The Baltic Sea Region is home to numerous cultures and societies. Through interdisciplinary scholarly discussions, the Slavic Reference Service and the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies seek to bring together scholars in all disciplines and stages of the research process to discuss the theme of Nation and Sovereignty. Individual papers, panels, and roundtables may take on the many facets, forms of expression, ecosystems, and perspectives that shape the idea of a nation-state and sovereignty.

Graduate students, policy researchers, postdocs, and recent graduates in all disciplines are especially encouraged to submit proposals. You can upload a 250-word abstract here - https://uofi.app.box.com/f/d012757a5f8e4983affdd547b609b16e

Forum participants will have the opportunity to network and interact with librarians, archivists, and scholars from the region. All are welcome!

Subthemes of the Research Forum include:

· Language and literatures

· Self-determination

· National identities

· Foreign policy

· Regional security

Deadline to submit proposals: September 19, 2022.

Notification of acceptance: September 23, 2022.

Questions? Contact the Slavic Reference Service (srscite@library.illinois.edu)

Please consider submitting an abstract to take part in the panel on historical trauma and national healing at the NeMLA conference in Niagara Falls, NY, March 23-26, 2023.

Panel Title: “Mythology of Historical Trauma and National Healing in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russian Cinema.”

Description: This panel reflects on the cinematic representations of historical traumas in Soviet and post-Soviet cinema and their impact on the Russian collective memory and national identity.

From the final years of the Soviet Union and up to the present, Russia has been struggling how to address the problem of its “usable past” (Van Wyck Brooks) by reconciling the need for national atonement for its bloody history with the national pride for the astounding resilience of its people. Cinematic attempts to process historical traumas and possibilities for national healing (such as Abuladze’s “Repentance,” Lungin’s “Battle for Afghanistan”, Konchalovsky’s “House of Fools,” German’s “Khrustalyov, my car!” among others) expose the unresolved national identity crisis. Mythology of historical traumas on the screen is typically represented in two ways: it either solidifies the state narrative and serves its political agenda or it is reassessed in films, frequently festival films, that are often rejected by Russian mass audience as West-oriented because of the perceived national self-flagellation and belittlement.

The panel will discuss some of the questions about the collective representation of history in Soviet and post-Soviet Russian cinema:

· What role does the politics of memory on screen play in shaping Russian national identity?

· How has the cinematic mythology of historical trauma changed over time?

· Have the state censorship and self-censorship led to silencing historical traumas on the one hand, and blurring the line between collective shame and individual responsibility on the other hand (as seen through Hannah Arendt’s framework of “organized guilt and universal responsibility”)?

· How does narrating or silencing traumatic stories of origin affect the processes of repentance, reconciliation, and national healing?

· What cinematic texts became cultural markers for preserving the national identity and serving as communal shrines of remembrance for the people(s) in the Soviet and post-Soviet years?

To participate, please submit a 300-word abstract by September 30, 2022:  Submit your abstract here

For more information about the NeMLA conference, please see: https://www.buffalo.edu/nemla.html

Feel free to contact me with any questions at imeier@unm.edu

We would like to extend our cordial invitation to submit your paper and panel proposals to our bi-annual conference of Australasian Association for Communist and Post-communist Studies (AACAPS) that will take place in Sydney on 2-3 February 2023. UNSW will be the host of the conference.

The theme of the conference is 'War, Peace, and the Post-Pandemic World: Eurasian Perspectives', which reflects the key developments happening in our region of interest and more broadly, globally. 

As always, we welcome researchers and their presentations in all fields with the topics directly or indirectly related to the region/countries of our interest.

The conference will be in hybrid format, although we aim to have a significant in-person presence at the conference, so we can again enjoy invaluable conversations beyond the presentations and Q&A time slots. 

Both panel and individual paper submissions are welcome. 

Please send the following details to aacapsconference@gmail.com:

1) name(s), 2) current institutional affiliation(s), 3) title/position(s), 4) postal address and emails, 5) title of panel or paper, 6) panel description and/or abstract of paper (200 words or less). 

Deadline for all proposals is 30 September 2022.

Professor Carmen Bachmann, Leipzig University. Chance for Science Conference—September 8-9, 2022—seeks to provide Ukrainian scholars with a platform where they can share their work, and bring scholars and students from around the world to learn about research on Ukrainian topics. The guiding principle of the conference is to create a network and to establish a dialogue among refugee and German/European/international academics and institutions.

This is the second round of the conference, which has attracted about 160 scholars affected by the war. The program is rich and multidisciplinary. You are invited to attend the panels online and to participate in the exchange of ideas. 

You can register to participate as an attendee here. If you are interested in participating as a panel moderator, please reach out to the organizers at conference@chance-for-science.de.

