Historicizing “Whiteness” in Eastern Europe and Russia
Call for Papers: Deadline 11 March 2019
Date: 25-26 June 2019
Hosted by: Centre for the Study of Equal Opportunity Policies at the Political Science Department, University of Bucharest http://cpes.fspub.unibuc.ro/
Details:
Over the last decade, issues of migration both out of and into Eastern Europe have brought questions of “whiteness” and its “defence” into the public language of the region. Populists of different political stripes have presented their countries as protectors of traditional European whiteness against a multicultural West. This is in fact quite an unusual phenomenon: race in general and whiteness in particular have for the most part been hidden discourses, absent from mainstream political or cultural thinking about the area itself. At those moments when race did come to the fore, it was often externalised as a phenomenon which adhered only to the western and/or the capitalist imperialist other.
Yet, as some have argued, whiteness has been fundamental to Eastern European history and even the very conception of the region since the 19th century. Anikó Imre referred to Eastern European nationalisms ‘unspoken insistence on their whiteness’. Some have posited a regional identity based on the in-between-ness born of a fragile or frustrated whiteness: such an identity might be allied with the privileged whiteness produced by European imperialism and the global colour line to which it gave rise, whilst also being ambivalent towards, or sometimes excluded from, the projects and institutions from which the power of whiteness has stemmed. While critical theories of race and whiteness emphasise the idea that, in Charles W. Mills’s words, ‘white supremacy was global’, eastern Europeans’ ability to fully exploit being racialised as white has arguably been more conditional, as a result of the peripheralisation of the region itself. Yet it was visits to Eastern Europe that prompted W.E.B. Du Bois to redefine his thinking about race. He observed ethnic relations in the region and understood that race problems were not only about colour.
Despite the growing number of critical histories of whiteness both on a regional and global level, there has been little academic engagement with such questions in the study of Eastern Europe, the Russian Empire and the USSR. This workshop seeks to explore the role that whiteness has played in the articulation of identities from a historical perspective – roughly from an age of high European imperialism in the mid-19th century until the present. We encourage contributions which explore the multiple conceptualisations of whiteness in national spaces, intercultural transfers and transnational impacts across the region, whether this be Central Europe, South- or North-Eastern Europe, Russia or what is now the “post-Soviet space”.
We welcome both theoretical papers and case studies that open out wider questions, from disciplinary perspectives across the humanities and social sciences. We ask that papers on contemporary issues also include historical framing or reflections. The following might be considered:
- In what ways has whiteness been important in the constitution of Eastern European, Russian or Eurasian identities?
- Why have imaginations of Eastern Europe as a region preserving a traditional European whiteness against a multicultural West become possible during the recent refugee crisis?
- When does race become visible in the historical record, and how do we work with whiteness as a concept when it is a marginalised or a ‘hidden script’? Which sources and methodologies can help to overcome this?
- How have ‘outsiders’ – whether in the West, or in the global South – seen and encountered eastern European whiteness?
- How has whiteness been considered differently in south-eastern Europe versus central Europe versus the Russian/Soviet empires? Have experiences of rule by various empires, and differences in local religious assemblages, produced divergent conceptions over the longer term?
- What is the relationship between a broader European colonial project and eastern European whiteness?
- How has whiteness been related to the region’s changing relationships to the global capitalist system, including issues of class, peripherality and migration?
- How has whiteness been connected to ideas of Europeanness?
- What affiliations with, or against, whiteness did Eastern Europeans produce under state socialism?
- How has whiteness been viewed by the region’s minorities?
- How has whiteness been implicated in the production of anti-Semitism, Romaphobia, and Islamophobia?
- To what extent do engagements with Islam at home or abroad shape ideas of Eastern European whiteness?
- How have nations and their experts produced such racialised knowledge?
- Is Eastern European whiteness different to other forms of whiteness?
- How have ideas of whiteness influenced constructions of gender and sexuality, and vice versa?
- What part has whiteness played in shaping how academic knowledge from and about Eastern Europe has been produced and used?
- How have eastern Europeans contributed to global racial formations around whiteness?
Abstracts of 300–500 words, together with an accompanying short CV, should be submitted to whitenesseasterneurope@gmail.com by 11 March 2019. The selected participants will be notified by the middle of March. Some financial support for travel and accommodation is available, but we ask that contributors also explore funding opportunities at their home institutions as well.
