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.

Connected Community Activities

Upcoming Events

Watch this space for upcoming activities.

Past 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, invited 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 called 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 were 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. 
Full programme available HERE.

How to get involved?

Students and educators: Please contact the Connected Community lead, Professor 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.

EU 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.  

EU 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.

EU 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. 

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

Aljoša Pužar is Professor of Cultural Studies and Urban Anthropology, at the Department of Cultural Studies, University of Ljubljana (Faculty of Social Sciences). He received his first doctorate in 2006 from University of Rijeka on the topic of cultural theory of liminality, and second in 2015 from Cardiff university on the topic in Korean gender and youth studies. He was a lecturer at the University of Trieste, University of Rijeka, and Berlin University of Arts. From 2006 to 2016, he taught cultural studies, cultural anthropology, cultural geography, women's studies, etc. at South Korean universities (Yonsei, HUFS), and, since 2017, at the University of Ljubljana. He has published six books and other publications regarding minority cultures, border studies, cross-cultural literary history, transitional cultural policy, comparative gender studies, feminist ethnographies, youth studies, Korean studies, popular culture, and the theoretical inquiry into and conceptual modeling of liminal phenomena. He also publishes literary essays, short stories, and poetry. He is presently a Vice-chair of Association for Cultural Studies (global cultural studies association).

External Partner: Milena Dragićević Šešić (University of Arts in Belgrade)

Dr. Milena Dragićević Šešić is a professor emerita, former President of the University of Arts, Belgrade, the founder of the UNESCO Chair in Interculturalism, Art Management and Mediation, and a professor of Cultural Policy & Cultural Management. She has been a member of the National Council for Science (2006-2010), the Head of Cultural Policy Research Award (ECF, Amsterdam); University of Arts Laureate 2004, 2019; Commandeur dans L’Ordre des Palmes Académiques 2002; ENCATC Fellowship Laureate 2019; Doctor Honoris Causa University of Montpellier 2023. Milena is an expert in cultural policy and management and has published extensively on art and culture management, intercultural mediation, and cultural diplomacy, including the titles Art management in turbulent times: adaptable quality management; Culture: management, animation, marketing, and Art & Culture of Dissent. She has been a guest lecturer at numerous world universities and is an editorial board member of several academic and cultural journals.

External Partner: Kabyl Khalykov (Temirbek Zhurgenov Kazakh National Academy of Arts)

Professor Kabyl Khalykov is the Head of the Scenography Department and Vice-Rector for Research at Temirbek Zhurgenov Kazakh National Academy of Arts. He has published extensively on issues of national culture and contemporary art, and on issues of religion, philosophy of art and philosophical anthropology. In 2016, he founded the peer-reviewed journal T.K. Zhurgenov KazNAA "Central Asian Journal of Art Studies", which integrates Kazakh scientists into the European research area. He has been awarded prizes at several theatre festival for plays such as "Artist and beauty", "Lightning in paradise", and "Tansylu". Since 2019, he is a full member of the CONCORD International Academy for the development and implementation of the international projects “Kazakh Fairytales” and “Attila and Aetius” in Paris, France.

External Partner: Ameet Parameswaran (Jawaharlal Nehru University)

Dr. Ameet Parameswaran is currently Assistant Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, and was an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow (2022-23). His main areas of interest are political theatre and performance, neoliberalism and performance, region studies, theatrical/performance exchanges, and performance theory. He has published in journals including Performance Research, TDR: The Drama Review, Theatre Research International, Studies in Theatre and Performance. His publications include the monograph, Performance and the Political: Power and Pleasure in Contemporary Kerala (Orient Blackswan, 2017), and the special issue ‘Worksites of the Left’ co-edited with Silvija Jestrovic for the journal Studies in Theatre and Performance, Cambridge, 2019.