by Rafaël Newman
Every human generation has its own illusions with regard to civilization; some believe that they are taking part in its upsurge, others that they are witnesses of its extinction. In fact, it always both flames up and smoulders and is extinguished, according to the place and the angle of view. —Ivo Andrić (tr. Lovett F. Edwards)

I was accompanied through the last week of October by a succession of Bosnians: Adnan introduced me to Sarajevo; Emir and Senad took me through Eastern Bosnia; Ajla and Merima led me down the valley of the Neretva River to visit the dervish monastery at Blagaj and the reconstructed bridge at Mostar; and Ahmo, the stoical busman employed by Funky Tours, drove me three 12-hour days in a row through the multiethnic heartland of former Yugoslavia.
It was the time of year when I usually accompany my partner, Caroline Wiedmer, a professor of Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies at Franklin University Switzerland, and a group of students on Academic Travel, the extramural component of a semester-long course with an international theme. (I have written about past travels here, here, and here.) “CLCS 220: Inventing the Past,” a course in memory studies Caroline has offered many times since 2007, has typically focused on French, German, and Polish sites of Holocaust remembrance, an early specialty of hers; this year it was devoted to Sarajevo, as well as to other towns in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and to a study of the culture of memory there, nearly thirty years after the Dayton Agreement put an end to the violence and atrocities surrounding the independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Our daughter, Hella Wiedmer-Newman, was also along on the trip. Her work as a doctoral student in art history at the University of Basel focuses on art and memorialization in postwar ex-Yugoslavia, and this, together with her growing proficiency in the Bosnian language, made her an obvious choice to lead some of the on-site seminars in Sarajevo. Read more »