Retracing images : visual culture after Yugoslavia / edited by Daniel Šuber and Slobodan Karamanić.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

The essays in this collection explore cultural and political dynamics both before and in the wake of Yugoslavia{u2019}s destruction by analysing visual data such as film, art, graffiti, street-art, public advertisements and memorials. Although such materials have rarely been considered significant empirical evidence within Balkan Studies, the contributions in this volume offer insights into such phenomena as {u2018}Titostalgia{u2019}, nationalist mobilisation, nation-branding, the rewriting of history, inventing of traditions, and symbolic violence that have surfaced in recent years. Nebojša Jovanovic ́argues against post-Yugoslav tendencies to appropriate or rather {u2018}nationalise{u2019} the Yugoslav film-makers and thus eradicate the notion of {u2018}Yugoslav cinema{u2019} entirely. By reassessing the controversial case of Kusturica, he goes about the task of 2re-inventing the legacy of socialist Yugoslav cinema3 against ideologically-motivated misconceptions. Against the widespread picture of the pre-Underground Kusturica as a vanguard in critically displaying the purportedly {u2018}totalitarian{u2019} character of socialist Yugoslavia, Jovanovic ́shows how Kusturica{u2019}s early filmic universe cannot be interpreted through dichotomist lenses such as private vs. public, individual vs. state or Party vs. family.