Organisers: Catherine Baker (University of Hull), Agnieszka Kościańska (University of Warsaw), Bogdan Iacob and James Mark (both University of Exeter). This event is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) project, ‘Socialism Goes Global. Cold War Connections Between the ‘Second’ and ‘Third Worlds’ http://socialismgoesglobal.exeter.ac.uk/
Interdisciplinary Conference
“Self-positioning of Eastern European Societies in Global Relations – Conceptions of Space and Self-presentations in School Textbooks”
Call for Papers and Presentations –
Deadline: 25 August 2017
Date: November 6, 2017, 5 pm – November 7, 2017, 4:30 pm
Venue: Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig (SAW) / GWZO Leipzig
Organizer: Representatives of the Leibniz ScienceCampus EEGA (in charge: Prof. Dr. Sebastian Lentz), The German Association for East European Studies (DGO), Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research (GEI), Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe, Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO) and the University of Münster with international guests.
Short description:
The German Association for East European Studies (DGO) in co-operation with several Institutes of the Leibniz Association and the Leibniz Science Campus “Eastern Europe – Global Area” holds this interdisciplinary conference that is jointly organized by the EEGA and the DGO branch in Leipzig.
The core objective of the interdisciplinary symposium is to raise awareness for the autonomy of Eastern European countries and societies with regard to processes of globalization. These processes can be social, economic or cultural.
Much more information on the CfP here
EEGA flyer here
THE LEFT AND THE INTERNATIONAL ARENA
Venue: Sciences Po Center for History (Paris)
Dates: during the academic year 2017- 2018, on a monthly basis
Since the birth of the European labour movement, the international dimension has been crucial to the definition of the political and economic outlook of left-wing organizations. To the tendency of capitalism to extend its influence and field of action beyond state borders, socialist theorists and leaders responded with the prospect of an international alliance of workers. Throughout the 20th century, the Left’s perspective on these problems has constantly evolved. The international organization of politics, society and the economy has represented a key variable in the ideological developments of left-wing parties and movements, whether in government or in opposition, in phases of development or crisis, in times of peace or war. It influenced their splits as well as their search for alliances, partnerships or models across national borders.
The seminar will take place at the Sciences Po Center for History (Paris) during the academic year 2017- 2018, on a monthly basis. We encourage researchers working on the international history of socialism and communism in the 20th century to send paper proposals. Each proposal should include (in a single file):
– Name and affiliation of the applicant
– An abstract, in French or English, of approximately 2500 characters
– A brief, 2-page academic CV
Please send proposals to gauches.international@gmail.com by 15 July 2017. Participants will be asked to circulate a paper one week before their presentations. Presentations and discussions will take place in French and/or English. Depending on the funds available, travel and accommodation expenses will be partly or fully covered.
Full details here
Scientists and “Third World Countries” in the 1960s to 1980s
The conference focuses on the period starting in the 1960s, which saw great political and economic changes in the so-called “Third World Countries”. The process of decolonization, the emergence of independent countries created from former colonies and UN mandates and the efforts of other countries to break away from their dependence on Western powers, the nationalization of industry, whether oil fields in the Middle East or the Suez Canal in Egypt, brought a change in the political orientation of large areas of Asia and Africa. The situation in Cuba had a very specific development. The newly formed independent countries found themselves in the grip of the fight between Soviet and American influence.
The papers should particularly look at areas with inclinations toward the Soviet bloc countries, which ultimately brought not only great economic investments, procurement of weapons and factories, but also the possibility to provide scientific contacts, scholarships, participation in scientific congresses, as well as the need to ensure top-quality education in those countries by sending experts to selected universities. Papers by contemporaries and on topics dealing generally with the issues of the theory of scientific assistance to Third World Countries are also welcome.
Topics:
– doctors, engineers and technicians at universities and in everyday practice
– social sciences and language courses in developing countries
– study trips and major congresses
– scientists and their families in the Orient
– everyday work in a foreign country
– source base – letters and diaries of key stakeholders
– personal experience of the Orient
– scientists and European communities abroad
– and other topics related to these issues
The conference languages is English (German). Abstracts in either language (200 to 250 words) should be submitted before 30 May 2017, please include also your contact address; participants will be informed on the results of the selection process by 30 June 2017.
Please submit your abstract before 30 May 2017 to Adéla Jůnová Macková, junovamackova@mua.cas.cz.
1918 and the Search for New Internationalism in Central European Academia
(Call for Papers for a thematic section in Studia Historiae Scientiarum 2018)
The deadline for the submission of abstracts: 31 May 2017.
