Department of Croatian Studies

Name and surname

Lidija Bakota, Ph.D.

Title

Associate professor

Vice dean for teaching

e-mail

lbakota@foozos.hr

Office number

Vice deans office and office no. 64

Research interests

I was born on 15th July 1974 in Osijek (Croatia) where I have finished my primary and secondary education. I have finished Croatian Language and Literature at Faculty of Pedagogy (today Faculty of Philosophy) at Josip Juraj Strossmayer University in Osijek. Since 2006/07 academic year I am employed at Faculty of Primary Education (today Faculty of Education) at Josip Juraj Strossmayer University in Osijek. I have obtained my Ph. D. in 2010 at Faculty of Philosophy at Zagreb University (thesis: Communicational model of oral exercises in primary education). In 2012 I became assistant professor at Faculty of Education.

At Faculty of Education I teach Croatian Language Didactics I, Croatian Language Didactics II, Oral and written communication and Public Speech. I participate at teachers’ professional training by teaching at professional seminars on Croatian language and oral and written communication.

List of publications (link to CroRIS)

CroRIS - Lidija Bakota

First and last name

Gordana Lesinger, Ph.D.

Profession

Associate Professor

Email

glesinger@foozos.hr

Office number

Research interests

Curriculum vitae (up to 300 words)

Gordana Lesinger was born in 1977 in Osijek, where she completed her primary and secondary education. She graduated in journalism from the Faculty of Political Science in Zagreb. At the postgraduate specialist program in Organization and Management at the Faculty of Economics, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, she earned the academic title univ. spec. oec. In 2016, she obtained her PhD in Communication Studies from the interdisciplinary program at Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, earning the title of Doctor of Science.

In her extensive career, she has gained significant experience in public communications, public relations, and media. She began working during her studies at a marketing agency and started her journalism career as a presenter at Radio Osijek. Later, she joined Croatian Radiotelevision, followed by a position at the Government of the Republic of Croatia as a public relations officer.

Her academic career began in 2012 as an assistant at the Department of Cultural Studies. In 2018, she worked at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Osijek, where she served as spokesperson and Vice Dean for Development and Business Affairs. In 2024, she transitioned to the Faculty of Education.

She participated in international projects such as Creative Danube – Places to See, Places to Be! and Danube Culture Platform – Creative Spaces of the 21st Century. Her research interests include communication studies, media, and public relations. Recently, her work has focused on the impact of social networks on interpersonal relationships and political correctness in public discourse. She is dedicated to promoting communication literacy and developing innovative approaches in public relations.

She has published numerous scientific papers and four books. She is a member of the Croatian Public Relations Association. Additionally, she is actively involved in her community through participation in school boards and councils.

List of publications (link to CroRIS)

CroRIS - Gordana Lesinger

Name and surname

Valentina Majdenić, Ph.D.

Title

Associate Professor

e-mail

vmajdenic@foozos.hr

Office Nr.

64

Research Interests

Teaching Literature in Primary Schools, Teaching Media Literacy, Regional Literature

She has been enrolled 2005/2006 in postgraduate university study in Literature and Cultural Identity.Her PhD-Thesis entitled Reception of Slavonic Regional Literature In Elementary School Textbooks (1st to 8th grade) From 1970 to 2008 was defended on 27th January 2012 in front of the commission: Prof.Dr. Ana Pintarić (Chairman of the Committee), Dr. DubravkaSmajić, Assistant Professor (Member of the Committee) and Dr. Irena Vodopija, Associate Professor (Member of the Commitee, Mentor).On March 16, 2012, she was elected to the position of Adjunct in the scientific field of humanities, theory and history of literature, branch of Croatian Studies.On December 19, 2013, she was elected into the position of the Assistant Professor, scientific field of humanities, theory and history of literature, branch Croatian Studies.Her scientific interestshave been directed towards the methodology of literature and the methodology of media culture, local and regional literature.She is a co-author of Croatian language textbooks for primary school, from 2nd to 4th grade.She has been the member of the Erasmus K2 Membership Project Pacemaking the education and employment: answers to new challenges and opportunities.

Project Abbreviation: P-EE, from October 1, 2016 to March 31, 2018 (18 months). Project proposed by: Koprivnica Open University, Partner:Faculty of Educational Sciences in Osijek. Project code: 7E470F9E5337D292

Project data is available at:

http://ec.europa.eu/education/erasmus-plus/national-agencies_en.htm

Name and surname

Nina Mance, Ph.D.

