featuring works by Milijana Babić (the artist books and calendar „AferParty – Conversations About Menopause and Ageing“), Gloria Lizde (the photographic series „I Swallowed My Dream“), and Nadija Mustapić (the audiovisual installation „Superheroines“).
In addition to the Zagreb´s Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research, the conference was organized by the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb and the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at the University of Udine (Italy).
The full conference programme and abstracts of the presentations can be viewed here: https://www.ief.hr/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Afektivni-rezimi_knjizica_ZA-WEB.pdf
June 13-16, 2026
ISFNR 2026 CONFERENCE IN ICELAND
From June 13 to 16, 2026, four of our associates participated in the ISFNR 2026 conference “Nature(s) in Narrative”, held at Reykjavik University in Iceland, which gathered around 600 participants in person and online.
Renata Jambrešić Kirin co-organized a panel in collaboration with our project NORMANEL, “The Normal ‘and’ the Natural’ in a Catastrophic World” (two sessions with eight participants), within which she also gave a presentation. Among the presenters on the panel was our colleague Ivana Katarinčić. Nataša Polgar co-organized the panel “Regenerative Narratives: (Eco)feminist Entanglements with Nature” (two sessions with eight participants), within which she also gave a presentation. Jelena Marković gave a presentation in the panel “Listening for (Un)natural Contexts in Audio Recordings of Folk Narratives”.
The full program with the titles of all presentations is available here: https://nomadit.co.uk/conference/isfnr2026#17189
May 11-15, 2026
From May 11 to 15, the 19th postgraduate seminar Feminisms in a Transnational Perspective was held at the Inter-University Centre in Dubrovnik, this year entitled “Why not Witches. Feminist Knowledge in Dark Times”, bringing together in synergy 23 female participants and 1 male participant from 9 countries, including India, Brazil and Colombia. Biljana Kašić and Renata Jambrešić Kirin were the coordinators.
The seminar was marked by excellent presentations by doctoral students, a workshop by Merima Omeragić from Sarajevo, a reading club led by Mirela Dakić Kučeković, and three powerful keynote lectures: by Nadie Jones-Gailani from CEU in Vienna, Nikita Dhawan (Technical University of Dresden) and María do Mar Castro Varela (Alice Salomon University, Berlin), and Nataša Polgar, a member of the NORMANEL project. Nataša’s theoretically grounded keynote lecture (The Witch as Symptom) rounded off the seminar in the best possible way.
As part of the seminar, a visit was also organized to the women’s NGO Deša, where Martina Findrik from the Centre for Women’s Studies gave a performative lecture “Narratio incantatrix”.
The program and booklet of the seminar are available at: https://iuc.hr/programme/2068
April 20-22, 2026
As part of the lecture series “Requiem: On Death in Science and Art” held from April 20 to 22, 2026, at the Academy of Music in Zagreb, Ivana Katarinčić gave a lecture on April 20 entitled “The Ambivalence of the Death Motif in the Romantic Ballet Giselle”.
April 13 – May 13, 2026
Our associate Natka Badurina organized the exhibition “Poster per la Pace” in Udine from April 13 to May 13. The exhibition presents posters that capture the ways and strategies of anti-war and anti-militarist organizing during the wars of the 1990s in the territory of the former Yugoslavia.
April 1-2, 2026
Our associate Nina Čolović participated in Dubrovnik from April 1 to 2, 2026, in the conference of the Faculty of Law of the University of Zagreb, “Future of Women’s Rights: Marking the Anniversaries of CEDAW and Istanbul Convention”. She gave a presentation entitled “Meaning and Limits of Emancipation: The Critique of the Theory Built on Anti-Gender Movements”, in which she elaborated on the ways in which gender is constructed and consolidated in attempts to resist conservative pressures on women and the queer context.
