February 2023
- CFP for the 2023 REECAS Northwest Conference
CFP for the 2023 REECAS Northwest Conference.
REECAS Northwest, the annual ASEEES northwest regional conference for Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies (REECAS) will take place April 20 – 22, 2023 at the University of Washington in Seattle, WA.
The REECAS Northwest Conference welcomes students, faculty, independent scholars, and language educators from the United States and abroad. Proposals on all topics connected to the Slavic, East European, and Eurasian world are encouraged. The conference hosts panels on a variety of topics and disciplines including political science, history, literature, linguistics, anthropology, culture, migration studies, gender studies, LGBTQ studies, film studies and more.
Established in 1994, REECAS Northwest is an important annual event for scholars and students in the Pacific Northwest and beyond. This interdisciplinary conference is organized by the University of Washington’s Ellison Center for Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies.
The REECAS Northwest Conference welcomes papers by individuals and pre-formed panels. Individual papers will be grouped thematically into panels.
There are no registration fees for REECAS Northwest conference participants or attendees.
The CFP is open! To submit your proposal, please submit a 300-word abstract and C.V. using the form on the REECAS Northwest Conference webpage: https://bit.ly/REECAS-Northwest
We invite you to share this email and the attached conference flyer widely.
Questions? Please email reecasnw@uw.edu with any questions not answered on the conference website.
- decolonizing/decentering the field
- Due Feb. 7: Apply for REEESNe's second annual FREE Workshop for faculty and administrators, to be held for the first time in person March 31-April 1 at Colgate University.To faculty and staff at a college/university in the northeast (or those at an advanced stage of pedagogical training - postdoctoral fellow, graduate student instructor, Fulbright TA, etc.) we offer subsidized in-person attendance.To those outside the northeast, we offer free registration for the workshop's hybrid sessions.The focus of the workshop will be approaches to decolonizing and decentering/recentering the field, particularly as pertains to curricular responses to Russia's invasion of and war against Ukraine. More details are below.Please help us get out this call by passing the info and the online application form on to colleagues in diverse fields and position types related to REEES at your institution and others!Who Is Invited: Subsidized in-person attendance is offered to faculty/administrators in REEES fields at Northeast institutions (others may attend virtually). For those in need, we plan to cover accommodations and meals, and to assist with transportation costs to the extent possible.What to Expect: Sessions for workshopping curricular responses to Russia’s invasion of and war against Ukraine; discussions of common needs & problems; presentations of success stories from across REEESNe’s network; plenary and keynote sessions featuring Dr. Vitaly Chernetsky; and the planning of future REEESNe-sponsored initiatives to support programs in the NE. We expect the workshop to begin at 1 pm on March 31st and to conclude by the early evening on April 1st. We are happy to work with attendees whose travel requires staying more than a single night.
- The Archive Revisited: Black Feminist Internationalism and Eurasian Knowledge Production
Online Workshop
The Archive Revisited: Black Feminist Internationalism and Eurasian Knowledge Production
May 23-24, 2023
The Archive Revisited focuses on reimagining the legacies of Black feminist internationalism in Soviet Eurasia, i.e., East Europe and Central Asia. The workshop invites scholars, artists, and activists to submit contributions that explore these legacies for their meaning today. Black Internationalist intellectuals shared knowledge globally and formed alliances across nations and continents. For example, Louise Thompson Patterson, Claudia Jones, Eslanda Robeson, Langston Hughes, and Audre Lorde, among many others, tackled the problems of their times, forged transnational relations, and imagined alternative futures that could secure survival for everybody. However, existing archives often hold fragmented traces (if any) of Black women and queer people’s experiences in Soviet Eurasia. Even less is known about Eurasian communities’ perceptions of Black sojourners and their intellectual contributions. Likewise, the role of Eurasian knowledge production in Black internationalists' theorizing does not often come through easily in the archive and scholarship. Against these gaps and absences, workshop participants are invited to reflect on the meaning and value, including the limitations and possibilities, of past relationships, encounters, and intellectual exchanges. The workshop approaches the archive as a site of exploration and location of creative invention and critical knowledge production. It invites participants to explore and elevate perspectives muted in the archive as well as to look at the archive beyond what happened or has not happened. Participants are encouraged to read the archive for what it withholds or implies and reveal/ imagine stories suppressed or discarded by traditional historiographies. Furthermore, the Archive Revisited invites potential contributors to foreground the value of past relationships for the contemporary moment.
