Thinking through the Silk Road. Cross-Cultural Exchanges and Mobilities

This Connected Community proposes an innovative framework for the study of cultural productions, visual arts and performances, cultural heritage, and geocultural politics, emergent in the broad context of old and new Silk Roads. It will draw on the expertise of a strong team with regional and linguistic expertise covering South/Southeast Europe, Central and Southeast Asia, all with established collaborations across the academic networks and beyond.

The community aspires to produce new knowledge about the geocultural politics shaping identities, cultural and heritage policies and cultural diplomacy across South and Southeast Europe, Eurasia, and Southeast Asia today by bringing together findings and insights from theatre performance studies, history of art, critical heritage studies, cultural studies and international relations/geopolitics. Another aim is to identify the complex patterns of contestation, collaboration, and solidarities surrounding the engagement of non-Western powers such as Russia, India and Turkey with China in Southeast Europe/Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia by examining the complex and dynamic forces that entwine there to create new Silk Road imaginaries.

Planned activities:

• Autumn school for Postgraduate Students and Early Career Researchers (see Upcoming Events below),
• Workshops with the cultural sector and public organisations,
• Transnational Research funding bids,
• Podcast series with academics and external stakeholders.

Connected Community Activities

Upcoming Events

• Autumn School ‘Marco Polo and the Silk Road’ for Postgraduate Students and Early Career Researchers (Venice, 30 Sept-4 Oct 2024)

In 2024, the year marking the 700th anniversary of the death of one of the world’s great explorers, Marco Polo, the University of Warwick, in collaboration with NOVA University in Lisbon, the University of Ljubljana, the University of Arts in Belgrade, Jiao Tong University in Shanghai, Kazakh National Academy of Arts in Almaty, and Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, is inviting postgraduate students and early career researchers to an autumn school focused on the theme of Marco Polo and the Silk Roads.
Building on concepts and insights from theatre and performance studies, critical heritage studies, visual arts, history, cultural studies, and international relations and geopolitics, this autumn school calls for new research and approaches on how we should situate the mobilisation of the Silk Road imaginary historically and geopolitically within international affairs, and how the Silk Road is localised, interpreted, and contested within existing national and regional cultural contexts. Through talks, workshops, and demonstrations the participants will be exposed to a variety of disciplinary approaches and ways in which they could be combined to build a new critical framework to understand the Silk Road(s) performatively as a relational and intersectional critical concept and practice. 
Please see more details about the programme and how to apply HERE. The deadline for applications is September 2, 2024.

Past Events

Details coming soon.

How to get involved?

Students and educators: Please contact the Connected Community lead, Dr Milija Gluhovic (m.gluhovic@warwick.ac.uk) and the Warwick Local Facilitator, Dr Mélina Delmas (melina.delmas@warwick.ac.uk).

Connected Community Members

Lead: Milija Gluhovic (UW). Email: m.gluhovic@warwick.ac.uk

Milija Gluhovic is Reader and Head of Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Warwick, UK. His research is in the area of modern and contemporary theatre and performance with published work in the areas of memory studies and psychoanalysis; discourses of European identity, migrations and human rights; religion, secularity, and politics; and international performance research and pedagogy. His work has been published in Modern Drama, Performance Research, Studies in Theatre and Performance, and Research in Drama Education, New Polish Perspectives, and Teatron, among other journals. His books include A Theory for Theatre Studies: Memory (Bloomsbury, 2020), Performing European Memories: Trauma, Ethics, Politics (Palgrave, 2013) and co-edited volumes The Oxford Handbook of Politics and Performance (OUP, 2021), International Performance Research Pedagogies: The Unconditional Discipline? (Palgrave, 2018), Performing the Secular: Religion, Representation and Politics (Palgrave, 2017), and Performing the 'New' Europe: Identities, Feelings and Politics in the Eurovision Song Contest (Palgrave, 2013). Currently he leads a EUTOPIA Connected Community ‘Thinking through the Silk Road. Cross-Cultural Exchanges and Mobilities,’ an innovative framework for the study of cultural productions, visual arts and performances, cultural heritage, and geocultural politics, emergent in the broad context of old and new Silk Roads. He serves as an elected member of the IFTR Executive Committee and as a co-opted member of the EASTAP Executive Committee. He is also the Editor in Chief of Brill’s ‘Themes in Theatre’ book series and serves on the editorial board of the European Journal of Theatre and Performance.

Partner: Maria Cardeira da Silva (UNL). Email: m.cardeira@fcsh.unl.pt

Maria Cardeira da Silva, Professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of Universidade Nova de Lisboa and Senior Researcher at CRIA – Centre for Research in Anthropology, is an anthropologist interested in Arabic and Islamic contexts, Islam and gender, and in the Anthropology of Tourism and Heritage. She conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Morocco, Mauritania and Southern Portugal, and shorter incursions in Senegal, Brazil and Iran. She is also interested in Islamophobia and Islamophilia and public policies regarding Islam Europe. She has led several research projects on heritage and tourism regimes, cultural diplomacy and Portuguese "shared" heritage abroad. In addition to her publications, she recently devoted herself to ethno-museographic productions on Tourism, World Exhibitions and Military Education Institutions.  

Partner: Alexandra Curvelo (UNL). Email: alexandra.curvelo@fcsh.unl.pt

Alexandra Curvelo is a Full Professor of Art History at Universidade Nova de Lisboa. Her research delves into early modern Japan's visual and material culture during the Iberian presence and the processes of cultural transfers between Asia and the Americas in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. She has worked in several museums, and has curated or co-curated a total of 11 exhibitions, with two of them being held abroad. From 2018 to 2020, she was appointed Cultural Advisor for the Nanban Heritage of Amakusa. She has published and/or edited numerous books, including Interactions between Rivals: the Christian Mission and Buddhist Sects in Japan (c. 1549- c. 1647) (2021) and Nanban Folding Screens Masterpieces. Japan-Portugal XVIIth Century (2015), as well as book chapters, and scientific articles. She is a member of the Scientific Council of NOVA/FCSH, and the Director of the Art History Institute (IHA) at NOVA-FCSH since January 2023.

Partner: Natalija Majsova (UL). Email: natalija.majsova@fdv.uni-lj.si

Natalija Majsova is an associate professor at the Department of Cultural Studies, University of Ljubljana (Faculty of Social Sciences). She teaches courses on creative writing, collective memory, and theories of culture. Her research focusses on popular culture, (post)socialism studies, (tech)nostalgia and heritage interpretation. She regularly publishes in international and Slovenian academic journals, has authored two books about outer space, film, and utopias, and edited two volumes, including Faith in a Beam of Light: Magic Lantern and Belief in Western Europe, 1840-1960 (co-edited with Sabine Lenk, Brepols, 2022). Her book Memorable Futures: Soviet Science Fiction Cinema and the Space Age was published by Lexington Books in 2021. She is the co-editor of the Social Science Forum journal, and an occasional film critic and essayist. 

Partner: Aljoša Pužar (UL). Email: aljosa.puzar@fdv.uni-lj.si

Coming soon.