The conference program can be found at this link: https://www.pravo.unizg.hr/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Future_WR_Conference_Program.pdf
March 27, 2026
Our associate Una Bauer spoke with Branimir Lazarin for Novosti about her monograph “Emotions and Performing Arts: Fear, Mourning, Anger” (Durieux, 2025). The book re-examines the boundaries of traditional theatre, reflecting on the power of affect in structuring performance and the relationship between performance and its audience.
You can read the interview here: https://www.portalnovosti.com/una-bauer-nema-strucnjaka-za-emocije-u-iskustvenom-smislu/
March 26, 2026
The promotion of the edited volume “On Stories and Storytelling 2.0”, edited by our colleagues Jelena Marković, Ljiljana Marks and Nataša Polgar, was held on March 26 at Booksa. Delving into the possibilities and power of narration, the volume sparked a discussion on contemporary folkloristic interpretations and methods.
February 18, 2026
Our colleagues Renata Jambrešić Kirin and Natka Badurina spoke on February 18, 2026, on HRT’s ART program about Renata’s new book of micro-essays “Playing Until the End of Time” (Ljevak, 2026). Her stories capture the sounds and rhythms of everyday life, from the poetic notes of Patti Smith to the burden of silence in Virginia Woolf’s own room. Renata also spoke about the book for Jutarnji list: Jutarnji list – ‘AI-generated voices enable manipulation whose consequences we cannot imagine. It is frightening what they are doing’
In the journal Prosvjeta, No. 190, an interview by Nina Čolović with Renata Jambrešić Kirin, Monika Herceg and Anamaria Franchesci was published, in which they discussed research and poetic insights into the possibilities of (re)vitalizing Banija. The interview was held on the occasion of the publication of the edited volume “Potreseni: znanstvenohumanistički i umjetnički dosezi potresa na Baniji” [Shaken: The Humanities and Artistic Reach of the Earthquake in Banija].
February 6, 2026
On Friday, February 6, 2026, a meeting of the Normality and Discomfort project was held at the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research, joined by associates from the Academy of Dramatic Art and the University of Udine. The central topic of the meeting was planning the project conference for autumn 2026.
December 17, 2025
On the occasion of the publication of the edited volume Potreseni, Renata Jambrešić Kirin was a guest on the show ART, Third Program of HRT, on December 17, 2025. Interview conducted by: Anja Cerar, editor Nataša Vukas Stanojkovski.
The show is available at:https://repozitorij.dief.eu/a/?pr=i&id=179138
On the occasion of the edited volume Potreseni and the book of essays Svirati do kraja vremena (Ljevak, 2025), Renata was a guest on the show Signatura on the Third Program of Croatian Radio on January 27, 2026. The interview was conducted by Romana Perečinec. Editor of the show: Lidija Lacko Vidulić.
https://radio.hrt.hr/slusaonica/signatura?epizoda=202601270900
December 20, 2025
In the Gradska Munjara gallery in Petrinja, on December 20, the third panel discussion was held on the occasion of the publication of the edited volume SHAKEN: Scholarly-Humanistic and Artistic Reach of the Banija Earthquake (IEF, 2025). Guests of the panel were: Tamara Banjeglav, Anamaria Franceschi, Martina Grbeša, Sanja Lončar and Irena Miholić, and artists Jagoda Kljaić, Miroslav Kirin and Vid Bešlić, and the conversation was moderated by Jelena Marković and Renata Jambrešić Kirin. A special exhibition of artworks was organized by Martina Mladenović from the Cultural and Historical Center of Sisak-Moslavina County.
December 4, 2025
On Thursday, December 4, from 18:00 to 20:00, a panel discussion was held at the Vlado Gotovac Public Library in Sisak on the occasion of the publication of the edited volume Shaken: Scholarly-Humanistic and Artistic Reach of the Banija Earthquake. Participants in the panel were: Anamaria Franceschi, Vladimir Čavrak, Nebojša Borojević, Sanja Lončar and Martina Grbeša, and it was moderated by Renata Jambrešić Kirin and Jelena Marković. Around 25 visitors gathered in the library, who joined the discussion in the last 15 minutes. The speakers, each from their own research position or artistic engagement, spoke about the earthquake as a social, not just a natural disaster, and about possible development policies (revitalization, re-socialization, innovation).