When the war ended in 1918, scholars in Central Europe faced a new challenge. New states required not only new infrastructure but also new ideas on how science should function. The intellectual landscape was changing rapidly – new institutions in new states mushroomed, but also disappeared or went into hiding like the institutions of the new minorities. Internationally, the German language was under fire, losing in the 1920s its status as the language of international organizations – because German was often the preferred language of international communication for CEE scholars, this affected them as well.
One of the issues discussed most was how to present CEE science internationally while at the same time preserving its national character. Olympic internationalism, as Geert Somsen termed it, was one of the possibilities, with Central European scholars taking also leading roles in transnational organizations such as the Committee on Intellectual Co-operation.
Papers should interrogate the issue of imagining and maneuvering international scholarly networks and infrastructures. They are not limited to but should seek answers to such questions as:
- What were the strategies pursued to present scholarship in the international fora? How was the issue of nationality, internationality and transnationality debated in connection to the reorganization of state scholarly infrastructure?
- With what agendas and interests did CEE scholars enter international and transnational scholarly institutions? Did they try to influence the policies of these organizations in favor of their states’ agendas, or were they perhaps acting with new transnationalism in mind. How did their imperial experience influence it.
- How did CEE scholars react to the limitation of German as the language of international organizations and conferences?
- What was the role of the Soviet Union in the post-1918 international and transnational imagination? With politics favoring technical-scientific progress, the SU was growingly a major player in CEE, disavowed, however, for political and cultural-historical reasons by many intellectual key players. Did a particular socialist-communist internationalism develop?
We invite the submission of abstracts on the questions and topics raised above. Please send an abstract of no more than 500 words and a short biographical sketch to jan.surman@gmail.com.
The editors will ask the authors of selected papers to submit their final articles no later than February 28th 2018. The articles will be published after a peer-review process.
Studia Historiae Scientiarum is a peer-reviewed, diamond open access journal devoted to the history of science. For more information visit: http://www.ejournals.eu/Studia-Historiae-Scientiarum/ .
Socialist Internationalism and the Global Contemporary — Transnational Art Historiographies from Eastern and East-Central Europe
Venue: Leibniz-Institut für Geschichte und Kultur des östlichen Europa (GWZO), Leipzig,
Date: November 23 – 25, 2017
Proposal submission deadline: Apr 30, 2017
Concept and organization: Marina Dmitrieva (GWZO), Beata Hock (GWZO), Antje Kempe (HU Berlin)
Following suit after “Art History and Socialism(s) after World War II. The 1940s until 1960s” (Estonian Academy of Arts, Tallinn, October 2016), the present conference aims to explore selected theoretical underpinnings, methodologies, and legacies of art history writing in socialist period. This time, we wish to explore a possible alternative beginning of the methodology that set a worldwide focus in the study of art: the kind of “universal art history” or Weltkunstgeschichte as an approach to art history that was introduced in the countries of the Socialist Bloc under the aegis of a Socialist internationalism.
It is fairly well-known that being part of the Soviet sphere of influence demanded a great degree of uniformity in terms of the administration of artistic life and the nature of prevalent art critical and historical discourses. It has been considerably less discussed, however, that belonging to the Bloc also involved an enforced allegiance toward “friendly states” across continents, which resulted in a socialist internationalism that has received scant scholarly attention. We propose to interrogate a tentative link between internationalism as a political and cultural diplomatic principle and the frameworks for art history writing and teaching that were introduced in Socialist times.
Further information can be found here
The Other Globalisers: How the Socialist and the Non-Aligned World Shaped the Rise of Post-War Economic Globalisation
University of Exeter, 6-7 July 2017
In the wake of the Second World War, the world economy began to ‘reglobalise’ – following the disintegrative processes of the interwar period. This story has most often been told as the final triumph of a neoliberal international order led by the West. Recent research, however, suggests that the creation of our modern interconnected world was not driven solely by the forces of Western capitalism, nor was it the only model of global economic interdependence that arose in the second half of the twentieth century. This conference aims to rethink the histories of postwar globalisation by focusing on the socialist and non-aligned world, whose roles in the rise of an economically interconnected world have received substantially less attention. Full details here
Abstracts of 300-500 words, together with an accompanying short CV should be submitted to Natalie Taylor (N.H.Taylor@exeter.ac.uk) by 18 March 2017.
The selected participants will be notified by the end of March 2017.
This event is kindly supported by the University of Exeter’s Leverhulme Trust-funded project 1989 after 1989: Rethinking the Fall of State Socialism in Global Perspective.
