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“Borders on Our Mind, Borders of the Mind” is the theme of the 2026 conference of the Central and East European International Studies Association (CEEISA), which will take place from 17 to 19 June 2026 in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, co-hosted by International Burch University and the University of Sarajevo. Under the broader title “Contesting Imperialism(s)”, the conference invites scholars to reflect on how imperial legacies, nationalism, and shifting borders shape political life, identities, and imaginaries in Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans, with Sarajevo serving as a powerful vantage point given its history of empire, war, coexistence and genocide. Thematically, the event calls for critical engagement with questions of dissent, resistance, memory, and alternative internationalisms in a region marked by layered institutions, plural identities, demographic decline, and continuing dependencies.
The call for papers foregrounds three main axes: the relationship between imperialism and nationalism; the international “in the shadow of genocide” from the Holocaust and Srebrenica to Gaza; and the ambivalences and afterlives of empire, including imperial nostalgia, semi-peripherality and internal colonialisms. It encourages contributions from International Relations and allied disciplines such as political economy, security studies, political theory, sociology, anthropology, history, law, gender studies and postcolonial and decolonial studies, welcoming theoretical, empirical, methodological and reflective work. While proposals addressing the core theme are especially encouraged, the organisers also invite submissions on cognate topics and will reserve space for ad hoc panels that respond to unfolding current events and crises during the conference.
For more information about the theme, venue, fees, travel grants, etc. please refer to the source page of this announcement: ceeisa2026.com.