Title

E-mail

nmance@foozos.hr

Room

48

Research interests

Dialectology, lexicology

Nina Mance graduated in 2002 from the Faculty of Pedagogy, University of Josip JurajStrossmayer in Osijek, acquiring the title of Croatian language teacher. In the academic year 2006/2007 she enrolled in Doctoral studies of Linguistics at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Josip JurajStrossmayer in Osijek. She defended her thesis in June 2014 and acquired the title of PhD in humanities, scientific field philology.  She has taught numerous courses at the Faculty of Education in Osijek, Department of Philology, since 2008, as an assistant and senior assistant. The courses she has taught are: Croatian language lexicology and morphology, Local vernacular, Croatian language, Children’s literature, Integration-correlation system in the Croatian language, Oral and written communication, Croatian language and communication, Language games, Public speech and Croatian linguistic cultural heritage.

List of publications (CroRIS link)

First and last name

Jadranka Mlikota, Ph.D.

Profession

Email

jmlikota@foozos.hr

Office number

64

Research interests

Croatian language, language history, standardology, media language, Croatian-Hungarian philological permeations

Jadranka Mlikota was born on July 15, 1974 in Osijek, where she completed her primary and secondary education and afterwards graduated from the Faculty of Education, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek (1998).

She received her doctor's degree at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb (2009) on the topic of Syntactic possibilities purpose in standard Croatian language. Since 2005 she has been teaching courses in Modern Croatian Standard Language at the Croatian and German Studies at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Osijek. Since July 2024, she has been employed at the Faculty of Education, J. J. Strossmayer University of Osijek.

Her scientific field of interest is directed towards the syntax and semantics of the contemporary Croatian language, the language of the second half of the 19^th century, the breaking of the norm and the normative relationship between the Zagreb and Vukovians' schools of philology, the reflections of that relationship in the language of literary works, and Croatian-Hungarian philological permeations.

As a collaborator, she was involved in the scientific research project Language and Style of Regional Periodicals (since 2005), in two institutional scientific projects of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Osijek: Hungarian Parts of Croatian Grammaticography in a Digital Environment (2022)  and Digitization of Croatian Grammatical and Paremiological Materials (2023), in two international projects: EFOP-3.4.3-16-2016-00022 "QUALITAS Minőségi felsőoktatási-fejlesztés Sopronban  és Szombathelyen”  ("QUALITAS Development Activities for Quality Higher Education in Sopron and Szombathely ") and GIP-Project Traces of the German Language, Literature and Culture in Croatia (DAAD-Project no.: 57338369).

She is currently a collaborator on the project Croatian-Hungarian Written Heritage (uniri-iskusni-human-23-131) of the Faculty of Humanities and

Social Sciences of the University of Rijeka. She was the manager of the project Croatian-Hungarian Linguistic Contacts in the Second Half of the   19^th century (UNIOS IZIP-2014-26).

She is the author of the scientific monograph Slavonian Tkanica: Language of Native Authors of the19^th Century (2014), co-author of the scientific monograph Hungarian Parts of Croatian 19^th Century Grammaticography (2021) and co-author of the expert book Croatian Language Tips (2014). She participated in more than forty scientific meetings and published about sixty scientific and professional papers. She has also worked professionally as a member of editorial boards, a member of professional societies and organizations, and as a reviewer. From 2005 to 2010, she was a member of the Linguistic Department of Matrix Croatica Osijek, and from 2015 to 2019 a member of its Supervisory Board.

She is a member of the Croatian Philological Society. She has reviewed papers for domestic and foreign linguistic journals and Croatian scientific publications in the field of her scientific interest. She is the editor of four Croatian editions.

List of publications (link to CroRIS)

Jadranka Mlikota

First and last name

Dubravka Smajić, Ph.D.

Profession

Associate Professor

Email

dsmajic@foozos.hr

Office number

48

Research interests

Contemporary Croatian Language and Its Functional Styles, Norms, Syntax, History of the Croatian Language in the 19th and 20th Centuries, Dialectology

Curriculum vitae (up to 300 words)

Dr. Dubravka Smajić, PhD, an Associate Professor, was born in 1961 in Osijek. In 1984, she graduated from the Faculty of Education (Pedagoški fakultet) in Osijek, specialising in Croatian language and literature. In 1985, she began working at the Faculty's teaching practice school at Franjo Krežma Primary School in Osijek.

