Calls For Papers

CALL FOR PAPERS: The Humanities and Natural Sciences in the Late Stalin Era

 The CUPOLA project (Culture’s Politics Under Authoritarian Rule: Soviet Civilizationism and the Case of the Humanities During the Stalin Era, 2024–2028) invites chapter proposals for the book project The Humanities and Natural Sciences in the Late Stalin Era. The deadline for abstracts is May 15, 2025, with notifications of acceptance sent by May 23, 2025. We invite abstracts for book chapters that offer novel perspectives on the humanities and natural sciences during the late Stalin era. To apply, please submit an abstract (maximum 500 words) and a CV (maximum two pages) to elina.viljanen@helsinki.fi.

Research on Stalin-era humanities and natural sciences has primarily focused on the political and ideological control exerted by the state. However, there is a scarcity of studies exploring the degrees of autonomy and submission within these fields. To address this gap, we propose examining the political strategies employed by scholars in Soviet humanities and natural sciences in their efforts to gain relative autonomy from Soviet political control. This approach is grounded in the understanding that, for political instrumentalization to be effective, it cannot entirely eliminate scholarly autonomy, as scholarship must remain useful for political purposes.

Our project seeks to explore the intersections between the political, cultural, and philosophical aspects of Soviet humanities and natural sciences. Our premise is that the political aspects of humanities and sciences are not reducible only to the active role they assume through their actors and ideas in conventional state driven politics. To address and test this premise, we introduce the methodological concept of culture’s politics, which refers to the struggle for power to define and govern one’s own cultural existence. In the context of the humanities and natural sciences, it is essential to ask: To what extent did scholars under Stalinism experience relative autonomy? What did autonomy entail, and why is this phenomenon significant? How should we conceptualize the late Stalin era in scholarship, particularly from the perspectives of the history of ideas and philosophy of science?

A seminar to discuss preliminary book chapters will be held at the Aleksanteri Institute of the University of Helsinki on October 2–3, 2025. Online participation will be available, and the deadline for submitting draft chapters is September 22nd, 2025.

Central Eurasian Studies Society
2025 Graduate and Early Career Scholar Interdisciplinary Workshop
Ohio State University
September 12–13, 2025

Call for Proposals

The Central Eurasian Studies Society’s 2025 Graduate and Early Career Scholar Interdisciplinary Workshop (GEIW) will be hosted by the History Department at Ohio State University on September 12–13, 2025. The workshop will provide 10–12 graduate students and early career scholars (post-PhD) with the opportunity to share and receive feedback on their work (chapter, paper, or article). All participants will read each other’s work, and each will receive detailed feedback during their assigned session.

Conference Theme

The theme of the workshop is “The Political Economy of Central Eurasia.” Graduate students and early career scholars (PhD conferred in the last 5 years) with works-in-progress addressing aspects of the political economy of 20th- and 21st-century Central Eurasia are invited to apply. The workshop will focus on topics such as labor structures, material relations, and economic development and their impact on politics and institutions in the region.

Potential themes include, but are not limited to:

• Migration
• Environment and climate change
• Labor
• Wealth inequality
• Agriculture and industry
• Water use and access
• Education
• Energy production and use
• Artificial intelligence

Applying to the Workshop

Scholars from a variety of disciplines—including history, economics, political science, geography, and anthropology—are encouraged to apply. Graduate students and early career scholars (post-PhD) are eligible. All submissions will be circulated in advance of the workshop.

Interested participants should submit:

• A 250–300-word abstract (describing a paper, chapter, or article)
• A CV (maximum three pages)

Both documents should be combined into a single PDF and submitted to geiw-cess@gmail.com by May 31, 2025.

Please contact Nicholas Seay (seay.27@osu.edu) with any questions.

The GEIW will cover accommodations and meals for all participants. Limited funding is available for travel to Columbus, OH. If you require travel support, please indicate this in your abstract and specify your departure location.

Manuscripts are due by September 1, 2025

Journal of Global Postcolonial Studies

Call for Papers

Special Issue on Russian Postcolonial Studies

Guest Editor: Tamar Koplatadze, Christ Church, University of Oxford, tamar.koplatadze@chch.ox.ac.uk

Russia and the countries that were incorporated into the Soviet Union have not historically received extensive critical attention within the postcolonial discourse. In the wake of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, scholarly interest has grown in re-assessing established methodologies and engaging with postcolonial theory when studying these countries. Postcolonial approaches can be key to analyzing the link between imperialism and situations of core-periphery disparity, both past and ongoing, whether expressed in the man-made famines in Ukraine and Kazakhstan, the overproduction of cotton in Central Asia, the nuclear testing in Semipalatinsk, the extraction of natural resources in Siberia, or post-Soviet migration patterns. Moreover, local writers, creative artists and activists addressing these questions are increasingly situating their works within the global postcolonial tradition.

