Aleksandar Boskovic, Lecturer in Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian

Aleksandar Boskovic, Lecturer in Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian

Aleksandar Bošković is Lecturer in Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian at the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures. He received his Ph.D. in Slavic Studies from the University of Michigan (2013) and M.A. in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory from the University of Belgrade (2007). Before coming to the States, he was a research fellow at the Institute of Literature and Art in Belgrade (2003-2008), where he worked on the project of Serbian literature of the XX century. He is the recipient of several grants and fellowships, including Collegium de Lyon Fellowship (2019-2020) and Michael I. Sovern/Columbia Affiliated Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome (2023-24). His research has been supported by the Harriman Institute.

Bošković is a scholar of Russian and East European modernism, Yugoslav, post-Yugoslav and Balkan Studies, with a strong background in comparative literature, critical theory, and visual studies. He specializes in avant-garde literature and experimental art practices explored through the lenses of comparative media. He is currently working on a project entitled Nothing (:) Made in Yugoslavia, which investigates the relationship between negation practices across different arts and media in the former Yugoslavia—literature, film, visual arts, radio—and the notion of artistic value. He is also completing a book manuscript entitled Constructivist Cinépoetry Book, which explores the notion of cine-dispositive in relation to the early Soviet agit-poetry books illustrated by photomontage.

Selected Publications

Authored Book

2008: Pesnički Humor u delu Vaska Pope [The Poetic Humor in Vasko Popa’s œuvre], Belgrade: Institut za književnost i umetnost, 280pp. 

Edited Books

2023:  Zenithism (1921-1927): A Yugoslav Avant-Garde Anthology, co-edited with Steven Teref (Boston: Academic Studies Press)

2022:  The Fine Feats of 'The Five Cockerels' Gang: A Yugoslav Marxist-Surrealist Epic Poem for Children, translated and co-edited with Ainsley E. Morse (Leiden: Brill) 

Journal articles

2021:  Underground Šišmiš Radio, SEEJ, vol. 65, no. 2 (Summer 2021): 247–271.

2019: “Thinking Film: Cinefied Materiality in Slobodan Šijan’s Fanzine Film Leaflet (1976-1979)” Fiction in Central and Eastern European Film Theory and Practice (ed. by J. Alexander Bareis and Mario Slugan). Special Issue of Apparatus. Film, Media and Digital Cultures in Central and Eastern Europe 8. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17892/app.2019.0008.153

2017: Revolution, Production, Representation: Iurii Rozhkov's Photomontages to Maiakovskii's Poem "To the Workers of Kursk"Slavic Review, Vol. 76, No 2 (Summer): 395-427.

2016: The Avant-Garde PhotopoetryKnjiževna istorija, XLVIII, No 158: 287-310.

2014: The Arrest of Ratko Mladić Online: Tracing Memory Models across Digital Genres, with Marijeta Božović and Bogdan Trifunović, Digital Icons: Studies in Russian, Eurasian and Central European New Media, No 12: 77-104.

2013: Yugonostalgia and Yugoslav Cultural Memory: Lexicon of Yu MythologySlavic Review, Vol. 72, No 1 (Spring): 54-78.

2006: HumorKnjiževna istorija, XXXVIII, No 130: 625-672. 

2006: Struktura zbornika Od zlata jabuka Vaska Pope [“Structure of Vasko Popa’s Collection ‘The Golden Apple’”], Zbornik Matice srpske za književnost i jezik, Vol. 53, No 1/3: 513-526.

Book chapters

2023   “Soviet Socialist Su(pe)rrealism for Children,” co-authored with Ainsley Morse, Photography in Children’s Literature, Elina Druker and Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer (eds.), Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 168-196.

2022: Alone in the CinemascopeExperimental Cinemas in State Socialist Eastern Europe, Ksenya Gurshtein, Sonja Simonyi (eds.), Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, pp. 177-196.

2021: Autonomous Animals Animated: Samozveri as A Constructivist Pedagogical Cine-DispositivePedagogy of Images: Depicting Communism for Children, Marina Balina, Serguei Oushakine (eds.), Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pp. 149-178.

2018: The Avant-Garde Quest for a Bioscopic BookBeyond Given Knowledge: Investigation, Quest and Exploration in Modernism and the Avant-Gardes, edited by Veivo, Harri / Montier, Jean-Pierre / Nicol, Françoise / Ayers, David / Hjartarson, Benedikt / Bru, Sascha. De Gruyter. pp. 59-76.

