Svetlana Hristova, PhD

Svetlana Hristova is an urban sociologist, researcher and lecturer, an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Arts of the South-West University in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria, where she has been the Head of the Department of Cultural Studies (2000-2004), Director of a Center for Intercultural Dialogue and Integration (2001-2009) and Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Arts (2005-2010). Her research interests in the cross-field of sociology of culture, cultural anthropology and urban studies are exemplified in the projects she headed and co-ordinated such as: Culture of the small town (1999-2000); Public Spaces of the Bulgarian City – Heritage and Development (2005-2007), supported by the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science; the international research Re-imaging of Public Space in European Cities and its Role in Social and Ethnocultural Integration (2006-2008) with the participation of the UK, Russia and Ukraine and supported by INTAS at the EU; a senior researcher grant holder from the Central European University, Budapest (2006-2007) for the individual project Places and Non-Places in Central and East-European Cities (A comparison between Sofia and Budapest); leader of a national project Exploration of the existing experience, analysis of the applicability, and preparation of guidelines for a new financing scheme ‘Support for Creation and Promotion of Innovative Cultural Events’ (2010) at the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works, financed by the Regional Development Operative Program.

In 2009 she initiated the Working Group ‘Urban Management and Cultural Policies of City’ at ENCATC, which evolved into a Thematic Area with the same name (http://www.encatc.org/cult-management-city/). As a TA Chair Svetlana Hristova has been a speaker, moderator and co-organizer of various discussions, seminars and conferences: Can We Build Creative Cities and Regions? (Brussels, 23.04.2009); Re-Imagening Europolis: For a Better Future of Our Cities (Barcelona, 22.10.2009); The Role of Artists in Social Participation: The Contribution of Arts and Culture to Social Sustainability of Cities (Utrecht, 30.09-01.10.2010); Animation of Public Space Through the Arts (Coimbra, 28-30.09.2011); Cultural Sustainability of City in Precarious Times (Helsinki, 14.10.2011); The transformations of the public space: from cultural policies to inclusive governance (Barcelona, 9-12.06.2012).

Svetlana Hristova is a Vice-Chair of the Section of Urban Sociology at the Bulgarian Sociological Association and a member of the Management Committee of the COST Action IS1007 Investigating Cultural Sustainability (2011-2015). In December 2013 she became a member and was elected for a vice-chair of the International Panel for the selection of the Bulgarian European Capital of Culture (2019).

Books & Collective Monographs:

1. Hristova, Svetlana (2001) Border Identity of the Small Town. Cultural-anthropological Research of the town of Melnik. Blagoevgrad: University Press. (in Bulgarian) Svetlana Hristova – Biography – 31/12/2013 2
2. Hristova, Svetlana (2002) The City: Images, Symbols, Identities. Sofia: LIK Publishing House.
3. Hristova Svetlana, Craig Young, Oleg Pachenkov and Ihor Savchuk (eds) (2008) Public Places of European Cities. Photo-album. Kiev: Surma Svyatoslav.
4. Hristova Svetlana, Thomas Knubben and Pekka Vartiainen (eds) (2011) United in Diversity? Cultural Policy and its Dimensions. Ludwigsburg.
5. http://kulturmanagement.ph-ludwigsburg.de/fileadmin/pdfs/erasmusip/United_in_Diversity_2011.pdf
6. Hristova, Svetlana and Mariusz Czepczińsky (eds) Public Space: Between Re-Imagination and Occupation. Ashgate, forthcoming.
7. Hristova, Svetlana, Milena Dragićević Šešić and Nancy Duxbury (eds.) Culture and Sustainability of European Cities: Imagining Europolis. Routledge Studies in Culture and Sustainable Development. Series Editors: Katriina Soini and Joost Dessen. Routledge Earthscan, forthcoming.

Articles & Book Chapters:

1. Hristova, Svetlana (2004) The Politics of Multiculturalism in Bulgaria – Uses and (Ab)uses In: Perspectives of Multiculturalism: Western and Transitional Countries ed. By Milan Mesić, Zagreb-Croatian Commission for UNESCO, http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0013/001375/137520e.pdf
2. Hristova, Svetlana (2006) National Identity and Crises. in: Bulgarian Nationalisms and European Integration. Ed. by Vasil Prodanov, Sofia: Publisjing House ‘Hristo Botev’ (in Bulgarian)
3. Hristova, Svetlana (2006)Cultural Rights in European Context In: Trajectories Of Contemporary Sociology In Bulgaria, XVI ISA World Congress, Quarterly Journal Of The Institute Of Sociology, Bulgarian Academy of Science, 120-130
4. Hristova, Svetlana (2007) Images of Social Inequality in a Bulgarian Transition City – the Market and the Cemetery. In: Ethnic Landscapes in a Global World. Research in Urban Sociology, Hutchison R. and J. Krasse (eds.), Elsevier. Volume 8, 245–263.
5. Hristova, Svetlana (2008) Arts Management for disadvantaged groups in a society in transition: the case for Bulgaria. In: Enabling the Creators. Arts and Cultural Management and the Challenge of Social Inclusion. Ed. Jolyon Laycock. European Arts Management Programme in association Oxford Brookes University
6. Hristova, Svetlana (2009) What do we remember at the cemetery? In: Sociology of Memory: Papers from the Spectrum. Ed. Noel Packard. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
7. Hristova, Svetlana (2010) Imagining the City as a Space for Cultural Policy In: Sociological Problems, special issue of the Bulgarian Sociological Association ‘Sociology on the Move’, devoted to XVII ISA World Congress.
8. Hristova, Svetlana (2011) European Identity as a Project. In: Hristova Svetlana, Thomas Knubben and Pekka Vartiainen (eds) United in Diversity? Cultural Policy and its Dimensions. Ludwigsburg, 44-59.
9. Hristova, Svetlana (2011) Bulgarian Cultural Industries in the European Context. In: Hristova Svetlana, Thomas Knubben and Pekka Vartiainen (eds) United in Diversity? Cultural Policy and its Dimensions Ludwigsburg, 88-99. Svetlana Hristova – Biography – 31/12/2013 3
10. Hristova, Svetlana (2012) Sofia Streets as Public Space by the end of the 19th and beginning of 20th centuries. Balcanistic Forum, issue3, 119-128 (in Bulgarian).
11. Hristova, Svetlana (2013) Repenser l'espace public et ses frontiers, in Les Nouveaux Paradigmes De La Frontiere, dans Collection Local et Global dirigée par Gilles Rouet & François Soulages, L’Harmattan.
12. Hristova, Svetlana (2013) Public Space of Central and East-European Cities : Between Consumerism and Spectacle, in Esthétisation de l'espace public: enjeux, acteurs, perspectives, dans Collection Local et Global dirigée par Gilles Rouet & François Soulages, L’Harmattan.
13. Hristova, Svetlana. Le cimetière comme espace liminal: entre sacré et profane, In Politiques et pratiques d’esthétisation de l’espace public, dans Collection Local et Global dirigée par Gilles Rouet & François Soulages, L’Harmattan, forthcoming.
14. Hristova, Svetlana. The European City and Its Heritage: The Creative Sustainability. In: Culture Management and Culture Policy: the Models of Creative Initiatives, Vilnius Academy of Fine Arts, forthcoming.

Svetlana Hristova is also an author and producer of the documentary film “The Squares’ Life” (2010) and a co-author of a public photo-exhibition ‘The Square Alife’ (4-18 of July 2008), the Museum of Dostoevsky, St. Petersburg