The Kennan Institute is pleased to announce its competitions for both the Title VIII Short-Term Grant and the George F. Kennan Fellowship.

Detailed information about each grant is below, and more information about all other opportunities can be found here: https://www.wilsoncenter.org/kennan-institute-fellowships-and-internships

This grant is for those scholars whose research in the social sciences or humanities focuses on Russia, Ukraine, and the countries of Eurasia, and who demonstrate a particular need to utilize the library, archival, and other specialized resources of the Washington, D.C. area. Policy-relevant research is preferred. Applicants are required to hold an MA degree or higher, or demonstrate commensurate professional achievement. Applicants must be U.S. citizens. More information on that grant can be found here: https://www.wilsoncenter.org/opportunity/kennan-institute-title-viii-supported-short-term-grant

Fellows will be based a the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. for three-month residencies focused on diverse, policy-oriented sectors such as media, business, local government, law, civil society, and academia to examine important political, social, economic, cultural, and historical issues in Russia, Ukraine, and the region. The fellowship aims to build bridges between traditional academia and the policy world, as well as to maintain and increase collaboration among researchers from Russia, Ukraine, the U.S., and around the globe. The fellowships are funded by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York. There are no citizenship requirements for this grant.

Applicants may apply individually or as a team. If applying as a team of two applicants, the applicants must be citizens of at least two different countries. More information can be found here: https://www.wilsoncenter.org/opportunity/george-f-kennan-fellowship

Please send questions about either grant to Victoria Pardini (Victoria.pardini@wilsoncenter.org)

American Councils is pleased to announce that applications are now open for its 2023-24 Title VIII Research Scholar and Title VIII Combined Research & Language Training Programs. The application deadline is October 1, 2022.  

Designed to expand the accessibility of overseas research while increasing U.S. knowledge and expertise on Eastern Europe and Eurasia, the programs support fellows seeking to complete overseas, policy-relevant research. Fellowships last three to nine consecutive months and include round-trip international travel; housing and living stipends; visa support; overseas health, accident, and evacuation insurance; archive access; and logistical support. Following the completion of the research term, fellows will return to the U.S. and share their findings through presentations, articles, and lectures in order to strengthen and broaden current scholarship on the region.  

Please do not hesitate to share this announcement with eligible Title VIII participants or reach out to American Councils at Outbound@americancouncils.org.  

Intersections of Film and Television in the Baltic Sea Region: Past and Present
Baltic Screen Media Review (special issue)  

The call for applications for the 2023-2024 Peace Scholar Application is now open.

USIP's Peace Scholar Fellowship program awards non-residential fellowships to PhD candidates enrolled in U.S. universities who are writing doctoral dissertations on topics broadly related to conflict management, peacebuilding and relevant security studies. Since 1988, the program has supported the dissertations of 371 young scholars, many of whom have gone on to distinguished careers in research, higher education, and policy making.

This program partners with the Minerva Research Initiative to support additional fellowships relating to topics on peace and security studies. Currently, the program awards up to 18 scholarships per year, and awards support both research and writing stages of work on dissertations.

For more information and or to apply, use the following link: https://www.usip.org/grants-fellowships/fellowships/peace-scholar-fellowship-program

Important Dates

Registration closes – Thursday, October 6^th

Application deadline – Tuesday, October 18^th

Letters of reference due – Tuesday, October 25^th

Late October 2022 Deadline

American Council of Learned Societies Announces Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellowship Program

New Program Will Support Early Career Scholars Pursuing
Innovative Approaches to Dissertation Research in the
Humanities and Interpretive Social Sciences

The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) is pleased to announce the launch of the Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellowships, a new program designed to support emerging scholars as they advance bold and innovative research in the humanities and interpretive social sciences. The program is made possible by a grant from the Mellon Foundation.

The Dissertation Innovation Fellowship program will make awards to doctoral students who show promise of leading their fields in important new directions. The fellowships are designed to intervene at the formative stage of dissertation development, before writing is advanced, and provide time and support for emerging scholars’ innovative approaches to dissertation research – practical, trans- or interdisciplinary, collaborative, critical, or methodological. The program seeks to expand the range of research methodologies, formats, and areas of inquiry traditionally considered suitable for the dissertation, with a particular focus on supporting scholars who can build a more diverse, inclusive, and equitable academy.

“The energy, curiosity, and creativity of emerging scholars can make a dissertation project into scholarship that refreshes and helps transform our fields and disciplines,” said Joy Connolly, president of ACLS. “ACLS has long supported innovation in the scholarly humanities, including work that crosses traditional boundaries and opens new directions of inquiry. We are thrilled to partner with the Mellon Foundation to support graduate students and their advisors with this new initiative.”