Workshop “Transnational relations between Eastern Europe/Russia-USSR and the Middle East, late 19th century to 1991”
Date: 10-11 February 2017
Venue: Princeton University
Part of a Université de Genève/Princeton University partnership grant co-directed by Sandrine Kott (UNIGE) and Cyrus Schayegh (PU).
Application: Send a paper title, an abstract of max. 300 words, and a brief CV by 15 September 2016 to schayegh@princeton.edu.
Histories of Eastern Europe [EE]/Russia – Middle East [ME] transnational relations form a relative lacuna in the scholarship on both regions; most extant work centers on Russia/USSR, and/or the Cold War, and/or state actors; and few scholars of various subfields are in conversation. Moreover, such relations are a useful laboratory to explore conceptual questions for studying transnational history.
A principal reason concerns space.
This is the case, centrally, because EE/Russia-USSR and the ME are, broadly speaking, neighbors. To be sure, especially in the globally interconnected modern period geographical distance is not directly correlated with sociopolitical distance. Even so, proximity still matters in some ways and some fields – doubly because crucial pre-World War I imperial realities complicated it in fascinating ways.
We may ask: (How) has the fact that both bits of Eastern Europe and of the Middle East were Ottoman mattered even after the late 19th century? What about the modern echoes and effects of long-standing Russian interest in, and contacts with, ‘the Middle East’ (think as far back as early medieval Russophone Scandinavian visits to Constantinople and, more famously, of Moscow as ‘the Third Rome’ after Constantinople’s fall)? Do twentieth-century transnational ties take on (a) particular form(s) and meaning(s) in such historically deeply grounded ‘neighborly’ realities?
Related, could parallel, linked, or overlapping EE/Russian-Soviet-ME trajectories allow new interpretations of modern developments that touched both (bits of) EE/ Russia-USSR and of the ME? Think, for example, of the non-aligned movement of the 1950s/60s – could one see its (south) EE members (Yugoslavia) and ME members as (re)-creating a Eastern Mediterranean space?
Lastly, and to add one more layer: (how) does it matter that in some sense both the terms ‘Eastern Europe’ and ‘the Middle East’ – though not their complex reality tout court – were constructed relative to one and the same third region, (Western) Europe? Could one see them, jointly, as a double – or even linked up – periphery? What would such a view mean, both from the linked ME/EE-Russian-Soviet and from Western European perspectives? What is certain is that for the latter, the two were and continue to be both close and – only seemingly a paradox – an ‘other:’ Eastern Europe/Russia and the Middle East were two of the “three borders … identified” during Europe’s cultural construction (Bo Stråth, “Insiders and Outsiders,” in Stefan Berger, Companion to 19th-Century Europe, 4]).
We are interested in applications that have a firm empirical grounding and make a clear conceptual contribution, taking into questions of space such as those outlined above. Historians, as well as other scholars in the humanities, are encouraged to apply.
African Medicine Matters: documenting encounters in medical practice and healthcare
Date: Tuesday 6 September 2016
Venue: Alison Richard Building, University of Cambridge
CALL FOR PAPERS DEADLINE: 30 April 2016
This conference will explore aspects of medicine and healthcare, traditional and western, historic and contemporary and their traces in the documentary and digital records in all regions of Africa.
More information: Call for Papers 2016
Colloquium “In from the Cold: Eastern Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa and Cultural Diplomacy during the Cold War”,
Closing date for papers: 1 May 2016
Date: 17 June, 2016.
Venue: The Regional Francophone Centre for Advanced Research in Social Sciences (CEREFREA Villa Noël), Bucharest
The colloquium invites scholars from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds (history, political sciences, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, art history, etc.) to offer a multifaceted reading of how the cultural, institutional, political, and individual interactions between socialist Eastern Europe and postcolonial Africa came into being under the impact of the global Cold War and decolonization. We encourage interested scholars to send paper proposals for 20 minutes presentations.
Potential contributors should submit a short abstract (no more than 200 words) and a brief biography (no more than 15 lines) to the organizers (iolanda.vasile@gmail.com, caio.simoes@graduateinstitute,ch), no later than May 1st, 2016, Documents can be submitted in either English or French.
Full details here
Liberal-Illiberal-Internationalisms: New Paradigms for the History of the Twentieth Century
Date: 8-9 December, 2016
Venue: Vienna, Austria
Organizers: Dr. Philippa Hetherington (UCL); Prof. Peter Becker (Vienna); Prof. Glenda Sluga (Sydney); Dr. Natasha Wheatley (Sydney).