The workshop aims to forge a cross-border and cross-disciplinary exchange between scholars, artists, and activists from different geographies. Participants may engage with various narrative and visual forms - academic and artistic - for their contributions (e.g., essays, conversations or interviews, visual art, poetry, short stories). During the workshop, participants, grouped into panels, will present and discuss their contributions prepared in advance. The workshop will provide an opportunity for thoughtful conversation and engagement with participants’ works. After the workshop, participants’ contributions will be assembled into a digital gazette. The idea of a gazette draws inspiration from the West Indian Gazette, founded by the Black organizer and journalist Claudia Jones in 1958 to strengthen Afro-Asian and Caribbean solidarity links. The Archive Revisited digital gazette will catalogue the workshop and contribute to building contemporary anti-colonial connections across borders and differences.
There will be two keynote lectures prior to the workshop. Participants are encouraged to respond to or reflect on the keynotes in preparation for the workshop.
To participate in this online workshop, please submit a proposal: a short bio and a 200-word synopsis of your idea and its connection to the topic. Participants can apply individually or as an artistic group or collective.
Potential workshop topics include, but are not limited to:
- The importance or influence of Black feminist internationalism on Eurasian communities.
- The mobility of ideas across borders (e.g., travel of written works and their translations) that reveal intellectual exchanges between communities historically and in the present.
- What constitutes the archive of Black feminist internationalism, and what place do Eurasian communities and their cultural and intellectual perspectives have within that tradition.
- The different historical circumstances that facilitated the physical and intellectual exchanges between Black sojourners and Eurasia.
- Queer/feminist perspectives on the intellectual and political histories of Black/Eurasian exchanges and what they may bring to contemporary struggles.
- How histories of Black and Eurasian exchanges contribute to the archive of anti-colonial resistance.
Participants are welcome to make their final contributions in multiple languages if needed, but please note that the working language for the workshop is English. Scholarly papers, analytical essays, first-person reflections, and other creative submissions and expressions (poetry, spoken word, etc.) can be up to 2,500 words.
Use the following application form to submit your proposal by February 1, 2023,
Notification of accepted proposals will be sent no later than February 13, 2023. Workshop participants will receive small honoraria thanks to the generous support of the Global Arts + Humanities Discovery Theme at The Ohio State University.
You can attend the workshop and participate in the discussions without preparing a contribution. To express your interest in attending the workshop, please use the following form by March 1, https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeVotspW61orPCEr-_n4S_z8lNE_0gmXwKc_XiJVe941NY8hg/viewform?usp=sf_link.
This workshop is organized by Tatsiana Shchurko, Ph.D. She is a queer feminist scholar and activist from Belarus and is currently a lecturer in the Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at The Ohio State University. Her research explores the historical and contemporary implications of U.S. Black internationalist women's travels to Soviet Eurasia. For any questions about the workshop, please contact Tatsiana Shchurko at shchurko.1@osu.edu.
- / CFP Tbilisi 2023 Conference: Tolstoy and Russian Imperialism
Tolstoy and Russian Imperialism/ Толстой и русский империализм
Tbilisi, Georgia, June 16–19, 2023 Organizers:Michael Denner, Stetson UniversityTatyana Gershkovich, Carnegie Mellon UniversityDonna Orwin, University of Toronto Tolstoy Studies Journal invites your participation in an international conference dedicated to reassessing Leo Tolstoy’s oeuvre in the context of Russian imperialism. Tolstoy’s relation to the empire-building projects of Imperial Russia was far from straightforward, and we encourage scholarship that considers this topic from a variety of theoretical, historical, and literary-critical perspectives. Which forms of imperialism and colonialism were acknowledged by Tolstoy? Which escaped his notice? How do we account for these differences in light of Tolstoy’s work, life, and historical moment? We encourage papers that address these questions by considering Tolstoy in his various guises: as an officer in the tsar’s army, an estate owner, an educator, the author of Russia’s national epic, a pacifist philosopher and world-famous spiritual leader, as a cultural totem of Russia before, during, and after the Soviet Union. We also welcome papers that illuminate the topic in its geographic, ethnic, and cultural specificities. Tolstoy’s experiences in the Caucasus shaped his literary and political imagination in crucial ways and remain in need of more analysis. But no less important are Tolstoy’s perspectives on other borders (e.g., in the Far East) and his real and imagined encounters with other peoples (e.g., Bashkir, Mansi). We hope that our conference will be an occasion to reflect not only on Tolstoy through the lens of empire, but also on empire through the lens of Tolstoy.Expanded topics might include:—Tolstoy’s Caucasian oeuvre—Settler colonialism in Tolstoy’s art and life—Russia as “Internal Empire” in Tolstoy’s work—Tolstoy’s responses to the Russo-Japanese War and other military conquests—Correspondence and collaboration between Tolstoy and anti-colonialists around the world—Imperialism and the processes of reading, translating, and teaching Tolstoy
Please send a 300-word paper proposal in English or Russian, along with a brief contributor’s biography, to tolstoystudiesjournaleditor@gmail.com by February 1, 2023.