The program will seek projects that push the traditional approaches to dissertation research in new directions. The strongest applications will show evidence of thoughtful plans for engaging the sources, resources, scholars, and communities necessary to advance their projects. Fellows might design a year that incorporates intensive digital methods training, a short-term practicum with a think-tank or social justice organization to develop experience with applied methods, and/or site-based research involving community-engaged or collaborative approaches.

Each awardee will receive a $40,000 stipend for the fellowship year, as well as access to funding for research, travel, training, and other professional development activities. The award also supports additional mentorship for fellows, offering a stipend for external mentors who can bring critical perspectives to fellows’ projects. ACLS will also facilitate cross-cohort networking among fellows and advisors.

ACLS is launching the Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellowship as it winds down its long-running Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowship (DCF) program, which supported doctoral students in the final year of dissertation research and writing. Over the course of 16 competitions, the program provided funding to more than 1,000 promising scholars across a broad spectrum of disciplines in the humanities and interpretive social sciences and drew on the expertise of over 1,500 doctoral faculty as peer reviewers. ACLS looks forward to announcing a final cohort of 50 Dissertation Completion Fellows in the coming days. ACLS will build on the relationships established through the DCF program, as well as work on the future of doctoral education among our member societies, to support our ongoing advocacy for salutary systems change in higher education.

ACLS will begin accepting applications for the new Dissertation Innovation Fellowship in July 2022, with an application deadline in late October 2022. ACLS will host a series of webinars over the coming months and through September of this year.

Learn More About the Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellowship and Sign Up for Updates

Formed a century ago, the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) is a nonprofit federation of 78 scholarly organizations. As the leading representative of American scholarship in the humanities and interpretive social sciences, ACLS upholds the core principle that knowledge is a public good. In supporting its member organizations, ACLS utilizes its $179 million endowment and $34 million annual operating budget to expand the forms, content, and flow of scholarly knowledge, reflecting our commitment to diversity of identity and experience. ACLS collaborates with institutions, associations, and individuals to strengthen the evolving infrastructure for scholarship. In all aspects of our work, ACLS is committed to principles and practices in support of racial and social justice.

The Mellon Foundation is the nation's largest supporter of the arts and humanities. Mellon believes that the arts and humanities are where we express our complex humanity and that everyone deserves the beauty, transcendence, and freedom to be found there. Through its grants, Mellon seeks to build just communities enriched by meaning and empowered by critical thinking, where ideas and imagination can thrive. The Foundation makes grants in four core program areas: Arts and Culture; Higher Learning; Humanities in Place; and Public Knowledge.

The Hryhoriy Kochur Department of Translation Studies and Contrastive Linguistics, Department of Literary Theory and Comparative Literature Studies in partnership with the Center for Academic and Cross-Cultural Communication of Ivan Franko National University of Lviv under the co-organizational support of Institute of Slavic Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences cordially invite you to participate in the international e-conference SLAVIC LITERARY STUDIES DECONSTRUCTED: TRANSLATING UKRAINE (November 7-8, 2022) that aims to revisit the role, positioning and impact of Ukrainian studies that stood for decades – together with Polish, Czech and Slovakian scholarship – in the shadow of Russian studies within the world leading Slavic academic centers.

As the research community strives for in‐depth investigations into this unduly neglected situation, some researchers have rightly expressed concerns over the academic rigor and trustworthiness of modern Slavic studies with its unequal if not manipulative representations of cultures. Numerous departments of “Russian and Slavic Studies” inviting students to acquire knowledge of Russian literature, culture and language with the elements of other Slavic cultures seem to view the latter as the Other, which, in Said’s sense, is constrained within the frames of imperial knowledge imposed by Russia.

As the paradigm shift in the Slavic Studies is inevitable, the present conference is a research-based, scholarly response to the current moment that calls for deep rethinking of the area, re-reading and actualizing the multi-perspective Ukrainian narrative and opening up new intellectual perspectives. The event will provide a premier interdisciplinary platform for researchers and educators in Slavic Studies to present and discuss the most recent concerns, trends and thematic innovations.

The participants of the conference are invited to expand the discussion on the following aspects:

• deciphering the multivoicedness of Slavic Studies in the “world republic of letters”, in Pascale Casanova’s terms;
• retranslating Ukraine to the world through the relevant and adequate presentation of its literature and cultural heritage on the global scene;
• problematizing the agency, paratextual framing and reception of translations of Ukrainian literature, both contemporary and classic;
• contesting the Russian-bound perspective in Slavic Studies.

Organizing Committee invites proposals for presentations on any theoretical, empirical, and/or methodological aspect of research related to the conference theme.

