essay questions
Please answer any five questions from the list below using a short essay format. Your answers should be around 300-500 words and should ideally use materials from the Slides as well as ideas from the lecture and readings (no citation necessary).
1.What were some of the major causes of the break-up of Yugoslavia? (List and briefly explain at least three.) Which cause do you find most convincing and why?
2.What is cultural syncretism and how is it reflected in Balkan music and culture? In what ways has cultural syncretism been historically denied in this region and why?
3.How does punk challenge respectable and normative presentation of femininity and masculinity? What symbolic resources did early British and American punk use to challenge gender and sexual norms and forms of public presentation? Do you find similar strains of queer and feminist punk in 1980s Yugoslavia? Provide at least two examples from songs/music videos referenced in the readings or the slides.
4.What can album covers of Yugoslav punk and rock bands tell us about Yugoslav punk and its historical context? Provide at least two examples.
5.How did punk and rock bands engage or challenge issues of unified Yugoslav identity and authoritarian nature of the socialist state during the 1980s? Provide at least two examples from songs/music videos referenced in the readings or the slides.
6.With what sort of values/ideologies and communities was turbo-folk associated in 1990s Serbia? Is Eric Gordy in his article, The Destruction of Musical Alternatives, arguing that turbo-folk is inherently violent and backward? Why or why not?
7.How has turbo-folk transformed since the 1990s vis-a-vis representations of national identity and gender? Provide at least two examples from songs/music videos referenced in the readings or the slides.
8.What was the role of popular music in Croatia in the 1990s during the Yugoslav breakup and the Croatian War of Independence? How did Croatian popular music try to represent a unique Croatian cultural identity and what were some of the features of that identity?