2014: Агитационная фотопоэма как рукотворный памятник [“Propagandistic Photopoem as a Handmade Monument”], Фотомонтажный цикл Юрия Рожкова к поэме Владимира Маяковского «Рабочим Курска, добывшим первую руду...»: Реконструкция неизданной книги 1924 года. Статьи. Комментарии / сост. К. Матиссен, под ред. А. Россомахина. — СПб. : Издательство Европейского университета в Санкт-Петербурге. — (AVANT-GARDE; вып. 4). Translated in Croatian as “Sovjetska agitprop foto-poema: fotomontaže Jurija Rožkova za poemu Majakovskog Radnicima Kurska...” and published in Književna smotra, br. 185 (3), 2017: 17-25; and Kulturna povijest Oktobarske revolucije - sto godina kasnije, Danijela Lugarić Vukas ed., Zagreb, 2017: 73-90.

2011: Performing Authority: Manifesto Genre and Literary TheoryJezik, Književnost, Kultura – Novici Petkoviću u spomen, J. Delić, A. Jovanović, eds., Belgrade: Institut za književnost i umetnost. 

2009: Živa skulptura poezije – Parnasovstvo Jovana Dučića [“The Living Sculpture of Poetry – Jovan Dučić’s Parnassism”], Poetika Jovana Dučića, ed. Jovan Delić, Belgrade: Institut za književnost i umetnost. 

2008: Identitet, egzil i rod u prozi Aleksandra Hemona [“Identity, exile and gender in Aleksandar Hemon’s prose”], Teorije i politike roda: rodni identiteti u književnostima i kulturama jugoistočne Evrope, ed. Tatjana Rosić, Belgrade: Institut za književnost i umetnost. 

2008: Doleželova teorija fikcije [“Doležel’s Theory of Fiction”], (afterword) in: Lubomir Doležel, Heterokosmika. Fikcija i mogući svetovi, Belgrade: Službeni glasnik. 

2007: U pretećem znaku dekonstrukcije [“In the Menacing Sign of Deconstruction”], Postsimbolistička poetika Ivana V. Lalića, Belgrade: Institut za književnost i umetnost. 

2007: ‘Iskrena pesma’ ili epikurejstvo Milana Rakića [“‘An Honest Poem’ or the Epicurean Spirit of Milan Rakić”], Milan Rakić i moderno pesništvo, , Belgrade: Institut za književnost i umetnost. 

2007: Tanja Popović, Rečnik književnih termina (saradnici: Aleksandar Bošković, Nataša Marković, Predrag Mirčetić Dijana Mitrović, Aleksandar Stević); [A Dictionary of  Literary Terms, Tanja Popović, in association with Aleksandar Bošković, Nataša Marković, Predrag Mirčetić, Dijana Mitrović, Aleksandar Stević], Belgrade: Logos Art, Belgrade, 831 pp. I have contributed to over 200 entries, mostly related to the literary theory, history of criticism, history of poetry, versification, and folk literature (over 80,000 words).

2005: Tema ludila u Posmrtnim počastima Sime Pandurovića [“The Theme of Madness in Sima Pandurović’s ‘Obsequies’”], Poetika Sime Pandurovića, Belgrade: Institut za književnost i umetnost.

Book reviews 

2020: Archive and the Boundaries of ‘Institutional Polymorphism’: Review of Alice Lovejoy’s Army Film and the Avant-Garde. Cultural Critique, Vol. 107 (Spring 2020): 179-191.

2016: Birth Certificate: The Story of Danilo Kiš. By Mark Thompson. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. 2013. 372 pp. $40.00 ISBN 978-0-8014-4888-1. Modern Language Review, Vol. 111 (January): 304-305.

2012: Foto-avangarda i grafički dizajn u međuratnoj Češkoj [“Photo-Avant-garde and Graphic Design in the Interwar Czech"] (Foto/montáž tiskem /Photo/Montage in Print  / Jindřich Toman)”], Književna istorija, XLIV, No 146: 307-312.

2007: Teorija i njeno vlastito preispitivanje [“Theory and Its Own Re-examination (What is Theory / Novica Milić)”], Književna istorija, XXXIX, No 131-132: 403-411.