- Trusting and Distrusting the Digital World in Imaginative Literature
Trusting and Distrusting the Digital World in Imaginative LiteratureUniversity College Dublin, Ireland7-9 June 2023
Keynote Speakers:
Prof. William Davies (Goldsmiths, University of London)
Prof. Ellen Rutten (University of Amsterdam)
This conference aims to connect two prominent scholarly conversations of the contemporary moment: concerning, on the one hand, the ways in which the digital age has shaped (and been shaped by) human trust relations; and on the other, how digital technologies have intersected with the traditions and practices of imaginative literature. We seek to bring together scholars interested in either or both of these fields of inquiry for an interdisciplinary dialogue on trust, the digital, and the literary.
Scholars across a wide variety of disciplines – including sociology, philosophy, political science, anthropology, psychology, management and organisation studies – have recognised the importance of the digital revolution for thinking about trust. The interpersonal and institutional forms of trust that characterised human relations in the pre-modern and modern periods have been impacted and in many ways transformed by technological innovations linked to computing, the internet, social media, and big data. Meanwhile the relationship between literature and digital technology has become a significant concern in contemporary literary studies. Scholars in the field have asked what impact the shift from print to digital formats has had on reading and critical practice; how we should study “born-digital” texts including hypertext, electronic literature, and post-internet poetry; what new possibilities digital technology offers for the empirical analysis of literature; and how the internet and digital media have been represented in literary works.
In connecting these two conversations, this conference seeks to advance the interdisciplinary scholarship on trust and the digital world by incorporating the insights of imaginative literature and literary studies. How do literary representations of the digital world shape our trust and distrust of that world? How has the transition to digital life challenged, asserted or transformed bonds of trust, and how has imaginative literature responded to and represented those changes? How have literary texts (print or digital) dealt with the affective nature of trust through their content and form? How has the digitisation of literary production and consumption shaped and been shaped by the ways in which readers relate to texts?
Topics for papers might include, but are not limited to, the following:
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o Trusting (in) the digital world
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o Transformations of trust in the digital age
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o Unreliable narration in the digital age
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o Big data and imaginative literature
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o Cryptocurrency and its literary representations
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o Blockchain, trust, and literary form
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o AI writing and trust
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o Interpersonal, institutional, and “distributed” trust
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o Cognitive and affective trust
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o Digital ecologies of trust
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o Digital surveillance and its literary representations
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o Representations of digital interaction in contemporary literature
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o Anticipations of the digital in earlier literature
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o Digital futures in imaginative literature
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o Literary histories of trust
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o Literary institutions in the digital age
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o The authority of “literature” in the digital age
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o The literary critic in the digital age
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o Online reviewing and the question of trust
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o Trusting new literary formats
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o Trusting the digital economy in contemporary literature
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o Digital sociologies of literature
Abstracts of 200-300 words for 20-minute papers and an author bio of max 100 words should be submitted by e-mail attachment to trust.ucd@gmail.com by 13 February 2023. We also welcome joint proposals for panels of three papers, or panels with innovative formats.
We welcome paper proposals from researchers who are based at institutions around the world, whose research stems from a variety of disciplines and languages, and who are at any career stage. Some bursaries will be available to support the participation of early career and precariously employed researchers. We are aiming not to charge any entrance fee for the conference.
Applicants will be informed by early March as to their inclusion in the conference programme. Please also note that we intend to pursue publication avenues stemming from the conference theme.
This conference forms part of the Irish Research Council-funded project “Imaginative Literature and Social Trust, 1990-2025.” The website for the project is www.trustlit.org.
- Monterey Summer Symposium on Russia 2023 in Armenia & Georgia
The Monterey Initiative in Russian Studies (MIRS) at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey invites applications for the Monterey Summer Symposium on Russia 2023.
It is our pleasure to announce the upcoming Monterey Summer Symposium on Russia 2023. It will be held in Armenia and Georgia, running from July 2 to July 17, 2023. Armenia and Georgia are two very different countries, differently positioned geopolitically, though with shared history in the Soviet Union and Russian Empire. They stand at a proverbial crossroads of international affairs. China’s Belt and Road Initiative runs through the South Caucasus, which are crucial to global energy supplies. On energy and regional security, the United States plays an important role, while Turkey and Iran are neighboring countries, connected to Armenia and Georgia through bonds of tension and affiliation. Armenia and Georgia have been profoundly affected by Russia’s war in Ukraine, which has added degrees of uncertainty to a region long familiar with uncertainty.