In the first decades of the twenty-first century, scholars of internationalisms are opening up new areas of historical research, probing older stories of imperial and national pasts, reconnecting state and non-state actors and institutions, and moving historical narratives past the simple identification of internationalism as communist or socialist. At the same time, new histories of ‘liberal’ internationalisms are often cordoned off from socialist and other non-liberal internationalisms, occluding the overlapping and interconnected nature of political approaches to the international in the twentieth century.
This workshop will probe the ideological complexities at the core of these twentieth century histories.
Call for papers deadline: Thursday 31 March, 2016
Geographies of Anti-colonialism – RGS-IBG 2016 Annual International Conference
Venue: London
Date: 30 August – 2 September, 2016
Call for Papers Deadline: 12 February 2016
Full details here
Talking about “Arabs”. Echoes from different Europes
Venue: Prague
Date: 27 – 28 May 2016
Call for papers deadline: 21 February 2016
Full information here
4th Pécs African Studies Conference: African Globalities – Global Africans
Venue: University of Pecs
Date: 9 – 10 June 2016
Call for Papers deadline: 7 February, 2016
By the 21st century African countries have become more integral part of global processes ranging from trade to regionalisation, security to sports diplomacy. ‘Old’ and emerging actors in the African continent have offered increased engagements in all sectors of development. Although the ‘Africa Rising’ mantra has been echoed all over the world, sceptical voices about newly formed (but already known) dependencies are also heard. It is therefore prime time to re-visit what globalization means for Africans, what global realities are defined by the Africans themselves and how Africa is seen, as well as African development is interpreted by other global actors. For more details click here.
Labour Mobility in the Socialist World and Its Legacies – a workshop
Venue: European Studies Centre, St Antony’s College, University of Oxford,
Date: 19-20 May 2016.
Call for Papers deadline: 29 February, 2016
We are interested in papers that map and analyse socialist circulations and encounters, particularly those focusing on the migrations of blue-collar workers on the one hand and experts and technicians on the other. Click here for full details.
Africa, Eastern Europe and the Dream of International Socialism: New Perspectives on the Global Cold War
Venue: European Studies Centre, St Antony’s College, Oxford University
Date: 28-29 October 2016
Call for papers deadline: 15 January 2016
Click here for full details.
LatinEast conference
Venue: Budapest
Conference Date: 5 November 2015
Call deadline: 5 October 2015
A forum for PhD students and young researchers who work with topics which are relevant and comparable in both of the above mentioned regions: Latin America and Eastern (=post-socialist) Europe. Organiser and further information from: Bela Soltesz
WORLD SOCIETY IN THE MAKING? Varieties of Transnational Institutions
Call Deadline: 15 August 2015
The emergence of a world society is often considered to be a homogenizing process dominated by the extension of Western rationality with its specific forms and functions of social institutions to other parts of the world. Similarly, norm diffusion is mostly portrayed as a top-down process of transferring globally accepted norms to ‘local’ settings, e.g. through localisation or emulation. Yet, is this what we truly observe when we look at the various forms of (institutionalized) transnational cooperation?
Can we not expect, in contrast to the afore mentioned arguments, that the at least partial demise of the West and the rise of new powers, regions and new types of actors has led to a growing cultural and thus also institutional differentiation in the world? And do these different instances of cooperation follow the same assumed rationalities – or do they offer alternative forms and functions of cooperation?
The workshop will take stock of various instances of inter- and transnational cooperation and forms of emerging World Societal institutions. What forms and functions do social institutions assume that facilitate transnational, regional and trans-regional cooperation? Can we identify patterns – and do those challenge established theories?
Please submit paper proposals (max. 500 words) to baumann (at) gcr21.uni-due.de and freistein (at) gcr21.uni-due.de by 15 August 2015. Full conference papers should be distributed by the end of November 2015.
AFRICAN SOCIALISM/SOCIALISM IN AFRICA
Venue: Paris
Conference Date: 7 – 9 April, 2016
Call deadline: 30 September 2015
The conference will consider all African countries, North, South, East and West, and aims to be strongly interdisciplinary. It will focus on the topics of: corpus of sources, the “real socialisms” and socialist oppositions.