This special issue aims to provide an interdisciplinary inquiry of the current decolonial turn, build on existing scholarship and bring to the fore new postcolonial interventions, while also countering the pitfalls of the “decolonial bandwagon” (Moosavi) such as tokenism and uncritical use of decolonial terminology. We welcome contributions that critically engage with postcolonial and decolonial theory, attempt to bridge Western and local epistemologies, compare different geographical contexts of (post)coloniality, or untangle various types of decoloniality – including political, epistemological, cultural and aesthetic, while addressing, among others, the following themes:

• • • Critical theory
    • Literature, Culture and Language
    • Comparative studies of (post)coloniality
    • History
    • Race
    • Gender
    • Environment
    • Migration
    • Activism

Submission Instructions

Manuscripts following the journal guidelines and formatted in MLA style should be submitted by September 1, 2025 at https://journals.upress.ufl.edu/jgps/submit

CALL FOR PAPERS

 Creative Bodies—Creative Minds

 The fourth international, interdisciplinary conference in gender research

 University of Graz, 30-31 March 2026

Since its inception in 2018, the interdisciplinary conference in gender research Creative Bodies—Creative Minds has, in its three cycles, brought together scholars, practitioners, and activists to explore the relationship between gender and creativity in a variety of fields. They engaged with everyday and vernacular creativities, including material and intangible DIY forms, creative self-fashioning, coping strategies, and resourceful adaptations to social and political circumstances by communities, groups, and individuals. These encounters have treated creativity as a social and collective process that is power-dependent and deeply gendered.

The fourth conference aims to continue this line of inquiry by exploring more closely the relationship between creativity, vulnerability, and subversion. The last decade has seen an increasing focus on vulnerability in the humanities and social sciences, even what we could term a “vulnerability turn” in some disciplines, such as in cultural and gender studies. “Vulnerability” has also come to an increased usage in political rhetoric, policies, and everyday language. However, the concept of vulnerability has come under increasing academic, political and public scrutiny, highlighting its ambiguity, with both positive and negative connotations. Critical research has also discussed the (mis)uses of the concept in political debates and in concrete social policies, where it often deepens social marginalisation and vulnerability instead of reducing it. Gender studies and feminist scholars, in particular, have persuasively exposed the androcentric and paternalistic bias in the cultural understanding of vulnerability as a condition of passivity and lack of agency in need of remedy. Instead, they have emphasized the relational nature of vulnerability that makes it a universal dimension of human existence, bringing attention to its social and situational aspects. Exploring vulnerability in relation to resistance has been powerful in revealing the agentic potential of vulnerability to challenge oppression, inequality, and injustice, as witnessed, for example, in the mobilizations and democratic struggles of the last decade in Southeastern Europe.

The fourth Creative Bodies—Creative Minds conference in 2026 invites interdisciplinary contributions that explore the entanglements between creativity, vulnerability, subversion and gender in different socio-cultural, political, economic and everyday settings.

Keynote speakers:

Isla Cowan, Independent Playwright and Theatre Maker, Edinburgh Jennifer Ramme, Department of Sociology, University of Graz

The areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

Everyday creativity, vulnerability, subversion and gender Creativity as a response to restrictive biopolitics and gender norms Intersectional approaches to creativity, vulnerability and subversion (race, ethnicity, age, class, gender, sexuality, ability) Collective creativities in contesting collective vulnerabilities Creativity, vulnerability and subversion in education, arts, and activism Material, temporal, situational, and relational aspects of creativity, vulnerability and subversion Creativity, vulnerability and subversion in the digital realm Creative subversion– subverting creativity imperatives Creative methodologies and creative research in social sciences and humanities Creative addresses of gendered vulnerabilities in medicine, science, and technology

We are inviting proposals for presentations from scholars of all career stages and practitioners from a wide range of disciplines including, but not limited to: sociology, cultural studies, anthropology, human geography, political science, gender studies, art, performance, social work, communication studies and journalism, history, literary studies, social studies of science and technology and environmental studies.

Please send a 250-word abstract and a 150-word bio note before 10th September 2025 to Creative.Bodies@uni-graz.at

 Registration fee: 190 EUR

 Registration fee (student presenters): 130 EUR

The conference registration fee includes the conference dinner, two lunches, tea/coffee breaks and the conference pack with the book of abstracts.

