Robert Austin

Robert C Austin (PhD University of Toronto) is a specialist on East-Central and Southeastern Europe in historic and contemporary perspective. In the past, Austin was a Tirana-based correspondent for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty; a Slovak-based correspondent with The Economist Group of Publications; and a news writer with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Toronto. Austin has written articles for The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, Southeast European Times, Orbis, East European Politics and Societies and East European Quarterly along with numerous book chapters and two books published separately in Tirana and Prishtina. He has lectured widely in Europe and North America and has been a visiting scholar in Graz, Austria and Regensburg, Germany. His most recent book, “A History of Central Europe: Nations and States since 1848", was published in November 2021. In May 2019, he published "Making and Remaking the Balkans: Nations and States since 1878”, with the University of Toronto Press. An Albanian translation of the revised and expanded edition of the book was published in Kosovo as “Bërja dhe ribërja e Ballkanit: Kombet dhe shtetet që nga viti 1878” with Koha in April 2021. At CERES, he coordinates the Undergraduate and Graduate European Affairs Program, the Hellenic Studies Program and the Hungarian Studies Program. In 2020, the U of T's Arts and Science Students' Union gave him the Ranjini (Rini) Ghosh Excellence in Teaching Award. In 2022, he was awarded the Faculty of Arts and Science Outstanding Teaching Award.

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