Prof Jelena Subotić (Georgia State University) discusses her amazing new book The Art of Status: Looted Treasures and the Global Politics of Restitution (OUP 2025) with Roland Bleiker and Alexandra Brankova. 

This is a fascinating book that explores of the role that looted art plays in the quest of states for prestige, status and power.  It is one of those rare books that one reads and then looks at the world differently. 

Jelena Subotić is Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Political Science at Georgia State University.  Her research on international politics spans a wide range of topics, from memory politics and cultural heritage to state identity and the politics of the Western Balkans.  In addition to the book we discuss, Jelena has authored numerous influential journal articles and other books, including the award-winning Yellow Star, Red Star: Holocaust Remembrance after Communism (Cornell University Press, 2019) and Hijacked Justice: Dealing with the Past in the Balkans (Cornell University Press, 2009). She is the editor of Global Studies Quarterly.

The Interview took place as part of a seminar held on 7 October 2026 in the context of a series of events organised by the Visual Politics Program at the University of Queensland and held at the Swedish Defence University in Stockholm.