Bojan Bilić, Visiting Fellowship 2024/25

Biography

Bojan Bilić is a political sociologist researching a range of grassroots responses to nationalism, patriarchy, and authoritarianism in Yugoslavia and the post-Yugoslav space. He has written on the history and politics of Yugoslav feminism, anti-war activism, LGBTQ engagement, the anthropology of non-heterosexuality and gender variance, LGBTQ-affirmative psychotherapy, and initiatives aimed at democratizing psychiatry. He was a Lise Meitner Fellow at the Research Unit Gender Studies, University of Vienna; an adjunct professor of Gender and Social Movements in South East Europe at the School of Political Sciences, University of Bologna; and a visiting lecturer at the Universities of Sarajevo and Graz.

Visiting Fellowship May 2025

Motivation

My current research focuses on the early stages of democratic psychiatry activism in Yugoslavia, with particular attention to two groups operating in Slovenia and Serbia towards the end of the 1970s and throughout the 1980s. Due to its proximity to Italy, the deinstitutionalization movement in Slovenia developed earlier and more extensively than in any other (post-)Yugoslav republic. Despite the differing political systems of Italy and Yugoslavia in the 1970s, the border between them was permeable, allowing for dynamic economic and cultural exchange. In the 1980s, a circle of Ljubljana-based scholar-activists dedicated to deinstitutionalization held meetings with Italian psychiatrists, engaged in user advocacy, organized support groups, camps, and public events, and even established the so-called Committee for the Social Protection of Madness which, later on, evolved into the first mental health-related non-governmental organization in the post-Yugoslav space. During my stay, I will explore the connections between the Ljubljana group, the university, and the League of Socialists by conducting interviews with key movement figures, collecting documentary material, and, more broadly, discussing my project with colleagues at the Institute.

Selected publications

Bilić, B., Nord, I., & Milanović, A. (Eds.). (2022). Transgender in the Post-Yugoslav Space: Lives, Activisms, Culture. Policy Press, an imprint of the Bristol University Press.

Bilić, B. (2020). Trauma, Violence, and Lesbian Agency in Croatia and Serbia: Building Better Times. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Bilić, B., & Radoman, M. (Eds.). (2019). Sisterhood and Unity: Lesbian Activism in the (Post-)Yugoslav Space. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Bilić, B. (Ed.). (2016). LGBT Activism and Europeanisation in the (Post-)Yugoslav Space: On the Rainbow Way to Europe. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Bilić, B., & Kajinić, S. (Eds.). (2016). Intersectionality and LGBT Activist Politics: Multiple Others in Serbia and Croatia. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Bilić, B., & Janković, V. (Eds.) (2012). Resisting the Evil: [Post-]Yugoslav Anti-War Contention. Baden Baden: Nomos.

Bilić, B. (2012). We Were Gasping for Air: (Post-)Yugoslav Anti-War Activism and Its Legacy. Baden Baden: Nomos.

Bilić, B. (2008). Serbia’s Unfinished Revolution: What has Really Changed After October 5th? Saarbrücken: VDM Verlag.