jovan byford

As disciplines, psychology and history share a primary concern with the human condition. Yet historically, the relationship between the two fields has been uneasy, marked by a long-standing climate of mutual suspicion. This book engages with the history of this relationship and possibilities for its future intellectual and empirical development. Bringing together internationally renowned psychologists and historians, it explores the ways in which the two disciplines could benefit from a closer dialogue. Thirteen chapters span a broad range of topics, including social memory, prejudice, stereotyping, affect and emotion, cognition, personality, gender and the self. Contributors draw on examples from different cultural contexts - from eighteenth-century Britain, to apartheid South Africa, to conflict-torn Yugoslavia - to offer fresh impetus to interdisciplinary scholarship. Generating new ideas, research questions and problems, this book encourages researchers to engage in genuine dialogue and place their own explorations in new intellectual contexts.

... Teorija zavere: Srbija protiv 'novog svetskog poretka' [Conspiracy theory: Serbia vs. the New World Order]. Byford, Jovan (2006). Teorija zavere: Srbija protiv 'novog svetskog poretka' [Conspiracy theory: Serbia vs. the New World Order]. ...

The book examines the rehabilitation over the past two decades of Bishop Nikolaj Velimirović (1881–1956), the controversial Serbian Orthodox Christian philosopher. Having been vilified by the former Yugoslav Communist authorities as a traitor, antisemite and a fascist, Velimirović has come to be regarded in Serbian society as a saintly figure and the most important religious person since medieval times.

The book charts the posthumous passage of Velimirović from ‘traitor’ to ‘saint’ and examines the complementary dynamics of repression and denial that were used to divert public attention from the controversies surrounding his life. It presents the first detailed examination of the way in which an Eastern Orthodox Church manages controversy surrounding the presence of antisemitism within its ranks and considers the implications of the continuing reverence of Nikolaj Velimirović for the persistence of antisemitism in Serbian Orthodox culture and Serbian society as a whole.

The study is based on a detailed examination of the changing representations of Velimirović in the Serbian media and in commemorative discourse, as well as interviews with a number of prominent public figures who have been actively involved in the bishop’s rehabilitation over the past two decades.

The Semlin concentration camp (also known by its Serbian name Sajmište) was one of the main sites of the Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Serbia. Established by Nazi Germany in December 1941 on the outskirts of Belgrade, Semlin was one of the first concentration camps in Europe created specifically for the internment of Jews. Between March and May 1942, approximately 7,000 Jewish women, children and the elderly (almost half of the total Jewish population of Nazi-occupied Serbia) were systematically murdered there by the use of a mobile gas van.
In spite of its importance as a site of the Holocaust, for much of the post-war period the Semlin camp occupied a marginal place in Yugoslav/Serbian public memory. Even today, sixty seven years after the liberation of Belgrade, the site where the camp was located, best known by the name Staro sajmište – the Old fairgrounds - stands practically in ruins, awaiting conservation and transformation into a suitable place of remembrance.
The book Staro Sajmište: A site remembered, forgotten, contested - published in the year which marks the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the Semlin concentration camp – offers the first detailed account of the post-war history of this place of the Holocaust. Based on extensive research using both archival sources and secondary literature, the book reveals a whole array of largely unknown details about the post-war history of this locality, and in doing so draws attention to the continuity in the marginalization of Staro Sajmište as a place of the Holocaust. By analyzing Staro Sajmište as a place that has been simultaneously remembered, forgotten and contested, the book makes a significant contribution towards existing debates about Serbian society’s attitude towards the past, especially towards the Second World War and the Holocaust.

No event of any significance in the world today – be it an unexpected election result, a terrorist attack, the death of a public figure, a meteorological anomaly, or the flu pandemic – takes place without generating at least a flutter of conspiracy speculations.

Conspiracy Theories: A Critical Introduction offers a well informed, highly accessible, and thoroughly engaging introduction to conspiracy theories, discussing their nature and history, causes and consequences. Through a series of specific questions that cut to the core of conspiracism as a global social and cultural phenomenon, the book deconstructs the logic and rhetoric of conspiracy theories and analyses the broader social and psychological factors that contribute to their persistence in modern society.

• What are the defining characteristics of conspiracy theories and how do they differ from legitimate inquiries into actual conspiracies?
• How long have conspiracy theories been around and to what extent are contemporary versions similar to those of yesteryear?
• Why do conspiracy theories all sound alike and what ensures their persistence in modern society?
• What psychological benefits do conspiracy theories bring to those who subscribe to them?
• Why are conspiracy theories so often mobilized by political forces whose agenda is antithetical to democratic politics?

This article examines testimonies of Jasenovac survivors recorded in Serbia between 1989 and 1997 for the oral history collections of the Fortunoff Archive and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The author highlights the differences between, on the one hand, the assumptions about survivors and testimony underpinning the US-based interview projects, and on the other hand, the understanding of bearing witness that is apparent in testimonies recorded for projects in Serbia. Contrasting the emotion-centered American approach to survivor testimony with the atrocity-centered Serbian approach, the author argues for a more explicit acknowledgment among scholars, as well as among those involved in recording testimonies, of witnessing as a socially, historically, and institutionally embedded practice.

The chapter revisits Michael Billig’s writing on conspiracy theories, as featured in the book Fascists: A social psychological view of the National Front (1978) and a number of other works published in the 1980s. In spite of its originality and continuing relevance, Billig's writing on conspiracy theories is today surprisingly neglected in literature on the subject, especially that written by social psychologists. The chapter looks at conceptual, theoretical and methodological issues that have prevented social psychologists from engaging with Billig’s writing on conspiracy theories, and argues that, at a time when conspiracism is said to be on the rise, there is much to be gained from a return to this pioneering and original work.

... Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10068/437641. Title:Conspiracy theory in Serbian culture at the time of the Nato bombing of Yugoslavia. Authors: Byford, Jovan T. Loughborough University (United Kingdom). ...

... Svetozar Vujković, who was tried and executed in 1949; and, most importantly, (c) accounts of five (non-Jewish) survivors: Velibor Gligorić and Vladimir [End Page 8] Gerić whose memoirs were published in 1945 and 1969 respectively, and the testimonies of Nada Stanić, Filip ...

... 10Norman Cohn, Warrant for Genocide: The Myth of a Jewish World Conspiracy and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (London: Secker ... the Holy Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church regarding antisemitic declarations and actions), and is available online at www.spc.yu/Vesti ...

This article examines the emergence of Orthodox Christian right-wing movements in Serbia since the political changes of October 2000. It explores this development in the context of Serbia's recent past and examines its implications for the persistence of anti-Semitic prejudice in ...