The cycle of lectures of the Institute for Advanced Studies Balkanski-Panitza aims to present to the wide audience leading researchers from Bulgaria and abroad who work in various academic fields (humanitarian and social sciences, science, engineering). Among the lectors are distinct figures from the civil society, means of mass communication and business with respect to the education and science issues in Bulgaria. The lectures aim to bridge the different fields of the scientific knowledge and to contribute to the enrichment of the academic life in Bulgaria in accordance to the mission of the Institute.
What: Islam or Islamism: Bulgarian projections by Prof. Evgenia Ivanova
When: 23 April 2014, 19:00
Where: Sofia University Rectorate, lecture hall 224 (hall America for Bulgaria).
This lecture is an attempt to derive the image of the Islamic terrorist, sketched by West-European and American researchers, within Bulgarian reality:
- Are there conditions which benefit the development of extreme Islamic doctrines among Bulgarian Muslim groups?
- What would the motivation of Bulgarian muslims be to take part in extreme Islamic movements?
- Is there an “import” of Islamism in Bulgaria?
Evgenia Ivanova is a professor at New Bulgarian University and a doctor in Cultural Studies. Her academic interests are in the areas of Anthropology, Ethnic Policies, and Comparative Balkan Research. She is an author of three monographs, and many articles published in Bulgaria and abroad. She has working experience from the Scientific Institutes in Culture and Ethnography (1980-1989), which she was fired from due to participation in informal organizations. After 1990 she started publishing the magazine “Izbor” and its international supplement “East-East” (with chief editor Adam Michnik), which unifies intellectuals with liberal views from Central and Southeastern Europe. In the period 1996-2000 Prof. Ivanova is a president of the Executive Board of Institute for East-European Humanities, which deals with sociological and anthropological research in regions with religiously or ethnically mixed population. She has published three collections of short stories and two novels. The first one “Foto Stoyanovitch” (2008) was awarded the price “Novel of the Year” by Foundation “Vik”.
