Miloš Jovanović
Miloš Jovanović
Assistant Professor
Email: jovanovic@history.ucla.edu
Office: 5286 Bunche Hall
Phone: 310-794-9646
Personal Website Curriculum VitaeBiography
I am a historian and urban studies scholar. My research interests include the Balkans, Ottoman and Habsburg Empires, capitalism, Marxist theory and history, and visual methods. I am interested in history as an emancipatory practice.
Book Project
My present book project, Cities of Dust and Mud, explores the post-Ottoman urban transformation of two Balkan capitals, Belgrade and Sofia. In many ways, this is monograph is about the social costs of urban change. To get a sense of the direction of my research, you might be interested in the papers I’ve published on the topic, which include “Taming the Tavern” (in Godišnjak za društvenu istoriju), “The City in Our Hands” (in Urban History), and “Bourgeois Worlds and Urban Nightmares” (in Urban Cultural Studies).
Ongoing Research
The role of imperial histories in the making of capitalist urban space is an ongoing fascination of mine. My next research project explores how historicity produces contemporary urban space in a number of cities formerly associated with the Habsburg Empire. Much of my work there was conducted under the auspices of the Empires of Memory Research Group at the Max Planck Institute in Göttingen. It has resulted in several publications, including “Whitewashed Empire” (in History & Anthropology), “Imperial Discomfort in post-Habsburg Tianjin” (in Sharpening the Haze) and, most recently, “Laudon’s Garden” (in History of the Present). I have also presented on the topic of imperial nostalgia in a number of venues. My primary interest is in the relationship between historicity, nostalgia, and the political economy of urban space.
Teaching
At UCLA, I’ve taught survey courses in the history of nineteenth-century Eastern Europe (HIST 120A) and modern European history (121F), as well as undergraduate seminars in modern urban history (187C) and the history of the East European city (191C). I’ve also taught a survey lecture on the history of Western Civilization (HIST 1C) and a graduate course on the global history of the Habsburg empire.
Note: If you do not have institutional access to any of my research output, please do not hesitate to reach out via e-mail.
Field of Study
Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Ottoman Empire, Habsburg Empire, Near East, Urban History, Visual Methods
Publications
“What’s off-centre of empire? Introduction to the special issue (co-authored with Giulia Carabelli)” Cultural Studies (2020), Vol. 34. Issue 5, pp. 675-687
“Laudon’s Garden: Habsburg Legacy and the Warped Space of Empire” History of the Present (2020) Vol. 10, Issue 1, pp. 28-45
“Introduction to the Special Section Empire Off-Center (co-authored with Giulia Carabelli)” History of the Present (2020) Vol. 10, Issue 1, pp. 5-8
Sharpening the Haze: Visual Essays on Imperial History and Memory, co-edited with Giulia Carabelli, Annika Kirbis and Jeremy F. Walton. London: Ubiquity Press, 2020.
“Whitewashed Empire: Historical Narrative and Place Marketing in Vienna” History & Anthropology (2019) Vol. 30, No . 4, pp. 460-476
“Bourgeois Worlds and Urban Nightmares: The post-Ottoman Balkan City through the Lens of Milutin Uskoković’s Newcomers” Urban Cultural Studies (2018) No. 5 Vol. 2, pp. 187-206
“The City in Our Hands: Urban Management and Contested Modernity in Nineteenth Century Belgrade” Urban History (2013) Vol. 40 No. 1 pp. 32-50
“Taming the Tavern: Social Space and Government Regulation in 19th Century Belgrade” Godišnjak za društvenu istoriju – Annual for Social History (2009) Year XVI Vol. 3 pp. 57-68
Collaborators
Empire Off-center
During my time at the MPI, the cultural sociologist Giulia Carabelli and I developed a strong working relationship, our shared research interests resulting in the concept of “empire off-center”. In 2020, we co-edited a special section in History of the Present and a special issue of Cultural Studies which collect a number of articles around the thematic and conceptual framework of “off-center”.
Visual Historical Methods
With a number of colleagues taking part in the Visual Methods reading group at the MPI, I’ve shared an interest in visual historical methods. The Open Access volume Sharpening the Haze: Visual Essays on Imperial History and Memory (co-edited with MPI colleagues Giulia Carabelli, Annika Kirbis and Jeremy F. Walton) is one attempt to bring this growing field in conversation with existing research on empire. At UCLA, I sometimes teach a course in Visual Historical Methods (HIST 97C).
Historical Documentary Film
Between 2018 and 2020, I wrote and produced the documentary feature film Waterfront: A post-Ottoman post-socialist story, co-directed with Miloš Miletić and Mirjana Radovanović (KURS). The film was largely collaborative effort between myself as a historian and KURS as visual artists and researchers. The film explores the juxtaposition of 19th and 21st century capitalism in the city of Belgrade and its waterfront, following two processes of dispossession.
Comparative Waterfronts Podcast
Between 2018 and 2021, I was fortunate to collaborate with Adriana Qubaiova, a scholar of gender and sexuality in West Asia (Middle East) on Comparative Waterfronts: Glass, Steel, and Capital in Beirut and Belgrade, a podcast series on gentrification and urban transformation in the two post-Ottoman cities. We were also joined by the urban studies and memory studies scholar Gruia Bădescu for the concluding episode. Parts of the series were recorded on-site in Belgrade’s Savamala before eradication of that neighborhood was complete and in Beirut’s Zeitouna Bay, before the catastrophic explosion that struck the city’s port in 2020.
