Thursday, November 3, 201612:00 PM - 1:30 PM
11372 Bunche Hall
This lecture has been cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances. We hope to reschedule the event for a future date.
In the last twenty years, Bosnia-Herzegovina has witnessed the creation of a metanarrative, or a grand story, about the Srebrenica genocide that took place there in July 1995. This metanarrative assumes a prominent role in Bosnia’s post-1995 “autobiography” for at least two reasons: 1) it gives particular meaning to the Bosnian war, and therefore, to the suffering of Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks) during this war, that acts against the existing genocide denial, and; 2) it highlights the failure of the Western powers and the United Nations to prevent the genocide, offering a “clear designation of responsibility” (Subotic 2013) and opening up a space for political actions on behalf of Bosniak political elite on both the national and international level. Affecting perceptions, renditions, and understandings of this event, the Srebrenica genocide metanarrative provides a schema to the way individual narratives are framed, but also criteria for their perception, causing all narratives that do not comply with this structure to become marginal, oppositional, or controversial. This talk traces the effects of the existing metanarrative on commemorative music dedicated to the Srebrenica genocide, arguing that a public acceptance and a status ascribed to particular pieces of commemorative music depend on whether or not they reinforce this metanarrative. In doing so, the talk superimposes the examples of two works, an oratorio “Srebrenički Inferno” and a one-act opera “Srebreničanke,” exploring the life and function of commemorative music in a post-genocide Bosnian context marked by competing narratives of the past.
Badema Pitic is a PhD Candidate in Ethnomusicology at UCLA. She is currently completing her dissertation that deals with the politics of memory, commemoration, ethno-religious nationalism and post-war nation-building in Bosnia and its diaspora, on the example of a commemorative repertoire of songs dedicated to the 1995 Srebrenica genocide. Her research has been supported by UCLA Center for European and Eurasian Studies, UCLA International Institute, and the Herb Alpert Foundation. She has published her work in a Croatian journal for ethnology and folklore research "Narodna umjetnost," and has recently contributed a chapter for the forthcoming volume Music and Cultural Memory in post-1989 Europe: Sounding Contested Past(s).
Cost : Free and open to the public. RSVP not required for admission.
Sponsor(s): Center for European and Russian Studies