Leverhulme Visiting Professor Elena Marushiakova-Popova

Bernhard Struck
Wednesday 22 April 2015

We would like welcome our Leverhulme Visiting Professor Elena Marushiakova-Popova, who will be hosted by the School of History and the Institute for Transnational & Spatial History in 2014-15.

This is how Professor Marushiakova-Popova describes her research interests:

Professor Elena Marushiakova
Professor Elena Marushiakova

“I research a wide variety of topics from the history, ethnography, traditional and modern ethnic culture of the Roma (formerly known as ‘Gypsies’) in Central, Southeastern and Eastern Europe, and post-Soviet Central Asia and South Caucasus. On the other hand, I also probe into contemporary ethno-cultural and socio-political processes unfolding in Roma communities in the aforementioned areas, including their migrations to Western Europe. Such case studies feed into my broader work on ethnic processes, identity formation, the dynamics of national identity and transnational identities.

I have worked in the field of Romani Studies for more than three decades. Now I am President of the Gypsy Lore Society. This most important and oldest international scholarly organization devoted to Romani Studies. I am also founding and Scientific Committee member of the European Academic Network on Romani Studies, established by European Commission and Council of Europe. I am a member of the editorial boards of the international peer reviewed journals Romani Studies and Studia Romologica (Poland), and of the book series Grazer Romani Studien (University of Graz)and Nationalisms Across the Globe (Peter Lang).

During my Leverhulme Professorship I will strive to integrate the Roma history into the mainstream of European and global history, of which Roma have been an inalienable part since the Middle Ages. Simultaneously, I will work on my new research project ‘In Search of Utopia: Roma Visionaries (1865-1971).’ The project gathers and analyzes the written source-based history of Roma political visions of the future, as placed in broader intellectual framework of those times. With this research I will help including the history of Roma political ideas into the mainstream of the history of European thought.”

Throughout the academic year, Professor Marushiakova-Popova, will contribute to a number of research seminars and postgraduate teaching and supervision. Welcome, Elena.

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