At a time when direct contact with Russia is difficult, because of the war and its consequences, Armenia and Georgia offer unique lenses through which to understand the course of Russian politics, the drift of Russian foreign policy and the place of Russia in the world. Although the United States, Europe, and China are significant regional actors, they are hardly the only relevant ones; and they can be quite distant. The region’s own complexities must take center stage. Armenia’s close relationship with Russia can be compared with Georgia’s conflictual relationship with its large neighbor. While Russia’s influence (present-day and historical) in the region is impossible to ignore, it must be also recognized that regional actors in the South Caucasus have influence on Russia, and they often find ways of breaking away from or qualifying Russian influence. Careful consideration of these dynamics is helpful for an understanding of what Russian power is and what it is not.
Another pivotal reality is the way in which Armenia and Georgia have become key destinations for the Russian diaspora following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. There was a joke in the 1930s that the only place in the world where the battle between Stalin and Trotsky could truly be carried out was New York City. This joke has a contemporary resonance. Russian politics is taking shape not just in Moscow and not just in the Kremlin. It is visible and audible in the buzz of conversation, the debate, and the publications of many diaspora centers, from Berlin to Riga. Of these, Yerevan and Tbilisi have become two of the most important. The Monterey Summer Symposium 2023 will thus provide serious students of Russian history, culture, and politics a unique opportunity to get out of the classroom and off social media, and to engage people in real time on the major questions of the day.
In the Monterey Summer Symposium 2023, twelve selected fellows will learn about imperial geopolitics in Eurasia and the world. They will analyze the war in Ukraine in comparative historical context, examining the end of the Soviet empire and its on-going consequences. They will probe the history of the Soviet Union as a multi-national, multi-ethnic, multi-confessional state. They will delve into the South Caucasus and Caucasus more generally in the Soviet and post-Soviet cultural space, exploring their geopolitics. They will look carefully at the roles played by Russia, Iran, Turkey, the United States, and China in the region, including in the Black Sea region; and they will assess the impact of the war in Ukraine on the Caucasus. While addressing these themes, the Monterey Symposium fellows will conduct sociological field research on the influx of Russian citizens on Armenia and Georgia. They will finish the Symposium not just with a host of new ideas but – ideally – with a new angle of vision.
Symposium fellows will be taught by such leading experts as Thomas Graham, Dominic Lieven, Robert Legvold, Yuri Slezkine, Andrei Zorin, Georgi Derlugyan, Anatol Lieven, Craig Calhoun, Hanna Notte, Arthur Atanesyan, Elena Chernenko, and many others.
A complete application consists of a cover sheet, a Curriculum Vitae, a statement of purpose, an abstract of current research, details of Russian language proficiency, two letters of recommendation, and official transcripts. Applicants must have advanced proficiency in Russian. Applications will be accepted until February 1, 2023.
For more information and to access the application, please see: https://www.middlebury.edu/institute/academics/centers-initiatives/monterey-initiative-russian-studies/monterey-summer-symposium-on
- Intermarriage during the Holocaust Research Workshop
International Research Workshop
Intermarriage during the Holocaust: Jewish and Romani “Mixed” Families in Nazi Europe
August 9–18, 2023
Washington, D.C.
Applications due 2/10/23
The Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum invites applications for a research workshop entitled Intermarriage during the Holocaust: Jewish and Romani “Mixed” Families in Nazi Europe. The Mandel Center will co-convene this workshop with Benjamin Frommer, Department of History, Northwestern University, Michaela Raggam-Blesch, Institute for Contemporary History, University of Vienna, and Tatjana Lichtenstein, Department of History, University of Texas, Austin. The workshop is scheduled for August 9–18, 2023, and will take place at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
At the infamous Wannsee Conference eighty years ago, no topic consumed more time than the heatedly debated question of the fate of intermarried Jews and so-called Mischlinge in the “Final Solution.” Jews who had non-Jewish spouses, and especially their “mixed” offspring, fundamentally challenged the Nazis’ Manichean worldview and complicated the Third Reich’s genocidal program. Nazi ideologues also considered Romani Mischlinge to be a danger to the Volksgemeinschaft because their supposedly inherited criminality threatened to compromise the ‘racial purity’ of the German people.
From the start of Nazi rule, familial ties to non-Jews offered the intermarried avenues to lessen the social isolation and material deprivation produced by the ever-tightening vise of persecution. Nonetheless, intermarried families faced a particularly anguished decision that homogamous couples did not: whether to divorce in the hope that property and children could be better protected by the “Aryan” partner.