Full details are available in English , CallforpaperAfricanSocialism2
French and Portuguese. Papers may be presented in English or French. Further information from socialismeafricain@gmail.com
ALTERNATIVE GLOBAL GEOGRAPHIES, Imagining and Re-Imagining the World late 19th century – present day
Venue: Leipzig
Date: 12 to 14 November 2015
Call for papers, deadline 27 July 2015
Conference of the Research Network “Socialism Goes Global” (http://socialismgoesglobal.exeter.ac.uk/ )
In contrast to public claims of the early 1990s, space and geographies have not lost their central role in defining an ever more globalized world. We still live in territorialized spaces: not only in the narrow sense of states and societies that reside within their borders, but also geographies and spatial formats on regional and world scales. Research in the aftermath of the spatial turn in the humanities and social sciences is increasingly drawing our attention to the importance of understanding large-scale spatial dynamics for global history.
Many influential paradigms, often emerging from metropolitan cores or centres of the Cold War, have emerged to make sense of an increasingly interconnected world. These have included Euro- and other ‘centric’ centre-periphery models, the idea of the Anglophone or Francophone worlds, the tricontinental model, World Systems Theory, or the division of the globe into the First, Second, and Third Worlds, or the ‘Global North and South’. Such ideas came not only from the academy (in e.g. geography, area studies, history, economics, anthropology) but also from the work of political, economic and cultural actors. This conference will explore such attempts to make sense of the world on a regional or global scale, and explore how such ideas have been used to make sense of, and organize, power relations, cultural encounters and economic connections.
We wish in particular to encourage papers focussing on the ‘view from the periphery’. Despite the recent turn to studying global history from non-western perspectives, there is still little research done on visions of world order from other actors outside metropolitan cores or the West- from e.g. Latin America, South and Eastern Asia, Eastern Europe, and Africa. We invite contributions dealing with ways of conceptualising the world from areas that thought of themselves as peripheral (or semi-peripheral) on a global scale, or, indeed, challenged their definition as such. We wish to emphasise that we do not set an a priori definition of ‘periphery’ – the definition of where the periphery is located, how it is defined and who belongs to it shall be rather an element of the analysis. We also encourage contributions on those who conceptualised alternative visions of world orders, from a variety of political, religious, cultural or economic movements – regardless of their geographical location (i.e. also from critical or peripheral standpoints within the metropole/ core).
The event aims to bring together scholars from multiple disciplines (e.g. history, sociology, geography, anthropology and others), working on various topics (colonialism, post-colonialism, socialism and radicalism), on different world regions or on a world scale. The time frame may range from the late 19th century – as an era in which global imaginations and political projects of a politico- and cultural-spatial organization of the world powerfully emerged in relation to late colonial regimes – through the transformations of the interwar, the Cold War and decolonisation, and up until the present day.
Papers might address:
– conceptualizations and spatializations of the world: how have actors accepted or critiqued dominant visions of global spatial visions; what ‘alternative visions’ have been proposed e.g. ‘socialist world’, ‘anti-imperialist world’, ‘Afro-Asian world’, ‘global South’, ‘majority world’; how have actors worked to make such reconceptualisations authentic, or new interconnections a reality?
– the relation between political projects and practices to these conceptualizations – either as producers of these or through instrumentalizing them.
– the clashes between such conceptualizations and practices, paying attention to the web of power relations inherent in these conflicts.
– the roles of expert cultures (e.g. area studies institutes, agricultural specialists, economists, sociologists, fiction writers) and non-academic actors (e.g. activists); institutionalisations based on spatial imaginaries; the intellectual production of spatialized knowledge; the role of trans-regional exchange in the production of spatial models.
– the production of authenticity in new geographical imaginaries (how have these new imaginaries been made real? How have imagined distances between world regions been collapsed, or new borders and frontiers between world regions produced? How and why have alternative visions failed in the face of dominant models?).
– the conceptualisation of the periphery and semi-periphery (how did actors relate themselves to the concept? How did internal peripheries within regions or countries shape how actors conceptualised peripheries on a global scale?).
– relations between ideological camps and geographical spaces (e.g. imperialism, anti-imperialism and spatialized visions; shifting and rival definitions of the globe as a set of large geocultural units by the Cold War powers; contested visions of world mapping).
– the role of world mapping in domestic cultures in different ideological systems and regional settings (e.g. political uses; global spatial mappings as ‘disciplining tools’ for home populations; representations of world orders in e.g. maps, culture, political discourse; the political and cultural interpreters of spatialized visions for popular audiences).
Please send a brief abstract of 300-500 words, as well as a brief CV, by 27 July 2015, to Catherine Devenish at the University of Exeter (C.Devenish@exeter.ac.uk ). The conference will take place in Leipzig from 12 to 14 November 2015. Some funding opportunities for travel and accommodation are available, but we ask that potential contributors explore funding opportunities at their home institutions.
