Open University of Sarajevo
The Open University of Sarajevo, was a non-profit experimental platform for interactive education, social activism, and public debate. Themes that the school has dealt with include Neo-Marxism, Yugoslavism, Third wave feminism, Post-Colonialism, Historical revisionism, Post-fascism, social constructionism, revolutionary democracy, linguistic nationalism and philosophy of existence. The Open University of Sarajevo was an outspoken advocate of protests in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2013 and 2014, and called for the continuation of direct democracy that was established by plenums The school runs a Free-to-view platform that streams all of its content online, dubbed in various languages. It archives it on its website and YouTube channel. The organizers disagreed with the term school, preferring to use the term platform.
History
The Open University of Sarajevo was by a group of friends in Sarajevo, including academic and writer Igor Štiks, scholar and journalist, and academic Dino Abazović.The second edition was held in Sarajevo, in the, in March 2014, during the in the country. The idea was to create an open and safe space for those who participated in the protests and those who wanted to discuss what was happening. Previously, the group issued supporting ongoing protests.
The second one,, was organized in November of the same year in SARTR. Besides panels and discussions, Otvoreni Univerzitet organised a photo exhibition and promoted online publication with photos from the protests made by Sarajevo based photographer Velija Hasanbegović.
After Sarajevo, Otvoreni univerzitet held one session in Banja Luka in 2015. The, was held in Sarajevo, in Sartr, in November 2017.
In this short period, Otvoreni univerzitet managed to become a space for discussions, meetings, and the exchange of ideas between public figures, intellectuals, artists, and people in Sarajevo, whether locals or visitors.