From 1997, she worked at the Faculty of Education (Pedagoški fakultet) in Osijek, teaching in the Teacher Education and Preschool Education Programmes. She currently teaches the same subjects at the Faculty of Education (Fakultet za odgojne i obrazovne znanosti) in Osijek, where she offers courses in Croatian Language, Language Culture, Croatian Language and Communication, Functional Styles in Language Communication, and Public Speaking.

She defended her Master's thesis in Philology titled Exclamation and Its Expression in the Croatian Literary Language at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb in 2001. Her doctoral thesis on The Grammars of Mirko Divković was defended in 2006 at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Osijek.

In 2020, she was appointed Associate Professor. She is the Chair of the Department of Croatian Language at the Department of Croatian Studies, Faculty of Education, Osijek.

Dr. Smajić has collaborated on scientific projects such as Child and Language Learning and Croatian Language as Part of the National Identity of Bilingual Minority Communities (within the scientific programme Croatian Philology and Border Areas), led by Dr. Irena Vodopija.

She is a member of the Scientific Council for Education and Schooling at the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts (HAZU). Since 2023, she has been the Head of the Department of Croatian Language at the Croatian Philological Society. As part of the Croatian Language Department at the Osijek branch of the Croatian Literary Society, she has regularly participated in the informational campaign Language Phone for many years. She is also a member of the Organising Committee for the international scientific conference Child and Languages Today (from 2001 to the present) and has served as editor or chief editor of the first five volumes of conference proceedings. Since 2019, she has been a member of the Editorial Board of the journal Jezik (Language).

Along with colleagues, she established the centre of the European Consortium for the Certificate of Achievement in Modern Languages (ECL) for the Republic of Croatia in Osijek and conducted ECL exams in Croatian as a foreign language.

She has delivered lectures at teacher professional meetings in Croatia and Hungary, organised courses on Croatian language culture for students at the University of Osijek, and presented at public events as part of Croatian Language Days.

Dr. Smajić has presented at scientific conferences both in Croatia and abroad.

List of publications (link to CroRIS)

CroRIS - Dubravka Smajić

First and last name

Vedrana Živković Zebec, Ph.D.

Profession

Assistant Professor

Email

vzivkovic@foozos.hr

Office number

48

Research interests

children's literature; children's novel; children's poetry; contemporary approach to reading; children's media culture

Curriculum vitae (up to 300 words)

Dr. sc. Vedrana Živković Zebec was born on August 11, 1982, in Zagreb. She completed primary school and high school in Đakovo. She graduated in 2006 from the study of Croatian language and literature at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Osijek. In the academic year 2006/2007, she enrolled in the postgraduate university study of Literature and Cultural Identity at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Osijek. She received her PhD degree in 2014 with a thesis on the works of Ante Gardaš in the context of Croatian children's literature under the mentorship of Ana Pintarić.

She worked in several primary schools as a professor of Croatian language and a professional librarian. In December 2008, she began working as an assistant and later as a senior assistant at the Faculty of Education in Osijek. In 2019, she became an assistant professor.

As an assistant professor, she teaches several courses: Children's Literature, Media Culture, Children's Literature with Media Culture, Modern Approach to Literature, Modern Media in the Teaching of Literature, The Bible and Literature, Croatian Language Teaching and School Libraries.

She participated in the organization of scientific conferences in the field of children's literature and the study of children's language and culture (Zlatni danci, Children and Languages Today, The Picturebook Between Fiction and Reality, Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić in the New Millennium, CALT).

She regularly participates in domestic and international scientific conferences and publishes scientific papers in domestic and international journals and conference proceedings.

As a research associate, she participated in the GIP project no. 57338369 entitled Spuren deutscher Sprache, Literatur und Kultur in Kroatien – von den Anfängen bis in die Gegenwart ("Traces of the German Language, Literature, and Culture in Croatia – from the Beginnings to the Present.")

She is a member of the Croatian Association of Researchers in Children's Literature.

In collaboration with the City and University Library in Osijek, she continuously engages in the implementation of activities within the framework of the "Read to Me!" campaign, the first national initiative aimed at promoting reading to children from an early age.