NEW POLITICAL SCIENCE (from the South) – Conference
Venue: Havanna
Date: November 2015
Call for Papers, deadline: October 2015
http://www.globallearning-cuba.com/new-political-science-2015.html
Issues to be included: the perspective of the South in the ex-colonized countries; the plurality of ways to socialism; Political culture and political socialization in the period of transition to socialism; the relation between domestic policy and foreign policy; etc.
Wissenschaft und Imperium im östlichen Europa im „langen 19. Jahrhundert“ / Science and Empire in Eastern and East-Central Europe in the “long 19th century”
Date: 5 – 8 November 2015 Venue: Bad Wiessee, Germany Call for Papers, deadline: 31 May, 2015 (German, Czech, Russian or English) http://www.hsozkult.de/event/id/termine-27561?language=en
IN THE SHADOW OF THE COLD WAR, Domestic and International Terrorism in the Former Communist Countries – an international conference
Venue: Warsaw, Poland
Date: October 8-9, 2015
Deadline for submitting abstracts: March 21, 2015
Full information on the conference and eligible topics:
ORIENTALISM, COLONIAL THINKING AND THE FORMER SOVIET PERIPHERY, Exploring Bias and Stereotype Representations of Eastern and Central Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia.
Date: August 27-29, 2015
Place: VILNIUS UNIVERSITY Centre of Oriental Studies
Call for abstracts / call for panels
Deadlines
– Individual abstract proposals should be submitted by March 25th.
– Panel proposals (inclusive of abstracts) should be submitted by April 10th.
Academic fields
The conference is organized along a distinctively multi-disciplinary line, with the purpose of opening a new field for interdisciplinary research and dialogue. The main areas expected to contribute to the conference are:
Post-Colonial Studies and Subaltern Studies;
Post-Soviet/Post-communist Studies;
Oriental Studies;
Language of communication: English
Submission of paper/panel proposals
Proposals are to be submitted via email to: fabio.belafatti@oc.vu.lt in .pdf or .doc format using the subject line “Paper/panel proposal – Orientalism 2015”
Abstract proposals should include:
o Name of candidate;
o Institutional affiliation;
o A link to or a short academic bio (Max. 100 words);
o Email address;
o Which of the three thematic sections the paper is eligible for (see our Other Conferences page for further details);
o Title of the proposed paper;
o Abstract of the proposed paper (between 200-250 words)
Panel proposals should include:
o Title of the panel;
o A panel description (between 180 and 300 words);
o Which of the three thematic sections the panel is eligible for;
o Name of the panel convenor;
o Name of the panel members (at least three + convenor);
o Institutional affiliation of the panel members and convenor;
o A link to or a short academic bio (Max. 100 words) of each panel member and convenor;
o Email addresses of the panel members and convenor;
o Titles of the papers proposed within the panel (at least three + convenor);
o Abstracts of the proposed papers (between 200-250 words)
Information
For any questions, clarifications, or for visa-support invitation letters, please contact the conference’s administrative secretary Fabio Belafatti at fabio.belafatti@oc.vu.lt
Vilniaus universiteto Orientalistikos centras | Universiteto g. 5, Vilnius, 01513
El. paštas: oc@oc.vu.lt | Tel./ faks. +370 5 268 7256
CALL FOR PAPERS :
Writing and Screening Socialisms in an Entangled World
Date : 3-4 July 2015
Place : Universität Tübingen
Deadline : February 28th, 2015
Socialism is one of the paradigms that shaped the global 20th century. While it is characterized by a transcultural, universalizing utopia, socialism has actually manifested itself in a large variety of local concepts that modify, alter, adapt and localize its universalisms in time and space (e.g.,
Soviet-style communism, Western socialist movements, African socialism or its North Korean and Chinese versions). Socialism as an idea has been spread all over the world, regardless of whether a given society has defined itself as socialist or not, whether it was a real life experiment in society or a cultural counter concept to local or transnational power structures (such as imperialism and colonialism). Socialism interacts with the arts, with literature, with film, with humanities, with varying theories and with everyday culture which were all used to express and/or shape its differing forms. Possible varieties range from European avantgarde movements, Soviet socialist realism and North Korean nationalizing reinterpretations to African, Asian and South American anti- and postcolonial theory and writing as well as filmmaking. As a global movement, socialism has triggered a migration of concepts, people, cultural artefacts, texts and films that might not even be directly connected with socialism as such, but rather stem from its respective rootedness in local cultures. As such, socialism becomes one of the facilitators for a global cultural exchange that has yet to be investigated.