December 2, 2025
On Tuesday, December 2, the edited volume SHAKEN: Scholarly-Humanistic and Artistic Reach of the Banija Earthquake (eds. Renata J. Kirin, Jelena Marković and Ines Prica) was presented in the IEF library in the form of a conversation. Participants included: Ildiko Erdei, Anamaria Franceschi, Mirna Tkalčić Simetić and Tamara Banjeglav, and the conversation was moderated by Jelena Marković and Renata Jambrešić Kirin.
Event announcement:
https://www.ief.hr/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/potreseni_razgovor.pdf
Event review: https://www.portalnovosti.com/banija-se-ne-opisuje-nego-slusa/
November 27, 2025
Nataša Polgar was on a study visit at the University of Edinburgh from November 24 to 28, 2025 and on November 27 gave a lecture at the invitation of Prof. Dr. Louise Milne entitled “Fantastic beings in a madhouse: patients’ narratives and psychiatric discourse”. The lecture was organized by the Temporality research cluster (University of Edinburgh) and the Traditional Cosmology Society, and was held in the Chrystal Macmillan Building at the University.
More about the lecture at
November 6 and 7, 2025
Una Bauer and Ivana Katarinčić participated with their presentations on November 6 and 7, 2025 at the international interdisciplinary scientific conference at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of the University of Mostar. The conference on the theme Perception of Death in the New Millennium: From Poetic Abstraction to Media Attraction was organized in honor of the 100th anniversary of the death of poet Antun Branko Šimić.
More about the conference at:
November 10-13, 2025
An expert seminar “Minority Schooling Systems, Turkish Minority Education in Greece, Minority History Teaching” was held in Komotini and Xanthi (Greece) from November 10 to 13, 2025, organized by the Working Group on Education of the Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN). Nina Čolović participated as an invited lecturer with the presentation “Language and Culture in the Reproduction of Nationhood in Croatia”.
November 4, 2025
In collaboration with Mihaela Blagaić Kišiček, the NORMANEL project organized an IEF forum “Politics of Visibility and the Discomforts of Comparison: Images and Protests in Croatia and Serbia” featuring EWA WRÓBLEWSKA-TROCHIMIUK, associate of the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences. The forum was moderated by Renata Jambrešić Kirin.
Invitation to the forum:
https://www.ief.hr/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/tribina-EWA.pdf
October 24, 2025
Project associate Natka Badurina gave an invited lecture “Cultural Memory Studies in the Border Area of the Northern Adriatic” at the Conference on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Croatian Philological Society “Philological Heritage and Contemporaneity”, which took place at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb from October 23 to 25, 2025.
Conference program:
November 21-23, 2025
The Sixth International Marxist-Feminist Conference “Decolonising Bodies, Territories, and Practices” was held in Porto from November 21 to 23, 2025, organized by the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, Transform!Europe, the association Cooperativa Cultura Trabalho e Socialismo and the foundations Naprzód and Iratzar. The conference thematized social reproduction in (post)colonial contexts, migrant care work, anti-militarism and decolonial practices in knowledge production. A special focus of the conference was on occupation, genocide and forms of control of everyday life in Palestine, as well as forms of resistance within and outside it. Our associate Nina Čolović participated in the conference.
More about the conference at:
Conference program:
October 22, 2025
The edited volume SHAKEN: Scholarly-Humanistic and Artistic Reach of the Banija Earthquake has been published. The book was edited by Renata Jambrešić Kirin, Jelena Marković and Ines Prica, and the authors of the international reviews are Ildiko Erdei and Mojca Ramšak. The first section (Banija as Metaphor and Metonymy) brings ten scholarly papers along with a foreword by the editors, and the second (Archipelago Banija) dialogic reflections and a selection of literary texts by six artists. The book ends with an afterword and short biographies of all contributors. This form of hybrid publication is atypical and rare in the Croatian humanities field, and the editors opted for it convinced that only through a coupling of scholarly-research and artistic-poetic approaches can the multiplicity of experiences, impacts and reaches of the natural disaster be grasped on the lives of citizens who found themselves on December 28 and 29, 2020 in Petrinja, Glina and numerous other settlements in Sisak-Moslavina County.
