Marie-Janine Calic will serve as a Guest Professor in China

Professor Dr Marie-Janine Calic, a Principal Investigator of the Graduate School in Munich, will be a guest professor at the Beijing Foreign Studies University in September 2019. In the local Balkan Studies program, she will pull from her rich expertise in the histories of and the present development in the Western Balkans. Beijing Foreign Studies University is one of the leading universities for foreign studies and diplomatic training in China. 

Dr Marie-Janine Calic is professor of East and Southeast European History at LMU Munich. Earlier she served as a political adviser to the Special Coordinator of the Stability Pact for Southeastern Europe in Brussels and for the UN Special Representative for the Former Yugoslavia in Zagreb. She also worked for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at The Hague, and the Conflict Prevention Network of the European Commission and Parliament in Brussels.

Calic has published and lectured extensively about the Balkans and is a regular commentator on Balkan affairs for the German media. Her main research areas include: Conflict history in Southeast Europe, Economic and social history of Southeast Europe (development research), Ethnic minorities and the national question in the Balkans, German and European Balkans policy, Conflict prevention and peace keeping, as well as Politics of remembrance and of dealing with the past.

Her recent book in English language The Great Cauldron: A History of Southeastern Europe, published with Harvard University Press, sweeps from antiquity to the present, which reveals its history to be a vibrant crossroads of trade, ideas and religions. Many people think of the Balkans as a region beset by turmoil and backwardness. But from late antiquity to the present it has been a dynamic meeting place of cultures and religions. Combining deep insight with narrative flair, "The Great Cauldron" invites us to reconsider the history of this intriguing, diverse region as essential to the story of global Europe. Marie Janine Calic's ambitious reappraisal expands and deepens our understanding of the ever-changing mixture of peoples, faiths, and civilizations in this much-neglected nexus of empire. The book was translated by Elizabeth Janik.