Participant Info

First Name
Mirela
Last Name
Cufurovic
Country
Australia
State
Affiliation
Charles Sturt University
Website URL
Keywords
Australian Muslim history, Balkan history, Oral history, History of emotions
Availability
Media Contact
Additional Contact Information
PhD
PhD

Personal Info

Photo
About Me

Mirela Cufurovic researches Australian Muslim history at Charles Sturt University, and teaches empire and Australian history at Western Sydney University. She tutors Indigenous students at the University of Sydney as part of the ITAS program. Mirela is currently completing her PhD, exploring the interconnection between emotion and identity in Australian Muslim identity development.

Her master’s thesis, Negotiating Memory, Identity and Oriental Politics in Australian Sport: The Case of Australian Female Muslim Sports Celebrities, examines how Australian female Muslim sports celebrities negotiate their identity as women, as Muslims, and as sports participants in Australian sport, and how their multiple identities are shaped and reshaped by a collective remembering of them as the ‘unfit-other’ in sport.

Her honours thesis, The Dilemma of One Nation with Two Names: Alija Izetbegović and the Bosnian Muslim (Bosniak) National Question, examines how the Muslim nation of Bosnia-Hercegovina developed a distinct Bosniak identity under the leadership of Alija Izetbegović, from the aftermath of WWII until the Dayton Peace Accords in 1995. It explores how Izetbegović’s political dissent, vis-à-vis the Communist regime, contributed to the rise in Bosniak national consciousness as a result of the dissemination of his manifesto Islamska Deklaracija (1970).

Recent Publications

BOOKS

Cufurovic, Mirela and Suleyman Sertkaya. From Migrant to Mufti: The Story of Sheikh Fehmi Imam. Forthcoming.

Ozalp, Mehmet and Mirela Cufurovic. The Social, Human and Religious Factors Involved in the Positive Transformation of Muslim Youth. Forthcoming.

BOOK CHAPTERS

Cufurovic, Mirela and Mahsheed Ansari. “New Spaces and New Domains: Tracing the Cultural Contributions of Australian Muslims.” In Muslims in Contemporary Australia, edited by Adam Possamai and David Tittensor. Leiden: Brill, 2025.

Ansari, Mahsheed and Mirela Cufurovic. “Collective Trauma and the Muslim Women of the Christchurch Attack: An Observational and Media Study.” In Female Pioneers from Ancient Egypt to the Middle East: On the Influence of History on Gender Psychology, edited by Ahmed A. Karim, Radwa Khalil and Ahmed Moustafa. Springer, 2021.

JOURNAL ARTICLES

Iner, Derya and Mirela Cufurovic. “Moving Beyond Binary Discourses: Islamic Universalism from an Islamic Revivalist Movement’s Point of View.” Religions 13, no. 9 (2022): https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/13/9/821.

Ozalp, Mehmet and Mirela Cufurovic. “Religion, Belonging, and Active Citizenship: A Systematic Review of Literature on Muslim Youth in Australia.” Religions 12, no. 4 (2021): https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/12/4/237.3

Cufurovic, Mirela. “Popular Imagination versus Historical Reality: HBO’s Rome and the Practice of History.” Public History Review 25 (2018): https://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/journals/index.php/phrj/article/view/6157.

Cufurovic, Mirela. “Fully Known Yet Wholly Unknowable: Orientalising the Balkans.” Australian Journal of Islamic Studies 2, no. 1 (2017): https://ajis.com.au/index.php/ajis/article/view/31.

Cufurovic (nee Kadric), Mirela. “Legitimizing National Identity through ‘Transnational Existences’: Post-war Kosovo and its Relationship with the European Union, 1998-2008.” Chicago Journal of History, Autumn (2016): https://cjh.uchicago.edu/issues/fall16/7.11.pdf.

ESSAYS, BOOK REVIEWS, LITERARY WORKS

Cufurovic, Mirela. “(In)Audible: A Confession.” Sudo Journal, Volume 5, 2024. https://sudojournal.com/latest-issue/.

Cufurovic, Mirela. “Regional Other.” Mona Magazine, Issue 3, 2023.

Cufurovic, Mirela. “Still Alive: Notes from Australia’s Immigration Detention System by Safdar Ahmed.” Book Review of Still Alive: Notes from Australia’s Immigration Detention System by Safdar Ahmed. Kalliopex 3 (2022): https://www.kalliopex.com/review-still-alive-notes-from-australias-immigration-detention-system/.

Cufurovic, Mirela. “An International Quagmire: Genocide and Intervention During the Bosnian War, 1992-1995.” Balkanist (2019): http://balkanist.net/international-quagmires-genocide-and-intervention-bosnian-war/.

Media Coverage
Country Focus
Balkans, Australia
Expertise by Geography
Australia, Eastern Europe, Western Europe
Expertise by Chronology
20th century, 21st century
Expertise by Topic
Colonialism, Migration & Immigration, Politics, Public History