The presentation will provide a brief overview of the history of former Yugoslavia and focus on its violent break-up, especially on the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It will discuss the refugee experience and importance of family relationships, ethnic and religious identities, as well as the issues around returning home and rebuilding their community in Banja Luka.
Jasmina Besirevic Regan is the Associate Dean for Graduate Education at the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and a faculty member in the Departments of Sociology and Ethnicity, Race, and Migration. Her academic training is in the sociology of genocide and her teaching and research interests include ethnic conflict, identity, nationalism, human rights, and refugee resettlement. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from Yale having also earned the Master’s degree there. Her dissertation on ethnic cleansing in the Bosnian city of Banja Luka focuses on the emergence of a Bosnian Muslim refugee community.
Dr. Besirevic Regan has presented papers on the sociology of genocide at a number of professional meetings, and has been invited to speak at international conferences both at Yale and abroad. Before joining the Graduate School academic affairs team, she served as the Dean of Trumbull College, one of fourteen residential colleges at Yale, for twelve years.