More about the book:
https://www.ief.hr/izdavastvo/nova-etnografija/
21. 9. 2025.
Suradnica projekta Natka Badurina sudjelovala je na tribini u okviru festivala KaP (Korčula After Party, 19.-21. 9.2025). Tribina je bila posvećena 80. godišnjici pobjede nad fašizmom i odnosu prema antifašizmu u Hrvatskoj. Ostali sudionici tribine bili su: Hrvoje Klasić, Nebojša Blanuša, Igor Bezinović uz moderaciju Dragana Markovine
Više o događaju:
September 4, 2025
Project leader Renata Jambrešić Kirin held a workshop within the exhibition by Andreja Kulunčić “Making the World a Better Place” (MSU, 15.05.2025 – 12.10.2025) entitled “The Discomfort of Forgetting Female Political Prisoners and Memory Activism”. The workshop was dedicated to the topic of trauma – the trauma of female prisoners of the camps on Goli Otok and Sveti Grgur between 1950 and 1956 – and brought closer to those present the circumstances, reasons and consequences of punishing women in these camps. Jambrešić Kirin, along with Dubravka Stijačić, was a close collaborator of the artist on the part of the exhibition dedicated to this topic.
More about the event:
https://documenta.hr/novosti/radionica-politicke-zatvorenice-i-memorijski-aktivizam/
June 3-6, 2025
Project associates Jelena Marković and Nataša Polgar participated in the 17th International Congress of the International Society for Ethnology and Folklore held at the Elphinstone Institute for Ethnology, Folklore, and Ethnomusicology in Aberdeen, Scotland from June 3 to 6. The main theme of SIEF2025 was Unwriting. Jelena Marković gave a presentation “Language of loss in transgenerational perspective: transformation of empty slots, and silences of a life”, and Nataša Polgar “Whose story is worth telling? Unwriting life narratives”.
Congress program:
https://www.siefhome.org/congresses/sief2025/programme#timetable
May 21-23, 2025
Four project associates – Renata Jambrešić Kirin, Jelena Marković, Nina Čolović and Ivana Katarinčić – participated in the Annual Conference of the Croatian Ethnological Society (HED) “The Burden” of the Field: Experiences and Skills in Zones of Ethnographic Knowledge at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zadar from May 21 to 23.
Abstracts of all presentations can be found in the program booklet at the link:
May 12-16, 2025
Renata Jambrešić Kirin co-organized, on behalf of the IEF, the 18th postgraduate seminar Feminisms in a Transnational Perspective: The Otherwise of History (IUC, Dubrovnik, May 12-16, 2025). The seminar brought together around 30 participants from European countries, South America and the Middle East. The topics of the seminar were:
the discomforts of feminist interpretation of historical experience for understanding contemporary society, silenced and suppressed history, non/historicity from a decolonial perspective, critique of Western-centric histories (of literature, art, society).
The seminar program booklet at the link:
May 6, 2025
Our associate Nataša Polgar gave a lecture “Does Madness Have a Gender? Femina narrans in Stenjevec” at the literary club Booksa as part of the presentation of the artistic research booklet I Swallowed My Dream by Gloria Lizde, created in collaboration with the Miroslav Kraljević Gallery. The presentation was based on the results of many years of research intensified within the NORMANEL project. Short presentations were also given by artist Gloria Lizde and Petar Vranjković, co-editor and graphic designer of the booklet.
More about the event:
April 25, 2025
Project associate Jelena Marković gave a lecture “Silence as an Integral Part of Communication about Difficult (Post-)War Experience, Loss and Trauma” at the Memorial Center “Lipa Remembers” on the occasion of the 81st commemoration “Lipa Remembers”.