Across Europe the policies enacted against intermarried families varied greatly. For both intermarried Jews and Roma, connections to the majority population determined how the war was experienced, including when and even whether they faced transport to enclosed ghettos, concentration camps, and killing centers. Among Jews, the intermarried were not only more likely to survive, but were far more certain after the war to find living family members, including their spouses, who helped facilitate reintegration and restitution.
In the postwar era film and television scriptwriters have disproportionately featured “mixed” families in their portrayals of the Holocaust in a likely effort to foster empathy among non-Jews. By contrast, for decades after the war scholars generally treated the fate of the intermarried as marginal. In recent years historians have more intensely studied the experience of “mixed” families and policies enacted against them (particularly in the core Reich and Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia), but the subject still remains largely undeveloped and unintegrated into the paradigmatic narrative of the Holocaust.
This workshop focuses on intermarried Jews and Roma/Sinti, their spouses, and their “mixed” offspring across Europe during the Nazi era. Our goal is to stimulate a comparative, integrated, and interdisciplinary discussion which brings scholars of the Jewish and Romani experience and experts in different geographical areas and methodological approaches into conversation with one another.
Daily sessions of the workshop will consist of presentations and roundtable discussions led by participants, as well as discussions with Museum staff, and research in the Museum’s collections. The workshop will be conducted in English.
Museum Resources
The Museum's David M. Rubinstein National Institute for Holocaust Documentation houses an unparalleled repository of Holocaust evidence that documents the fate of victims, survivors, rescuers, liberators, and others. The Museum’s comprehensive collection contains millions of documents, artifacts, photos, films, books, and testimonies. The Museum’s Database of Holocaust Survivor and Victim Names contains records on people persecuted during World War II under the Nazi regime, including Jews and Roma and Sinti. In addition, the Museum possesses the holdings of the International Tracing Service (ITS), which contains more than 200 million digitized pages with information on the fates of 17.5 million people who were subject to incarceration, forced labor, and displacement as a result of World War II. Many of these records have not been examined by scholars, offering unprecedented opportunities to advance the field of Holocaust and genocide studies.
The Museum’s related collections include:
- Records of Jewish communities across Europe, including from Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Low Countries, Poland, Romania, the Soviet Union (including the Baltics), and Yugoslavia
- Oral histories of survivors from mixed families
- Photos of intermarried families
- Numerous small and mid-size personal collections of letters, memoirs, photos and personal documents, oral history interviews, and artifacts reflecting the experiences of Jews and Roma and Sinti from mixed families, such as the Cahn-Gödelmann Family Papers (Germany), the Leopoldine Staud Muliar Divorce Documents (France), the Rita G, Kaplan Papers (Germany), the Margaretha Rosenfeld Papers (Germany), the Ruth Miller Papers (Germany), the Lothar Kahn Papers (Germany), the Margaret Hartman Papers (Germany), the Kurt Gutfreund Papers (Austria), the Augusta Treulich Wrchovszká and Alexander Wrchovszky Papers (Czechoslovakia), and the Peter O. Vlčko Papers (Czechoslovakia), among many others
- Records relating to Theresienstadt, Sereď, and other sites of internment of individuals from “mixed” families, including photos of racial investigations conducted in pre-war Zigeunerlager
- Records of various refugee and immigrant aid organizations, such as the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the American Friends Service Committee, and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration
- Records of various German departments, ministries, institutes, and military and police units, including the Reich Security Main Office, the Reich Department of Health, the Reich Justice Ministry, and the Institute for German Work in the East
- Records documenting restrictions on Jews and Roma in “mixed” marriages and Mischlinge in occupied and Axis countries, including Croatia, the Czech Republic, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland, and Romania, among others
- Photos and other records of racial investigations of Roma and Sinti conducted in Austria, Germany, and Poland
- Records from war crimes trials, such as the Adolf Eichmann Trial Collection and other national trials
Participants will have access to both the Museum’s downtown campus and the David and Fela Shapell Family Collections, Conservation and Research Center. To search the Museum's collections, please visit the Collections Catalog.
To Apply
Applications are welcome from scholars affiliated with universities, research institutions, or memorial sites and in any relevant academic discipline, including anthropology, art history, economics, genocide studies, geography, history, Jewish studies, law, literature, philosophy, political science, psychology, sociology, religion, and Romani studies, and others. Applications are encouraged from scholars at all levels of their careers, from Ph.D. candidates to senior faculty.