List of publications (link to CroRIS)

 Vedrana Živković Zebec

Ime i prezime

Krešimir Čosić

Zvanje

e-mail

kcosic1@foozos.hr

Broj ureda

47

Istraživački interesi

Jezikoslovlje, filologija, dijalektologija, primijenjena lingvistika, sociolingvistika, glotodidaktika, kulturna antropologija

Diplomski studij hrvatskoga jezika i književnosti i povijesti završio je 2015. na Filozofskom fakultetu Sveučilišta u Osijeku. U razdoblju 2016.-2020. radio je kao profesor hrvatskoga jezika u nekoliko zagrebačkih škola, 2017.-2019. izvodio je pripremnu nastavu hrvatskoga kao inoga jezika za djecu tražitelja azila. Od 2020. radi kao asistent na Fakultetu za odgojne i obrazovne znanosti u Osijeku, na Katedri za hrvatski jezik, gdje održava ili je održavao seminarsku nastavu i vježbe iz kolegija na nekoliko studijskih programa: Usmena i pisana komunikacija, Hrvatska narječja i Zavičajni idiom na Sveučilišnom integriranom prijediplomskom i diplomskom Učiteljskom studiju; Javna komunikacija i komunikacijske vještine na Sveučilišnom prijediplomskom studiju Edukacijske rehabilitacije; Hrvatski jezik i komunikacija na Sveučilišnom prijediplomskom studiju Ranoga i predškolskoga odgoja i obrazovanja – izvanredni studij u Slatini. Doktorand je na Filozofskom fakultetu Sveučilišta u Rijeci na doktorskom studiju Povijest i dijalektologija hrvatskoga jezika.

Popis publikacija (poveznica na CroRIS)

Name and surname

Mirta Bijuković Maršić

Title

Senior Lecturer

e-mail

mmarsic@foozos.hr

Office Nr.

47

Research interests

Philology, History and Teory of Literature

Mirta Bijuković Maršić (Osijek, 1981.) is a senior lecturer at Faculty of Education in Osijek.

She has graduated History and Croatian Language and Literature in Faculty of Humanities and Social Science in Osijek in 2004. She worked as a history teacher and croatian language teacher in schools in Osijek and Đakovo 2004-2007. She has worked as teaching assistant professor at Faculty of Humanities and Social Science in Osijek 2007-2010 and 2010-2017 at Department of Cultural Studies, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek. In 2004 and 2005 she was on project New School in Nansen Dialogue Center. She was  on Junior Faculty Development Program at  University of California, Berkeley, SAD in 2009 from January to June.

She is a member of Matrix Croatica, Society for the Study of the Short Story and Institute of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies in Berkeley.

List of publications (CroRIS link)

CroRIS - Mirta Bijuković Maršić

Name and surname

Tena Babić Sesar, Graduate Librarian and Croatian Language Teacher

Title

Expert Advisor

e-mail

tbsesar@foozos.hr

tenababicsesar@gmail.com

Office number

58

Research interests

Croatian language, dialectology, language history

About the teacher

Tena Babić Sesar was born on November 20, 1985, in Slavonski Brod. After completing elementary school and the Fra Marijan Lanosović Classical Grammar School with public rights in Slavonski Brod, she enrolled in the study of Croatian Language and Literature and Librarianship at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Osijek. She graduated on June 23, 2011, earning the academic title of Professor of Croatian Language and Literature and Certified Librarian. From 2011 to 2017, she worked as a research assistant in the Department of Croatian Language and Literature at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Osijek.

She participated in the realisation of the following courses (exercises and seminars): History of the Croatian Grammatical System, History of the Croatian Literary Language, Croatian Dialectology, Slavonian Dialect, and the Kajkavian Dialect. She was a researcher in the scientific research project Slavonian Dialect (project leader: Prof. Dr. Ljiljana Kolenić). She also participated in the preparation, design, and execution of several outreach activities and was involved in organising and conducting fieldwork.

She has participated in more than fifteen academic conferences and is the author or co-author of around twenty academic, professional, and popular papers. She is enrolled in Doctoral Studies in Croatology at the Faculty of Croatian Studies, University of Zagreb, and is a member of Matica Hrvatska.

List of publications (CroRIS link)

CroRIS - Tena Babić Sesar