More about the event:
https://www.novilist.hr/…/lipa-pamti-najavljen…/
https://poduckun.net/novosti/video-najavljen-program-uoci-81-komemoracije-lipa-pamti
26. 3. 2025.
Voditeljica projekta Renata Jambrešić Kirin gostovala je u Puli u čitateljskom kružoku Kluba-knjižare Giardini 2. U fokusu je bio roman Canzone di guerra: nove davorije (1998) Daše Drndić (1946−2018), a raspravljalo se o akutnim strahovima, kulturnim nelagodama, prekarnim uvjetima rada, odnosu prema migrantima, drugima i drugačijima, kao i prijetnji ksenofobije u društvu koje od iseljeničkog sve više postaje useljeničko.
Više o događaju: https://kulturistra.hr/…/odrzan-citateljski-kruzok…/
April 22, 2025
In collaboration with Mihaela Blagaić Kišiček, the NORMANEL project organized the IEF forum “The Labour of the Field, the Multi-Ethnography of the Village” with guest artist, documentary filmmaker and social entrepreneur Andrew Norris. The forum was moderated by Renata Jambrešić Kirin.
Invitation to the forum:
https://www.ief.hr/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Tribina-Norris.pdf
March 25, 2025
In collaboration with Mihaela Blagaić Kišiček, the NORMANEL project organized an IEF forum “Scientific Identity and the Role of Science – Erosion of Identity in an Age of Social Crises” with participants Marija Brajdić Vuković and Ana Maskalan from the Institute for Social Research and Anita Dremel from the University of Osijek. The forum was moderated by Renata Jambrešić Kirin.
Invitation to the forum:: https://www.ief.hr/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Tribina-Znanstvenicki-identitet.pdf
March 21, 2025
At the literary club Booksa, the second book by project associate Jelena Marković, Šutnje straha [Silences of Fear], was presented. The speakers about the book were Natka Badurina, Una Bauer, Tanja Bukovčan, Renata Jambrešić Kirin and the author herself.
February 25, 2025
Project associate Nina Čolović participated in Florence in the scholarly seminar “On (M)other Tongues and (M)othered Tongues”, at the invitation of the Department of Literature and Philosophy of the University of Florence. There she gave a lecture entitled “Speech as Labour and Standardization as a Mechanism of Linguistic Regimes of Capitalist Nation-States”. The seminar was attended by colleagues from Italy, Germany and Switzerland, who, drawing on diverse speech materials, considered the possibilities of building other forms of political and social labour and the politicization of speech practices within it.
Više o događaju: https://philevents.org/event/show/131950
24. 2. 2025.
Voditeljica projekta Renata Jambrešić Kirin sudjelovala je online vezom na Međunarodnoj konferenciji „Rod i mir na Balkanu: trasiranje puta naprijed“ (Sarajevo, 24. – 27. 2. 2025). Zajedno s Vesnom Janković, prvog dana konferencije, održale su zajedničko izlaganje „Nelagodno nasljedstvo antiratnih politika: hrvatske feministkinje 1990-ih i danas“. Konferencija je okupila više od 40 sudionica/ka, a fokus je bio na prijetećim militarnim i konzervativnim geopolitikama te strategijama militarizacije koje ugrožavaju teško stečena rodna prava, slobode i održavanje krhkog mira u regiji,
a koje prijete i svjetskom poretku.
Program konferencije nalazi se na poveznici:
January 30 – February 2, 2025
The project Normality and Discomfort (NORMANEL) was, on behalf of the IEF, one of the co-organizers of the international transdisciplinary conference DO WE EVEN KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON? Performance in Higher Education and Beyond: Rethinking Norms (ADU, Frankopanska 22, Zagreb) from January 30 to February 2, 2025.
More about the conference program and participants:
https://konferencija.adu.hr/?page_id=142
https://www.instagram.com/doweevenknowwhatisgoingon/
