Astrea Nikolovska

My academic journey was anything but a straight line. I embarked from the dramatic realm of theatre, traveled through the less explored field of cultural studies, and finally reached the (steady!?) waters of anthropology. My background in the arts profoundly influences my research. While I study memory politics, I am primarily interested in the processes of narrative construction and their performative aspects. My PhD thesis explored the official memory of the 1990s wars in Serbia and its affective dimensions, conveyed through various performative practices such as exhibitions, monuments, commemorations, theatre, and reenactments. In the MEMPOP project, I will examine how memory shapes political polarization in Serbia and enables populism. In my free time, I dream of having more free time and money to spend, reading novels by the sea, preferably on the west coast of Sicily.