The official conference languages are English and Ukrainian. Simultaneous interpreting will be provided.

Keynote speakers confirmed to date:

Rory Finnin, University Associate Professor of Ukrainian Studies, University of Cambridge, UK

Oleh Ilnytzkyj, Professor Emeritus of Ukrainian Literature, Language & Culture, University of Alberta, Canada

Mariya Zubrytska, Associate Professor of Literary Theory and Comparative Literary Studies, Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, Ukraine

Marko Pavlyshyn, Emeritus Professor in the Mykola Zerov Centre for Ukrainian Studies, Monash University, Australia.

Two categories of proposals will be considered: (i) individual papers; (ii) panels.

Proposals for individual papers: Each paper presentation will be scheduled for 15-20 minutes, plus 10 minutes for discussion. For individual presentations, a max. 350-word abstract (including references) and a bio-note should be sent to the organizing committee conference_slavic_deconstructed@lnu.edu.ua by October 20, 2022.

Proposals for panels: Panels make up a collection of up to four paper presentations, each paper will be scheduled for 15-20 minutes, plus 10 minutes for discussion. Panel organizers are asked to submit the panel abstracts with a list of invited speakers en bloc to the organizing committee conference_slavic_deconstructed@lnu.edu.ua by October 20, 2022.

IMPORTANT DATES:

Deadline for submission of proposals October 20, 2022

Notification of acceptance October 27, 2022

Deadline for registration for non-presenting participants November 4, 2022 (please send to the conference email address your contact information).

“Eastern European Urban Narratives of Conflict” ("Studia Rossica Posnaniensia", issue no. XLIX/1/2024)

Editors: Seth Graham (University College London), Rachel Morley (University College London), Beata Waligórska-Olejniczak (Adam Mickiewicz University)

1) Scope of the special issue and the relevance of the subject:

The 2022 edition of ‘Millennium Docs Against Gravity’, Poland’s largest documentary film festival, featured a Susan Sontag retrospective that included her work Waiting for Godot…in Sarajevo, made in the Bosnian capital during the siege and codirected with Nicole Stéphane. The film, which is often described as Sontag’s lasting gift to Sarajevans and which gave them hope and the possibility of responding to suppressed emotions, today inevitably brings to mind places such as Kyiv, Kharkiv and Mariupol, whose suffering inhabitants and ruined architecture have made us doubt the existence of a civilized world. Focusing attention on the mission of art and the role of the artist as an engaged witness of reality, this special issue of “Studia Rossica Posnaniensia” will concentrate on urban experiences of all kinds of conflicts: military, political, interpersonal, ethnic, religious, environmental, etc. We would like to pinpoint the role of Eastern European cities as sites of power and powerlessness, as spaces where pain is/was inflicted, contemplated, embodied, expressed or (re)negotiated, and as intersections of different cultures and traditions (e.g. Catholicism and Orthodoxy). We would also welcome proposals rooted in gender studies, queer studies, post-colonial studies, disability studies, performative studies and animal studies, that may offer perspectives on the city space as a battlefield for one’s dignity, rights and identity. We expect that authors might refer to Sontag’s belief in the artist’s social and ethical duty to explore the link between the aesthetic and the political as well as the relationship between the mind and the body in urban environments.

Treating Russian and Soviet literature, cinema and language as a point of departure for discussion, we anticipate that the special issue will address, among others, the following questions:

-                      What is the language of conflict as expressed in visual images, metaphors and verbal communication? Are there recurrent formulas and images in Eastern European cultures? Are they linked specifically to one culture or are they multicultural?

-                      How does urban space endorse or prevent conflicts and/or wars?

-                      How/why do specific cities become the primary sites of conflict?

-                      How are future urban conflicts imagined, predicted and narrated?

-                      How do Eastern European cities engage in negotiating conflicts related to sexual identity? What is the role of liminal and transit spaces in this domain? Does urban architecture blur or define sexual conflicts?

Both theoretical works and discussions of artistic representations are welcome. We are particularly interested in proposals that seek connections between various disciplines, such as literary studies, film studies, linguistics, urban studies, memory studies, anthropology, and urban psychology, to name just a few.

