The collapse of the Yugoslav state in early 1990s brought the existence of the discipline into question with multiple institutions changing their names or closing down. The field needed to redefine its new position in relation to closely related South Slavic studies (which alongside post-Yugoslav space include Bulgaria as well) and Serbo-Croatian studies (further differentiated into Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin studies).[3] In his 1993 essay The Phantom of Yugoslavistics (German: Das Phantom der Jugoslavistik) German Slavist Reinhard Lauer [de] stated that the field was based on the historical coincidence of the existence of a Yugoslav state and on the “fading out of the Bulgarian components and interests" concluding that the South Slavic studies should take its place.[3] The conflict in the area of former Yugoslavia nevertheless attracted significant academic attention with over 130 books being published on it and with multiple authors analyzing it in the framework of Yugoslav or Post-Yugoslav studies.[4] Today the field is dealing with transdisciplinary analysis of various Yugoslav and post-Yugoslav phenomena, social relations and practices.[5]
Aleksandar Mijatović; Brian Willems, eds. (2021). Reconsidering (Post-)Yugoslav Time Towards the Temporal Turn in the Critical Study of (Post)-Yugoslav Literatures. Brill Publishers. ISBN978-90-04-50313-7.
Ljubica Spaskovska (2014). "The Yugoslav Chronotope: Histories, Memories and the Future of Yugoslav Studies". In Florian Bieber; Armina Galijaš; Rory Archer (eds.). Debating the End of Yugoslavia. Routledge. ISBN9781315576039.
Vesna Drapac (2011). "Yugoslav Studies and the East-West Dichotomy". In Maxwell, A. (ed.). The East-West Discourse: Symbolic Geography and its Consequences. Peter Lang Publishing. ISBN9783034301985.
