Public Seminar 'Commodifying the Past: Commercial Nationalism and Nostalgia'

Tuesday 15 September 2009, 1:00-2:00pm
at Room 212, Level 2, 234 Queensberry Street, The University of Melbourne

presented by

Dr Zala Volčič

(Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies, University of Queensland)

Download audio mp3 (11MB)

Abstract

This presentation takes as its core concern the ways in which the media and other cultural practices are presently being mobilized in former Yugoslav communities in an attempt to re-create a shared cultural memory. Discourses of nostalgia for the former Yugoslavia circulate in a variety of media texts and practices. I will first map different nostalgic practices in former Yugoslavia, while exploring layers of Yugoslav nostalgia that have produced various and diverse media events, new spaces, identities, memories, material products, and complex mediated representations, such as, for example, the Josip Broz Tito memorial webpage (titoville.com) in Slovenia, and the creation of a ‘new, old’ country called Yugoslav Yugoland in Subotica, Serbia.

Next I will analyze a reality show (2007) “To Sam Ja”, which is a Big Brother-style reality show produced after the Yugoslav wars in Macedonia. It featured several cast members from former Yugoslav republics living together in a house in Skopje, while being involved in a variety of challenges. The show’s producer describes it as an attempt to foster peace and harmony in a region still recovering from the 1990s wars. The recurring message of the show’s producers is that underneath their disparate histories, there is common ground between members of formerly hostile groups: they are unified by the desire to join EU and enjoy the benefits of the new consumerism: to party and purchase, and leave behind the age-old hatreds of the former Yugoslavia. At the same time, the show served as a catalyst and trigger for nationalist sentiments centered around reaffirming individual nation-states at the expense of pan-Slavic / pan-Balkan solidarity. I invoke the term “commercial nationalism” to designate transformations in the ideological forms which enable the reproduction of a concept of nation. Specifically, commercial nationalism refers to the way in which nationalist appeals migrate from the realm of political propaganda to commercial appeal: that is, the appeal to nationalism as a means of increasing ratings, popularity, and sales.

Biography

Zala Volčič is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. She is interested in the cultural consequences of nationalism, capitalism, and globalization, with a particular emphasis on international communication, media and cultural identities. Her research seeks to connect media with work in journalism, media studies, cultural geography and nationalism studies. She has published numerous books and articles, including “Yugo-nostalgia: Cultural Memory and Media in the former Yugoslavia” in Critical Studies of Mass Communication (2007) and “Former Yugoslavia on the World Wide Web: Commercialization and Branding of Nation-states” in the International Communication Journal, Gazette (2008).

List of publications by Zala Volčič

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