The workshop aims to bring together scholars from different disciplinary
contexts such as film, art, literature or intellectual history in order to ask
for possible routes of transnational entanglements as a result of socialism.
Leading questions could be:
How are socialisms formed locally theoretically or discursively and expressed aesthetically?
Which concepts, texts, aesthetics and discursive formations were exchanged, and which were the routes of exchange? Which local concepts were shaped or reinterpreted such as for instance ‘protosocialist’ ones which are thus brought into a dialogue with the rest of the world?
What about the vexed question of representation and othering within socialisms and their global entanglements?
How can we sketch the range of the socialist paradigm not from an ideological point of view, but from one of cultural studies both on transnational and local levels?
To what degree did the socialist experiment of the Soviet Union and the
concepts it developed (e.g., Gor’kijs project of world literature, manifestations of multinationality in literature, film and the arts or aesthetic concepts such as socialist realism) impact global socialisms?
Which other points of contact, routes of exchange and/or possibilities for
comparison can be found (e.g., the non-aligned movement, questions of language and translation or the liberation movements)?
Which other models can be traced apart from the Soviet Union?
Where are points of (aesthetic) resistance to be found, either for or against
socialisms?
How is worldwide socialism connected with questions of mediality (cf. R.
Debray, who situates socialism in the „graphosphere“)?
What are the legacies of all these dynamics in contemporary societies?
Preferred are papers that look either at points of contact and transfer or at
central discursive or aesthetic concepts, texts or films from both transnational and local perspectives. As a starting point, the entanglements of the Eastern Bloc with African socialisms will be at the center of attention, though not exclusively. Strongly encouraged are perspectives that help to identify global dimensions, e.g., transcontinental routes of exchange.
Please submit an abstract no longer than 500 words and a short biobib to Dr. Gesine Drews-Sylla, gesine.drews-sylla@uni-tuebingen.de.
Deadline: February 28th, 2015
Travel costs and accommodation of participants will be covered if at all
possible.
Workshop results shall be published in an edited volume.
The workshop is part of the project “Entangled Cultures in ‘Second’ and
‘Third’ Worlds“ (supported by “Intramurales Förderprogramm Universität
Tübingen ‘Projektförderung für NachwuchswissenschaftlerInnen'”) which aims to establish a network of scholars on the subject. Therefore, I also encourage scholars that are generally interested in participating in the network for applications indicating your field of study and a short biobib.
CALL FOR PAPERS
WORKSHOP: Economic encounters in the age of ideology.
Exploring the business dimension of political confrontation (China, Russia, Europe, 1945-1991)
London, 7th May 2015
The London School of Economics and Political Science
The new century has revealed that the barriers between Socialist economies and the Free World were more porous than expected (Dobson; Cain; Segreto) and that enterprises and businessmen played an important part in East-West interaction (Autio-Sarasmo and Miklossy; Eloranta and Ojala; Jensen-Eriksen). Nevertheless, a serious analysis of trade is clearly lacking from Cold War historiography.
Discovering the economic dimension to that highly ideological era, can help to explain why accessing the capitalist system has not meant a “heal-all” for each of the transitions. Analysing role of foreign trade in Socialist systems, will enable scholars to better understand economic and political transitions. Secondly, focusing on businessmen and on business operations, will add to the debate on economic globalization, integrating different social sciences from economics to history and political science.
The idea for the present workshop has been shaped by the efforts of a number of scholars, who – from different perspectives – have chosen to study the role of world economic exchanges in command economies. The workshop will offer the opportunity to coherently discuss the activities of individuals involved in everyday trade practices in Soviet Russia, Eastern Europe and Mao’s China, as well as in their capitalist counterparts. The ultimate aim is to kick-start a fruitful debate about the place of the Communist countries in the world economy, particularly as it pertains to the Cold War and the beginning of globalization.
The workshop welcomes papers on Soviet Russia, Eastern Europe, China from various approaches. Especially appreciated will be to those linking business history and international history.
Please send an abstract of maximum 300 words to: v.zanier@lse.ac.uk
before February 15th 2015
Organizers: Prof Odd Arne Westad, LSE, Dr Valeria Zanier, LSE,
Events Coordinator: Ms Lena Poleksic, LSE
Jointly organized by LSE Department of International History, and LSE IDEAS
With the support of the European Union 7th Framework Programme and Confucius Institute for Business London