2) Possible topics and areas of discussion include, but are not limited to, the following:

-                      conflicts of marginalized nationalities and ethnicities

-                      places that are ignored, neglected, degraded or destroyed as a result of (military) conflicts

-                      literary and cinematic first and second cities

-                      monster cities – city monsters

-                      navigating the psycho-fantastical geography of urban conflict

-                      urban memory spaces

-                      human vs. non-human in cities

-                      bodies in pain

-                      travel writing in the context of social, political and military conflicts

-                      common challenges of survival in the city

-                      city diaries, cinematic cities

-                      sounds & silence in the city under siege

-                      urban nature-culture

-                      crime fiction, speculative fiction, nuclear narratives, utopias/dystopias

-                      healing spaces in the urban context

-                      city diasporas, biopolitics, surveillance

-                      environmental justice, ecofiction & ecocatastrophes

-                      Holocaust, genocide, urban ghettos

-                      urbicide, the killing of cities, urban destruction, death in the city

-                      representations of trauma, grief, loss, mourning, works on witnessing conflicts

-                      urban narratives as metaphors of fear & apocalypse

-                      Eastern European war testimonies

-                      fragmented cities – fragmented nations

-                      decaying empires

-                      working women in the city, social and political control, violence and discrimination

-                      liminality of the city, borderlands, peripheral spheres, intersections in the context of city architecture

-                      childhood conflicts in the city

-                      cities of revolution

3) Deadlines and editorial timetable:

Publication of the CfP online (in English, Russian and Polish): 15.07.2022

Submission of abstracts: 15.11.2022

Decision of the editors’ committee regarding abstracts: 15.12.2022

Submission of complete articles: 15.05.2023

Results of reviews: 30.06.2023

Submission of revised articles: 15.09.2023

Publication of the issue: 30.06.2024

Out of the USSR: Travelling Women, Travelling Memories 

2-3.2.2023 University of Turku, Finland 

Travelling has always been connected with fundamental social and political changes taking place in societies. Throughout history, one of the countries that people have chosen to leave, move away or have been expelled from, but also a country which they have been going back to, is Russia/the Soviet Union. There is an obvious link between the large transformations that have taken place in Russia since the time of perestroika in the 1990s until the ongoing war in Ukraine and the restrictions of civil rights such as freedom of speech, and the increased mobility out of Russia. 

The conference takes these transformations as starting points in examining how individuals reflect on and recall the Soviet/Russian home country in literary presentations, addressing the history of mobility, emigration, family, gender, ethnic or religious background in face of their collective memory in their new place of residence. The meeting points for the proposals are the concepts of travelling/mobility/exile and (post-, trans-/cross-cultural) memory. The focus is on women’s fictional texts and memories from the 1980s until today that allow the presentations to address and to acknowledge [e]migrating women writers as mediators of ideas and memories in trans-/cross- cultural contexts. The aim of the conference is to focus on gender in the process of the transformation of cultures through ideas that travel, and to pay special attention to women’s contribution to the cultural transfer and mobility of ideas and memories which have not been sufficiently studied and documented. We expect presentations addressing published fictional texts by women who have moved from the Soviet and Russian territories into new areas, and by writing they have created and processed memories of moving and of resettling in a new country/location of residence. We are especially interested in memories of women emigrants and travellers to the Nordic countries, Germany, Great Britain, the US, France and Israel. 

The organizers plan to publish an edited collection of papers presented at the conference. 

We invite researchers to a two-day conference that provides a platform to reflect upon the themes that address the following issues and more: 

• What is recalled, and how the history of leaving/migration is experienced, recalled and narrated? 
• Ideas, ideologies and memories (e.g. national myths) which women carry along to their new country/location of residence, and how they change in regard to the home country vis-a-vis the new country? 
• The creation and production of post-memorial recollection of family history 
• Motives for leaving and emigration 
• The constitution of matrilinear narratives and transformation of individual, family- and collective memory through travelling 
• Carriers, media, contents, practices and forms of travelling memory 
• Recollection of Soviet terror (e.g. Stalinist genocide and Holodomor) in the face of the prevalence of Holocaust memory in the new site of residence 
• The understanding of one’s “own” culture, its possible changes, and the kind of presentation / narrative forms the change of location / culture /context produces 
• Narratives of lived experiences in the new location 
• The form that the social and cultural background (age, profession, gender identity, family background, etc.) takes in the texts 
• Cultural memories (family, generation, gendered, etc.) that are carried along and created in the new country of residence, and what is their relation to the new location of residence? 
• Narration of the journey, departure and arrival at the new location of residence 
• Sites of memory in transition 
  
  Keynote speakers are: 
  
  Eva Hausbacher, Professor of Slavic Literature und Culture at the University of Salzburg, Department of Slavic Studies. 
  
  “Close distances: Narratives of the Soviet Past in Russian-German Women’s Writings” 
  
  Simona Mitroiu, PhD, Senior Researcher at Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Department of Interdisciplinary Research in Social-Human Sciences 
  
  “Generations of Memory in Women's Narratives: Literary (re)workings of Transnational 
  
  Disruptions, Intersections, and Transformations” 
  
  Please submit your abstract (title, ca. 250 words, names and affiliations of the presenters) by 1. November 2022 to Viola Parente-Capkova (viocap@utu.fi) and Arja Rosenholm (arja.rosenholm@tuni.fi). 
  
  Acceptance letters and the final programme will be sent by the end of November 2022. 
  
  The conference has its background in the research project Texts on the Move https://tekstitliikkeessa.com/, examining how Russian women’s texts and ideas have been travelling and moving across the border to Finland in 1840-2020. 
  
  Organizer: 
  
  Texts on the Move: Reception of Women ’s Writing in Finland and Russia 1840-2020 (Emil Aaltonen Foundation), and University of Turku, and Tampere University. 

The Hungarian Historical Review welcomes articles, proposals for thematic blocks (3-4 papers), and proposals for entire special issues (5-6 papers) in any topic pertaining to the history of the broadly defined East-Central and Southeastern Europe. Authors of articles are expected to submit their manuscript that consists of 8 to 10 thousand words (including abstract, keywords, notes, and bibliography). Prospective editors of blocks or special issues are expected to submit the titles and abstracts of the papers and a short summary that explains their coherence. All submissions shall be sent to hunghist@abtk.hu. More at Submission guidelines.

Call for Journal Articles

2023/1

The Hungarian Historical Review (https://www.jstor.org/journal/hunghistrevi; www.hunghist.org) invites submissions for its first issue in 2023, the theme of which will be

Modernity Bottom-Up: How Popular Perceptions and Practices Changed the Ideas of Modernity

The deadline for the submission of abstracts: September 30, 2022.

The deadline for the accepted papers: November 30, 2022.

While the study of bottom-up perspectives has significantly enriched our understanding of several fields of research, such as the history of nationalism and religion, the history of the idea of modernity is still dominated by a focus on the contributions of elites, which are implicitly entirely adequate for a nuanced grasp of this ensemble of cultural practices, norms, and attitudes, however admittedly complex it may be. This is all the more puzzling given that modernity has profoundly reshaped entire societies since its emergence in the eighteenth century. Modernization understood as “a body of experience involving a radically new kind of understanding of both time and space” (Berman 1988: 15) is a phenomenon from which, clearly, no one is exempt. Furthermore, the same propaganda that aimed to awaken a sense of national consciousness also spread an unconditional faith in progress, human and technoscientific. It is thus safe to assume that historians can investigate popular ideas about and reactions to change and can reexamine the agency of those who were often considered passive subjects of the various efforts and interventions which came with campaigns to “modernize.”

The Hungarian Historical Review invites research papers that examine how popular behaviors and practices challenged the mainstream, usually optimistic discourses crafted by the modernizing elites about progress and growth from the Enlightenment to the present day.

The geographical focus of the issue is Central and Eastern Europe. However, we do not confine ourselves to the strict geographical borders of the region, especially in the case of comparative papers.

We welcome proposals from scholars at all stages of their careers pursuing work on any of the aspects of the questions raised above.

This special issue particularly welcomes papers discussing the following fields:

• overlapping histories of nation building and modernization, seen from below
• methodological approaches, documents, and narrative sources that make possible to discern popular perceptions of modernity
• critical perceptions of urban modernity
• rural populations and modernization
• anxiety about, reservations concerning, or resistance to modernization as incentive of popular discontents
• strikes and workers’ movements reinterpreted alongside attitudes towards modernity
• modern experiences that cut across boundaries of ethnicity, class, religion, or gender
• popular perceptions of ecological degradation linked to modernization
• challenges put by modernity to popular religiosity and other faith-based understandings of the world

Please send an abstract of no more than 500 words and a short biographical note with a selected list of the author’s three most important publications (we do not accept full CVs) no later than September 30, 2022.

Proposals should be submitted to the special editor of the issue by email:

Eszik.Veronika@abtk.hu

The editors will ask the authors of selected papers to submit their final articles (max. 10,000 words) no later than November 30, 2022.

The articles will be published after a double-blind peer-review process. We provide proofreading for contributors who are not native speakers of English.

All articles must conform to our submission guidelines.

The Hungarian Historical Review is a peer-reviewed international quarterly of the social sciences and humanities, the geographical focus of which is Hungary and East-Central Europe. For additional information, including submission guidelines, please visit the journal’s website: www.hunghist.org

Call for Papers

“Eastern European Urban Narratives of Conflict”

Journal: “Studia Rossica Posnaniensia” (issue no. XLIX/1/2024)

Editors: Seth Graham (University College London), Rachel Morley (University College London), Beata Waligórska-Olejniczak (Adam Mickiewicz University)

1) Scope of the special issue and the relevance of the subject:

The 2022 edition of ‘Millennium Docs Against Gravity’, Poland’s largest documentary film festival, featured a Susan Sontag retrospective that included her work Waiting for Godot…in Sarajevo, made in the Bosnian capital during the siege and codirected with Nicole Stéphane. The film, which is often described as Sontag’s lasting gift to Sarajevans and which gave them hope and the possibility of responding to suppressed emotions, today inevitably brings to mind places such as Kyiv, Kharkiv and Mariupol, whose suffering inhabitants and ruined architecture have made us doubt the existence of a civilized world. Focusing attention on the mission of art and the role of the artist as an engaged witness of reality, this special issue of “Studia Rossica Posnaniensia” will concentrate on urban experiences of all kinds of conflicts: military, political, interpersonal, ethnic, religious, environmental, etc. We would like to pinpoint the role of Eastern European cities as sites of power and powerlessness, as spaces where pain is/was inflicted, contemplated, embodied, expressed or (re)negotiated, and as intersections of different cultures and traditions (e.g. Catholicism and Orthodoxy). We would also welcome proposals rooted in gender studies, queer studies, post-colonial studies, disability studies, performative studies and animal studies, that may offer perspectives on the city space as a battlefield for one’s dignity, rights and identity. We expect that authors might refer to Sontag’s belief in the artist’s social and ethical duty to explore the link between the aesthetic and the political as well as the relationship between the mind and the body in urban environments.

Treating Russian and Soviet literature, cinema and language as a point of departure for discussion, we anticipate that the special issue will address, among others, the following questions:

-          What is the language of conflict as expressed in visual images, metaphors and verbal communication? Are there recurrent formulas and images in Eastern European cultures? Are they linked specifically to one culture or are they multicultural?

-          How does urban space endorse or prevent conflicts and/or wars?

-          How/why do specific cities become the primary sites of conflict?

-          How are future urban conflicts imagined, predicted and narrated?

-          How do Eastern European cities engage in negotiating conflicts related to sexual identity? What is the role of liminal and transit spaces in this domain? Does urban architecture blur or define sexual conflicts?

Both theoretical works and discussions of artistic representations are welcome. We are particularly interested in proposals that seek connections between various disciplines, such as literary studies, film studies, linguistics, urban studies, memory studies, anthropology, and urban psychology, to name just a few.

2) Possible topics and areas of discussion include, but are not limited to, the following:

-          conflicts of marginalized nationalities and ethnicities

-          places that are ignored, neglected, degraded or destroyed as a result of (military) conflicts

-          literary and cinematic first and second cities

-          monster cities – city monsters

-          navigating the psycho-fantastical geography of urban conflict

-          urban memory spaces

-          human vs. non-human in cities

-          bodies in pain

-          travel writing in the context of social, political and military conflicts

-          common challenges of survival in the city

-          city diaries, cinematic cities

-          sounds & silence in the city under siege

-          urban nature-culture

-          crime fiction, speculative fiction, nuclear narratives, utopias/dystopias

-          healing spaces in the urban context

-          city diasporas, biopolitics, surveillance

-          environmental justice, ecofiction & ecocatastrophes

-          Holocaust, genocide, urban ghettos

-          urbicide, the killing of cities, urban destruction, death in the city

-          representations of trauma, grief, loss, mourning, works on witnessing conflicts

-          urban narratives as metaphors of fear & apocalypse

-          Eastern European war testimonies

-          fragmented cities – fragmented nations

-          decaying empires

-          working women in the city, social and political control, violence and discrimination

-          liminality of the city, borderlands, peripheral spheres, intersections in the context of city architecture

-          childhood conflicts in the city

-          cities of revolution

3) Deadlines and editorial timetable:

Submission of abstracts: 15.11.2022

Decision of the editors’ committee regarding abstracts: 15.12.2022

Submission of complete articles: 15.05.2023

Results of reviews: 30.06.2023

Submission of revised articles: 15.09.2023

Publication of the issue: 30.06.2024

Languages of submissions: English, Russian and Polish;

Abstracts (1000-1500 characters, in the language of the article) should be sent by email to the editors of the volume by November 15, 2022: Dr Seth Graham (s.graham@ucl.ac.uk), Dr Rachel Morley (rachel.morley@ucl.ac.uk), Dr Beata Waligórska-Olejniczak (beata.waligorska@amu.edu.pl).

We kindly ask you to submit complete papers (25,000-40,000 characters with spaces including bibliography) through the OJS platform at https://pressto.amu.edu.pl/index.php/strp/login

Editorial guidelines can be found at:

http://srp.amu.edu.pl/en/for-authors/

More information about the journal is available on the journal’s website: http://srp.amu.edu.pl/en/about-the-journal/

.

Abstracts are invited in all areas and aspects of this field, including, but not limited to:

• Innovations in Teaching Language and Culture 
• Literature, Linguistics, Folkore or Digital Culture 
• Visual Arts, Cinema Studies, Music, Media, Dance or Performance Studies 
• Historical, Social and Political Contexts  

NCEEER invites applications to its 2023 Title VIII National Research Competition, 2023 Title VIII Short Term Research Grant Competition,  and 2023 Title VIII Dissertation Completion Grant. The deadline for all programs is December 31, 2022. 

The National Research Competition supports scholars who are US citizens and hold the PhD. Awards range from $20,000 for an individual project to $40,000 for a collaborative project. Research may take place in the United States or in the field, in one or more of the countries under the purview of the Title VIII Program (see www.nceeer.org  for details). Eligible proposals must concern topics that are relevant to current US foreign policy.

The Short Term Research Grant supports scholars who are US citizen and hold the PhD. Awards are capped at $2,500 and support short-term research (generally involving travel, also not required to do so) in/on one or more of the countries under the purview of the Title VIII Program. Eligible proposals must concern topics that are relevant to current US foreign policy.

The Dissertation Completion Grant supports scholars who are US citizens in the final year of a PhD program conducting policy-relevant research on one or more of the countries under the purview of the Title VIII program. These individual awards are for up to $25,000 and 9-12 months in duration. Eligible proposals must concern topics that are relevant to current US foreign policy.

Funding for these programs is provided by the Department of State, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, under the Title VIII Program.

Please e-mail Dr. Dana Ponte with any questions (dana@nceeer.org). Application guidelines and materials are available at: www.nceeer.org.

Call for Papers: Towards a History of Disabilities in Eastern Europe

The working group “history of disabilities in Eastern Europe” at Indiana University invites applicants to submit proposals for papers at a conference hosted by the Indiana University Berlin Gateway on June 30-July 1, 2023. The two-day conference aims to foster opportunities for collaboration and networking and to feature research projects in any aspects of the history of disabilities in the region, with a focus on the modern period. We are able to provide funds for travel and accommodations for some participants on a competitive basis and will prioritize junior scholars from Eastern Europe. The conference will be hybrid to enable participation by those unable to travel. Please send any inquiries to the organizer, Maria Bucur,mbucur@indiana.edu. To be considered, please submit a title and short abstract (up to 250words) of the paper to be presented, together with a 2 page CV.

Deadline: December 15th, 2022.

The Association for Women in Slavic Studies (AWSS) is pleased to be able to offer travel grants of between $200 and $1000 for scholars from Eurasia studying women's and gender studies, who are presenting papers at the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) meetings, the AWSS meetings, or the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL) meetings.

Requests to support travel to other conferences will be considered if funds are available. Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis. Scholars should complete the information listed below and submit a budget and a current CV with their application. All recipients of awards are required to submit a short (maximum 250 words) report on their grant activity within 30 days after the event for which travel was supported.

To apply:  https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fawsshome.org%2Fawards%2Ftravel-grants%2F&data=05%7C01%7Cenowacky%40iu.edu%7C4f590964d4174a84283708da32887cbc%7C1113be34aed14d00ab4bcdd02510be91%7C0%7C0%7C637877859030550714%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=vI%2BdaOx6vvG1Ahd%2BVjNFVkzSNxTAHsh%2BKReh3%2FHb%2Fjg%3D&reserved=0

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 which was not provided in the two attachments should be directed to:

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

 The Advisory Voting Initiative - Executive Summary

  Advancing Digital Democracy in Eastern Europe:
Participatory Democracy vs. Autocratic Authoritarianism 

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/) 

Approximate program fee:      one-to-one instruction            group instruction
                                                                                          (2-5+ people, 15-35% discount) 

Four weeks                                $3,651                                   $2,994 - 2,254 

Six weeks                                  $5,009                                   $4,133 - 3,044 

Eight weeks                               $6,367                                   $5,272 - 3,834 

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://www.keel.ut.ee/en/admission/masters-progamme-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.

Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis until positions are filled.

American Councils for International Education is hiring short-term Resident Directors for summer language immersion programs abroad for American high school and college students studying one of 15 critical languages. You or someone in your network may be especially interested to know that positions are available to support learners of Azerbaijani, Persian, Russian, and Turkish.

Resident Directors must be proficient in the target language and typically have experience studying, working, or traveling in the host country. They are responsible for promoting student success by ensuring the health and safety of program participants, helping them to maintain a language policy, and assisting them in acclimating to life in the host country. In-country partner institutes are responsible for administering the academic curriculum. Therefore, the Resident Director position is a non-teaching position.

A full list of available Resident Director positions is available at https://www.americancouncils.org/careers

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