The Mandel Center will reimburse the costs of round-trip economy-class air tickets to/from the Washington, D.C. metro area, and related incidental expenses, up to a maximum reimbursable amount calculated by home institution location, which will be distributed within 6–8 weeks of the workshop’s conclusion. The Mandel Center will also provide hotel accommodation for the duration of the workshop. Participants are required to attend the full duration of the workshop.
The deadline for receipt of applications is Friday, February 10, 2023. Applications must include a short biography (one paragraph), a CV, and an abstract of no more than 300 words about the specific project (to be presented at the workshop) and plans for research at the Museum. All application materials must be submitted in English online at ushmm.org/research-workshops.
Questions should be directed to Krista Hegburg, Ph.D., Senior Program Officer, International Academic Programs Division, Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, at khegburg@ushmm.org.
- Wisconsin Slavic Conference 2023
Wisconsin Slavic Conference
March 24-25, 2023
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Abstracts for 20-minute papers on any aspect of Slavic literatures, cultures (including film, music, theatre, visual art, etc.), linguistics, and history are invited for the annual Wisconsin Slavic Conference. Comparative topics and interdisciplinary approaches are welcome and encouraged. The conference will be held at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on Friday and Saturday, March 24 and 25, 2023.
Recent conference programs are available on the 2022 Wisconsin Slavic Conference website at https://gns.wisc.edu/2022/04/19/wisconsin-slavic-conference-2022/
This year's keynote lecture will be delivered by Professor Yuliya Ilchuk (Stanford University).
To present a paper at the Wisconsin Slavic Conference, please submit a proposal by February 19th, 2023. You can submit proposals by email to: Jesse Kruschke jlkruschke@wisc.edu AND Isabella Palange palange@wisc.edu.
A complete proposal consists of:
1. Author's contact information (name, affiliation, telephone, and email).
2. Paper title
3. 200-300 word abstract
4. Equipment request (if necessary)
- SPIASA 2023 Conference
PIASA issues a Call for Papers for its annual Polish Studies conference
New Britain, Connecticut, June 9-11, 2023
The Polish Institute of Arts & Sciences of America and the Polish Studies Program at Central Connecticut State University are pleased to invite proposals for a joint conference/anniversary celebration to be held at Central Connecticut State University, June 9-11, 2023.
Proposals are solicited for complete sessions or individual papers in any of the disciplines in the liberal arts, sciences, or business/economics. The Polish Studies Program at CCSU celebrates its fiftieth anniversary in 2024; this joint PIASA/CCSU conference comprises the main event of that anniversary celebration. The general theme of the conference is “Migrations,” for which New Britain, Connecticut, a destination of generations of Polish and other immigrants, is a most appropriate setting. It was those Polish immigrants who helped fund an endowed chair in Polish and Polish-American Studies at Central Connecticut State University, whose library also houses the Connecticut Polish American Archive. Therefore, we particularly welcome panel and paper proposals which discuss the determinants, processes, and outcomes of human migration in all of its manifestations and from various disciplinary perspectives, including the migration of ideas and material culture. However, papers do not necessarily have to address the conference theme. Since we value comparative sessions that place the Polish and East Central European experience in context, papers need not focus specifically on Poland or the Polish diaspora but could revolve around a central theme of a panel. Similarly, sessions including presenters from more than one country are encouraged.
Each session is scheduled for 90 minutes to accommodate three papers or about 20 minutes per paper, with suitable time left for discussion. The conference language is English. All conference rooms will be equipped with AV for PowerPoint presentations. Presenters are invited to submit their conference papers to be considered for possible publication in The Polish Review subsequent to the conference.
To submit a paper or complete session, please send the name, e-mail address, institutional affiliation, tentative paper title and brief one-paragraph abstract for each presenter to program chairs Patrice Dabrowski at pmd639@g.harvard.edu and Lynn Lubamersky at lynnlubamersky@gmail.com. The deadline for proposals is February 1, though earlier submissions are welcome since capacity, including the possibility of virtual participation, is limited. All participants are expected to pay the conference registration fee of $80, discounted to $40 for students.
In addition to the conference panels, several additional events are being organized. Our traditional pre-conference tour is scheduled for the afternoon and evening of Thursday, June 8 (3:00-8:00 p.m.). The tour consists of a trip to the New England Air Museum to see the Kosciuszko Squadron exhibition and ends with a stop for traditional Polish food and drink in the Polish National Home in Hartford. One must pre-register and pay for the tour. There will also be a reception on Friday, June 9, free to all registered participants. The conference banquet will be held on Saturday, June 10, for which participants are again asked to pre-register and pay a separate fee.
- Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics
FASL 32
Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics
May 19–21, 2023
Indiana University, Bloomington
Invited Speakers:
Darya Kavitskaya, University of California, Berkeley
Adam Prziepiórkowski, ICS - Polish Academy of Sciences & U of Warsaw
Adrian Stegovec, University of Connecticut
Ksenia Zanon, University of Cambridge
Call for Papers
Abstracts are invited for talks or posters on topics dealing with formal Slavic linguistics, including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and computational linguistics. All talks will be 30 minutes, followed by 10 minutes for discussion. Submissions are limited to one individual and one joint abstract per author.
Abstract submissions should be made via Easyabs at:
http://linguistlist.org/easyabs/FASL32/
Abstracts should take the form of a PDF, with any non-standard fonts embedded in it. Abstracts should be presented with 1-inch (2.5 cm) margins on all sides and be limited to one page of text, with an additional page for data and references. Abstracts should be prepared in anonymous form. Submissions not adhering to these guidelines will not be considered for presentation at the conference.
Submission Deadline: February 1, 2023
Organizing committee: Damir Cavar, Malgorzata Cavar, Matthew Fort,
George Fowler, Steven Franks, Van Holthenrichs, Miriam Shrager, Francis Tyers
Conference email: fasl32@indiana.edu
Conference website: https://fasl32.sitehost.iu.edu/index.html
Department of Slavic and East European Languages & Cultures
Indiana University
355 N Eagleson Ave
Bloomington, IN 47405-1105 USA
- Apply for Nat'l Slavic Honor Society [Dobro Slovo]
he Indiana University Zeta Zeta Chapter of the Dobro Slovo National Slavic Honor Society is now accepting applications for membership!
Who is eligible: Undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty, staff.
Eligibility criteria: Student membership is attained by meeting three criteria: completing at least two years (or equivalent) of study of Slavic languages, literature, culture, or related subjects; achieving a 3.5 GPA in all Slavic course work and an overall GPA of 3.0; and indicating an active and continuing interest in Slavic languages, literature, culture and related fields of Slavic studies. Faculty and staff active in Slavic studies are also eligible for membership. Students currently still completing their second year of studies are eligible to apply. [PLEASE NOTE: Freshmen and transfer students in their first year at IU have usually not completed enough university-level coursework at IU to qualify, so they are encouraged to wait another year.]
Initiation: $25 national initiation fee. (NOTE: For 2023, the $25 one-time national induction fee for students will be covered by special funds provided by department alumni!)
Induction of new members: Tuesday, April 18, 2023, at the Slavic Department's Spring Tea, tentatively 6:30-7:45 pm, place TBA (those who cannot attend can pick their materials up later that week).
Already a member (but new to IU)?: Contact Dr. Jeff Holdeman to be placed on the membership list.
To become a member: Send the completed letter of application (see attachment) which outlines your eligibility (see above) to Dr. Jeff Holdeman (jeffhold@indiana.edu).
Deadline for application: Wednesday, February 1, 2023, 11:59 pm.
- Character Assassination, Illiberalism, and the Erosion of Civic Rights
On June 21-23, the University of Amsterdam and VU University in collaboration with CARP (the Research Lab for Character Assassination and Reputation Politics) and the Illiberalism Studies Program will host the interdisciplinary conference “Character Assassination, Illiberalism, and the Erosion of Civic Rights”. We invite all scholars of Slavic, East European Studies and Eurasian Studies to submit an abstract.
Liberal democracies face multiple external challenges from autocracies across the world, as well as internal challenges from populist politicians, nativism, and the normalization of incivility in media and political discourses. Character assassination (CA) often accompanies these political and social conflicts, especially when unresolved ideological and moral issues are involved. Social conflicts become aggravated when moral issues intermix with political and economic factors. Factions then resort to persuasive attacks on character to delegitimize and disempower their opponents. This increased polarization and aggressiveness of elite rhetoric likely foster voters’ cynicism and discontent with politics as usual. The increasing gap between liberal elites and the disgruntled electorate, in turn, likely provides even more fertile ground for intra-elite conflict, and paves the way for illiberal conceptions of the democratic order.