Information on registration and updates on the program will be available on the conference website: https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcreative-bodies.uni-graz.at%2Fde%2F&data=05%7C02%7Creei%40iu.edu%7C548f2b162ce340279ee408dd6abf05d7%7C1113be34aed14d00ab4bcdd02510be91%7C1%7C0%7C638784090841101578%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=%2BtJTdcyxN0SHkPv1wJrgvUw2Z2U94Q2BBOGh5C4juL8%3D&reserved=0.

Graz, a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site and Cultural Capital of Europe for 2003, is the capital of the Austrian province of Styria and the home of Austria’s second largest university.

Conference organizers:

Libora Oates-Indruchová, Department of Sociology, University of Graz Zorica Siročić, Department of Sociology, University of Graz Mónica Cano Abadía, BBMRI-ERIC Carolyn Defrin, Centre for Southeast European Studies, University of Graz Barbara Hönig, Department of Social Work, FH JOANNEUM – University of Applied Sciences Graz Frithjof Nungesser, Department of Sociology, University of Graz

Important dates:

Submission of abstracts: 10 September 2025 Informing about abstract acceptance: mid-November 2025 Conference registration opens: 15 December 2025 Conference registration ends: 31 January 2026

Dear Grads and Undergrads,

A summer internship with the theme of Advancing Digital Democracy in Eastern Europe. All questions/inquiries regarding this opportunity including the deadline for applying should be directed to:

Lupton P. Abshire
Strategic Outreach
Advisory Voting Initiative
A Vote, a Voice, and the Power of Participation
www.advisoryvote.us

For Russian Language Teachers, Students, and Others Interested in Russia,

On behalf of the American Home in Vladimir, Russia – which is celebrating its 30^th anniversary this year – I would like to remind you about several program opportunities and deadlines.

Applications Accepted All Year
(http://www.ah33.ru/study-russian/)

Longer and shorter programs, from one week to a year, are also possible.

The benefits of the American Home’s long-standing Intensive Russian Program – the main program offers one-to-one instruction to each participant – are provided to group participants:

• Experienced faculty specializing in teaching Russian to non-native speakers;
• Program and schedule customized to the needs of each group of students;
• Study from one week to one year;
• Individual home-stay with a Russian family;
• “Russian friend-conversation partner” program;
• On-site administrative support;
• Well-equipped classrooms in a comfortable, home-like, atmosphere;
• Excursions in Vladimir and to Suzdal (a UNESCO World Heritage site) and Bogoliubovo;
• Opportunities to meet and socialize with some of the more than 600 Russians participating in the American Home English Program and others;
• Opportunities to participate in a variety of activities—for example, volunteering at an orphanage

New master’s program “Estonian and Finno-Ugric Languages” (EFUL) at the Institute of Estonian and General Linguistics at the University of Tartu.

This two-year MA program is unique in combining in-depth language learning with comprehensive, English-based studies in linguistics. Because classes are taught in English (with the exception of language classes, of course), students whose Estonian language skills are not advanced enough to take university classes in Estonian can still study Estonian and Finno-Ugric languages in Tartu, and take full advantage of the great opportunities that Estonia has to offer.

Students in the program can choose between specializing in either Estonian or Finno-Ugric languages. In addition to attending the institute’s advanced classes in linguistics and digital methods taught by cutting-edge researchers and lecturers, studying in Tartu has a clear advantage because of its location in Estonia and in proximity to other Finno-Ugric language areas. This gives our students not only the chance to practice Estonian on a daily basis, but also access other Finno-Ugric languages, partly via the many smaller Finno-Ugric language communities in Estonia. In addition, students can develop their digital skills in modules on computational linguistics and programming, in collaboration with the University of Tartu’s Centre for Digital Humanities and Information Society.

We are happy to offer a number of scholarship opportunities, including full tuition waivers. The final details about the application process are still being worked out, but will be announced next month. For more information about the program as well as about living and studying in Tartu, check out both the EFUL website at https://ut.ee/en/curriculum/estonian-and-finno-ugric-languages and the Study-in-Estonia website www.studyinestonia.ee.

I have also attached our EFUL flyer. And of course, feel free to contact me or the program director Prof. Gerson Klumpp (gerson.klumpp@ut.ee) if you have any other questions.

Please see the link below for unpaid part/full time internships with the US Department of Education. All inquiries/questions should be directed to the point of contact at the bottom of the advert. Thank you.

Internship Opportunities with the Office of International and Foreign Language Education