This book was published in connection with the exhibition In Search of Balkania (Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz, 2002, curated by Roger Conover, Eda Čufer, and Peter Weibel), and contains a diverse range of texts which explore the ‘Balkans’ as a metaphor for various contemporary issues such as identity, nationalism, the impact of globalization, human rights and military interventionism post-1989, etc. See in particular Alexander Kiossev’s text ‘The Dark Intimacy: Maps, Identities, Acts of Identifications’ in which he touches upon his influential theory of post-communist ‘self-colonization.’