Illiberalism is an emerging concept in political science and political philosophy that remains to be tested by different disciplines and approaches, such as political psychology, communication studies, rhetoric, and history. According to one leading definition, “Illiberalism is a new ideological universe that, even if doctrinally fluid and context based, is to some degree coherent. It represents a backlash against today’s liberalism in all its varied scripts—political, economic, cultural, geopolitical, civilizational—often in the name of democratic principles and by winning popular support. It proposes solutions that are majoritarian, nation-centric or sovereigntist, favoring traditional hierarchies, conservative values, and some forms of cultural homogeneity.” (Laruelle, “Illiberalism: a conceptual introduction,” East European Politics). Defined more broadly, illiberalism “refers to a set of social, political, cultural, legal, and mental phenomena associated with the waning of individual liberty (personal freedom) as an everyday experience” and is “not an ideology or regime type,” but is “compatible with the political rituals of a competitive democracy.” (Sajó, Uitz, and Holmes, Routledge Handbook of Illiberalism, xxi). The erosion of civic rights that is one of the cornerstones of illiberalism is not limited to current-day democracies, but can also be witnessed in various historical societies. In the Roman Republic, the rise of “great men” with military backing such as Sulla, Caesar, and Octavian led to proscriptions and flagrant transgressions of the checks and balances built into the political system. During the radical phase of the French Revolution known as the “Reign of Terror” (1793-94), Robespierre and other revolutionaries employing liberal rhetoric nevertheless reestablished a form of absolute authority which gave the state all the power at the expense of the individual citizen. Beyond illustrating that the dynamics of authoritarianism and illiberalism are not limited to modernity, these examples provide additional insights to understand current-day cases, helping us move towards a more integrated theoretical framework. Yet, the interplay between political, sociological, communicational, psychological, and historical approaches to the understanding of current-day and historical dynamics of illiberalism remains extremely rare.
This conference seeks to explore current-day illiberal tendencies as well as historical societies where emerging strong men and dictators manipulated the political system and undermined the rights of the people. In particular, it focuses on practices of character assassination in these highly unstable and polarized environments. We invite scholars to submit research and works in progress which will discuss the drivers of illiberalism and the erosion of civic rights in ages of conflicting ideologies from a variety of disciplinary and cultural angles. We welcome both theoretical work and case studies. Authors of selected best papers will be invited to submit their work to Journal of Illiberalism Studies.
Suggested Topics:
The erosion of civic rights in historical societies;
Character assassination as an illiberal practice;
Negative campaigns and their effects on behaviors and attitudes;
Political incivility over time and space;
The psychological and emotional underpinnings of persuasive attacks on character;
Populist rhetoric, impression management, and democratic elections;
Political incivility and polarization;
The spread of culture wars in the U.S., the E.U., and beyond;
Illiberal technologies and societal transformations;
The effects of cancel culture on civil discourse;
Far-right and far-left social movements;
Digital activism and the practices of disruption and subversion;
Neo-authoritarian forms of coercion and dominance in the Internet Age;
Mediated public scandals in liberal democracies;
Personalization and infotainment issues;
Legal aspects of libel, slander, and defamation;
Reputation management, image repair, and inoculation strategies.
- The Midwest Russian History Workshop
For over two decades, the Midwest Russian History Workshop (MRHW) has gathered scholars from across the Midwest (and beyond!) to discuss work in progress on Russian and Soviet history. The Ohio State University will host this event this coming April 14-15. We invite proposals from presenters (as well as registrations of interest from scholars who would simply like to attend).
Typically taking place over a day and a half (afternoon Friday, full day Saturday), the MRHW is centered around in-depth discussion of draft articles, dissertation or book chapters, and other works distributed in advance. Each presenter receives 5-10 minutes to say a few words about their work, with 45 minutes of conversation about it then following. We usually read and discuss 8-10 papers per workshop. The Workshop thus provides an opportunity for researchers to benefit from an extended and informed discussion of their draft work, in a friendly and interested environment. It also helps to build networks among scholars, students, and institutions across our region and field. We will also have a roundtable discussion of how the war in Ukraine has affected our field, both practically and intellectually.
To apply, send a short expression of interest to Nick Breyfogle (Department of History, Ohio State) at breyfogle.1@osu.
- If you would like to present a work in progress, provide a short (50 word) description of the project and why you’d like to discuss it at the Workshop.
- If you would just like to attend, expressions of interest are also welcome and will help with organizing the event.
We would appreciate proposals or expressions of interest by February 20, 2023, so that we can create the program for the event. If you choose to present, we would expect a draft of your work to be available for private circulation to the participants by April 1, 2023.
Logistical Details:
Details will follow, but we will arrange a block of rooms at a local hotel(s) be set aside for attendees to reserve at their own cost. We will endeavor to billet graduate students with other students at Ohio State to reduce their out-of-pocket expenses (and we will pay for hotel rooms for those who we cannot billet).
Food: On Friday, we will provide dinner; On Saturday, coffee and pastries in the morning and a boxed lunch.
Svetlana Ter-Grigoryan (ter-grigoryan.1@osu.edu) will be handling many of the logistical questions and will your point person for such things.
Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies