Communism, Nationalism and State Building in Post-War Europe

Communism, Nationalism and State Building in Post-War Europe
History of Communism in Europe, new series, vol. III/2012
(http://www.zetabooks.com/history-of-communism-in-europe.html)

The forthcoming issue of History of Communism in Europe will focus on the topic of Communism, Nationalism and State Building in Post-War Europe. The emergence of communism as praxis after the Second World War overlapped with the need of certain nations to reinforce their claim for statehood. This gave rise to a series of historical phenomena that reshaped post-war Europe. In this context, any research on these transformations must address a series of questions: What is the role of national ideology in postwar state formation? How do various ideologies (e.g. communism and nationalism) interact in the complex processes presupposed by state building? Is there a pattern of state formation in communist Europe in comparison with Western Europe or elsewhere? If so, which were the short and long term consequences of it within a post-conflict landscape? Which narratives of identity were employed as post-1945 Europe took shape? Which were the incumbent tensions as a Soviet bloc of socialist nations came about? Nevertheless, the main issue to be addressed remains that of the differences that appeared from 1945 onwards between the institutionalization of communist polities on the basis of national communities and the consolidation of a supposedly unitary camp of Marxist-Leninist regimes. Moreover, at the end of the day, the legacies of the second half of the twentieth century could be better explained if analyzed from the point of view of the tribulations of nationalizing nation-states (to use Rogers Brubaker?s coinage) across the East and West divide.

The next issue of History of Communism in Europe welcomes original contributions that discuss and engage such general issues apparent from the interplay of communism and nationalism in the context of state-building. Ideally, the authors should address the topics in question from a comparative viewpoint. The editors encourage young scholars, in particular, to make use of historical, cultural, and political information recently available with the gradual opening of the archives in Romania, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Poland, former GDR or various states of the former Yugoslavia and the USSR.

Senior scholars, junior researchers and PhD students are invited to submit their proposals on one of the following topics:

• Internationalism vs. Nationalism
  
• Sovietization and Empire Building in Eastern Europe
  
• Socialist Nations and Contemporary Theories of Nationalism
  
• Socialist Patriotism and Soviet Hegemony
  
• Nation Building in Post-war Europe
  
• Cultural Transfers
  
• Politics of Homogenization
  
• Narratives of Identity in Literature, Science, and the Arts
  
• Ethnic Minorities, Self-determination, and Socialist States
  
• Myths of Origins: Continuities Beyond 1945
  
• Communist Constitutions
  
• Modernity, nationalism and communism

The contributors are kindly asked to write abstracts that do not exceed 500 words. Deadline: April 1st, 2012. You may submit your proposals at: office@iiccr.ro or marius.stan@iiccr.ro Selected authors will be notified by April 15th. The deadline for the final draft of the paper is June 1st, 2012.

Power & Difference

Power & Difference. 3rd International Conference
27.08.12-29.08.12
Tampere, Finland

Inspired by the great success of the Second International Conference on Power & Knowledge held on 6-8 September 2010, we carry on probing questions of power. This year the conference will concentrate on linkages between power and difference.

Divide et impera, said the ancient Romans; a maxim that exemplifies one of the ways in which power is entangled with difference. Small privileges allotted to subgroups prevents resistance against the rule by dividing the subjects, and similarly treating units such as nation-states as separate, unique entities prevents us from realizing global structures and trends. On the other hand, aiming at equality and hence unity is hardly possible without identifying injustice related to differences such as age, class, ethnicity, or gender. Furthermore, from an epistemological perspective, the concepts we use are tools to simplify and standardize reality into a manageable number of categories relevant from the viewpoint of governance and control. These and many other linkages between power and difference will be tackled in this biennial conference now organized for the third time.

Keynote speakers will include:

Lisa Adkins, University of Newcastle, Australia

Leena Alanen, University of Jyväskylä, Finland

Karen Armstrong, University of Helsinki, Finland

Laura Huttunen, University of Tampere, Finland

Göran Therborn, University of Cambridge, UK

George Thomas, Arizona State University, USA

To submit a session proposal, please send a session title and abstract (100-200 words describing the session) through the conference management system www.paredix.com/ocs/index.php/Power2012/conf/loginon 15 February 2012 at the latest.

To propose a paper, please submit an abstract (150-200 words) through the conference management system www.paredix.com/ocs/index.php/Power2012/conf/login/ on 15 June 2012 at the latest.

For more information on the conference, please go to www.uta.fi/power2012/.

Writing under Socialism

Using a comparative approach that crosses disciplines and continents, *Writing under Socialism* offers a critical re-evaluation of the position of literary production under socialist states past and present using new material, theories and methodologies that have come to light since 1989. The volume brings together academic experts researching the interactions between writing and politics in diverse contexts across the former Eastern Bloc, Latin America, and China. As the contributions to this volume demonstrate, writing under socialism involves more than the traditional dichotomy of intellect versus power and instead includes complex relationships between the different actors, institutions and policies that together form the context of literary production in a given state. By offering fresh perspectives on writing in a range of socialist countries, Writing under Socialism highlights the commonalities and differences in these complex relationships. Writing under Socialism will be of direct interest to scholars working on literary, historical and political analyses of cultural production under socialisms past and present

More information can be found at: http://www.new-ventures.net/HTM/Writing%20Under%20Socialism.htm

Contents

Acknowledgments
Foreword. Roger Woods
Introduction: Writing Under Socialism Past and Present: a Comparative Approach. Sara Jones and Meesha Nehru
Past and Present: Socialism and Postsocialism
Writing in Ambiguity: Negotiating Censorship in the GDR. Sara Jones
Print Culture and the New Media in Postsocialist China. Michel Hockx
Ideology
“Entertaining History”: Socialist Realism in Search of the “Historical
Past”. Evgeny Dobrenko
Living Antifascism: Greta Kuckhoff’s Writings in Die Weltbühne. Joanne Sayner
Ernesto Cardenal and the Dream of Revolution. Mike González
Negotiating Space
Backstage Negotiations: Dramatists and Theatre Reform in the Late GDR. Laura Bradley
Ismail Kadare’s Inner Emigration. Peter Morgan
Literature as Shared Experience: The Movement of Literary Workshops in Revolutionary Cuba. Meesha Nehru
Literary Institutions
Double Agents: The Editorial Habitus and the Thick Socialist Literary Journal. Matthew Philpotts
The Opposition Movement and Writers – A Difficult Coexistence. The Polish Writers Union in the 1970s and 1980s. Karolina Ziolo
The Politics of Modern Literary Criticism in China: The Hu Feng Incident Revisited. Ruth Hung
Narratives In and Out of Socialism
Under and Out of Socialism: Ang Lee’s Rehabilitation of Eileen Chang’s
Lust, Caution. Cristina Demaria
The Writing out of Socialism: Dystopian Technologies, Nineteen Eighty-Four and A Clockwork Orange. Macdonald Daly
Writing Under Socialism
El poeta/The Poet. Pedro Pérez Sarduy
Epilogue: Meeting Myself at Nottingham. Judith Wermuth-Atkinson
Notes on Contributors
Index

Negotiating Ideologies II: Inclusion and Exclusion in Russian Language and Culture

Negotiating Ideologies II: Inclusion and Exclusion in Russian Language and Culture

Following the first Negotiating Ideologies conference in 2010, we are pleased to announce a second one-day conference for postgraduates in the field of Russian Studies, to be held at the Princess Dashkova Centre, University of Edinburgh, on the 5th of October, 2012.

This interdisciplinary conference will examine ideological production in Russian language and culture through the multiple tools of inclusion and exclusion. By bringing together scholars from diverse backgrounds within the broad field of Russian studies, we hope to take advantage of different disciplinary perspectives on practices of inclusion and exclusion. Panels are invited from researchers in areas such as sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, culture, history, and translation.

The conference will address aspects such as:

• The working of discourses to construct in and out groups.
  
• Discourses of racism and other forms of discrimination.
  
• Language policy in Russia.
  
• The place of the Russian language outside Russia.
  
• Cultural means of creating inclusion and exclusion.
  
• Inclusion and exclusion in translation.
  
• Inclusion and exclusion in a historical perspective.
  
• Memory studies: "remembering" or "forgetting" aspects of the past.

Proposals for 20-minute papers are invited from current postgraduates by the closing date of 1 May 2012. Please submit short abstracts (up to 300 words) and details of institutional affiliation to the organisers at russianstudiesconference@gmail.com.

Some assistance with speakers' travel expenses may be available: this is dependent on funding.

Organizing Committee: Ekaterina Popova Elena Moore Samantha Sherry email: russianstudiesconference@gmail.com.

Gender ideologies and Public Discourses

Conference SS19 thematic session "Gender ideologies and Public Discourses" call for papers
22.08.12-24.08.12
Freie Universität Berlin

We welcome abstract submissions to the following thematic panel at the Sociolinguistic Symposium 19 at Freie Universität Berlin from August 22 to 24, 2012. Please use SS19 submission tools at http://www.sociolinguistics-symposium-2012.de/

Topics: Gender, Language ideology, Language & Media, Discourse analysis, Identity

Proposed by: Kang, Agnes; Chen, Katherine Hoi Ying

Submitted by: Chen, Katherine Hoi Ying (The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong S.A.R. (China))

Sociolinguists and linguistic anthropologists have been studying the relationship between social action and linguistic ideologies. This session aims at investigating such relationship with respect to gender ideologies in public discourses (Philips 2003, McConnell-Ginet 2011). We consider public discourses as a site for the display, negotiation, challenging, and/or (re-)construction of gender ideologies. By "public discourses", we mean both discourses that take place in public settings and discourses that are accessible to general audiences in media and new media alike.

Papers can take a variety of perspectives and seek to understand the relationships between gender ideologies and public discourses. We are interested particularly in studies that are linguistic data-driven and seek to combine analysis of micro-and macro-level issues and questions. As "all communication involves acts of stance, in which speakers take up positions vis-à-vis the expressive, referential, interactional, and social implications of their speech" (Jaffe 2009), we see stance and stancetaking of gender in the public space as a theoretical and methodological gateway to understanding how gender ideologies mediate with language and social actions.

We would particularly welcome contributions that engage in discussing one or more of the following:

1. Stance and stance-taking in constructing/negotiating gender identities
   
2. Public displays and discursive practices of masculinity/femininity/sexuality
   
3. Discursive practices and tropes about language, usage, and speakers in relation to gender ideologies
   
4. Gender, modernity and cosmopolitanism
   
5. Media and New Media (particularly interactive social media as a site for gender ideologies)

This panel aims to bring together papers with a unified theme for journal publication. Accepted authors are expected to submit a full conference paper by mid-July, 2012 for circulation among panel members. Key References Jaffe, Alexandra (2009) Stance: sociolinguistic perspectives. OUP McConnell-Ginet, Sally (2011) Gender, Sexuality, and Meaning: Linguistic Practice and Politics. OUP Philips, Susan (2003) The power of gender ideologies in discourse. In The handbook of language and gender. By Janet Holmes, Miriam Meyerhoff. Wiley-Blackwell. Silverstein, Michael (1985). Language and the culture of gender: at the intersection of structure, usage and ideology. In E. Mertz and R. J. Parmentier (eds.), Semiotic Mediation, 219-59. Orlando: Academic Press. Walton, Shana and Alexandra Jaffe (2011) "Stuff White People Like": Stance, Class, Race and Internet Commentary. In in Digital Discourse edited by Crispin Thurlow and Kristine Mroczek. OUP

Panel Organizers: Dr. Kang, Agnes; Dr. Chen, Katherine, the University of Hong Kong Contact person: Katherine Chen - http://web.hku.hk/~khychen/ email: khychen@hku.hk

Taking over the squares: the role of linguistic practices in contesting public spaces

Taking over the squares.
19th Sociolinguistics Symposium
22.08.12-24.08.12
Berlin, Germany

On behalf of Luisa Martín Rojo:

Dear all,
The second call for papers for the Sociolinguistics Symposium in Berlin in August 2012 has now been announced. Full details are on the conference website:
http://www.sociolinguistics-symposium-2012.de/.

A large number of thematic sessions have been selected by the organisers,including the thematic session I organise, devoted to "Taking over the squares: the role of linguistic practices in contesting public spaces" (Session ID: 131) at the 19th Sociolinguistics Symposium in Berlin in August 2012. Let me know if you would like to contribute to the following:

Abstract

The first sparks started to fly in Arab countries, where thousands of people took to the streets, squares and other public spaces making use of multilingual banners and signs to challenge government economic policies, and demand higher citizen participation in political life. This was soon followed in Iceland, and soon after in Spain. In spite of the differences in terms of the contexts, demands and motivations, these grassroots movements are characterised by diversity in terms of class and gender. They are primarily being led and constituted by people, who in different ways suffer the consequences of basic service cuts, and/or reject the economic system behind the current financial crisis, and behind their political regimes.

The conviction that only global actions can confront global problems explains the strong international focus of these movements, and the attempts to spread the flame of protest throughout the world. Other principles which define these movements are leaderless and horizontal forms of organisation; open assemblies as the main forums whereby consensus is reached on actions to be taken, and the movements' demands; the central role of online social networks and of public spaces as places of intervention, communication and reunion. It is precisely within the context of all these new political practices that new linguistic practices may emerge. The focus of this panel is to assess the innovative nature of these practices.

Specifically, their labels and slogans (Dégagez, Indignados, From Tahrir to Sol) and the languages used by the demonstrators circulate through the Internet and the media, and pass from one country to another, thus interconnecting movements. These struggles share a global outlook, and make a particular use of multilingualism to address both global and local interlocutors, to create chains of interconnected discourse in order to join forces and build up new communities. Thus, the first aim of this panel will be to analyse the forms taken by this mobilisation of resources from different languages.

Besides this pervasive multilingualism, other transformations in the modes of production and circulation of discourses can be attested. In fact, the introduction of new political practices seems to require correlative discursive changes. In particular, the principles of horizontality and collective intelligence result in collectively produced discourses, deliberately anonymous, which challenge traditional authorship patterns. Other political practices also seem to have an impact in the production and circulation of discourses. In particular, it would be worth analysing the impact of the use of several online tools, and of the constantly monitoring of how the movements are portrayed in the media. Thus, the second aim of this panel will be to analyse the potential transformation of discursive practices in connection with some ideological features of these movements.

Finally, this panel will also analyse the implications and contradictions, which could emerge, or the tensions and inconsistences derived from the articulation between the local and the global. Some of the questions to be addressed will be:

1. Are there any new linguistic practices at play in this context? And if so, is this novelty rooted in the particular features and objectives of these new social struggles?
   
2. What are the new modes and sites of production and circulation of these discourses?
   
3. How is multilingualism enacted in the context of social struggle? Is it a merely rhetorical phenomenon or is it an effective means to articulate global and local dimensions, and in that case, what could be the impact of these multilingual practices on previous local forms of multilingualism?
   
4. Can the commodification of multilingualism be at play here?

How to contribute
So far, I have received potential contributions analysing data from Madrid, Athens, Cairo, Tunisia, Tel Aviv, and also some comparative analysis of the languages and discourses used by the movements in Europe and EEUU. If you would be interested in contributing to this panel, too, please contact me at luisa.rojo@uam.es before you submit your abstract directly on the Sociolinguistics Symposium website:

• All submissions have to be made through the Sociolinguistics Symposium's online submission tool (ConfTool).
  
• Your abstracts should not exceed the length of 500 words (incl. references).
  
• Each abstract will be reviewed anonymously by at least two peers.
  
• Each paper will be given a time slot of 20 minutes for the presentation plus 5 minutes for discussion.
  
• Each participant may have at most two contributions at the conference, one as author and one as co-author.

Contact person: Luisa Martín Rojo
email: luisa.rojo@uam.es

Creating Publics, Creating Democracies

Call for papers
Conference
Creating Publics, Creating Democracies
18.06.12-19.06.12
University of Westminster, London, UK

That there is a relationship between publicness and democracy has often been taken for granted. However, at this time of widespread instability, political upheaval and experimentation, when publics are increasingly being called upon to act, it is sometimes in the name of democracy, but not always. By exploring how ideas and practices of publicness and democracy are being constituted, enacted, related and reconfigured in different settings, this workshop aims to investigate the modes of public action and democracy being invoked, imagined and struggled over around the world. We welcome paper proposals from a diversity of approaches, particularly research and works in progress that help us to collectively consider:

• How issues become matters of public concern and how, where and when public practices intersect with forms of democracy, or other forms of politics?
  
• How actors (individuals, groups, institutions, networks, materials, devices) become public and whether forms of democratic politics emerge as a result?
  
• How public spaces are assembled and how they become spaces of democratic or other forms of politics?
  
• How relations between modes of public action and forms of democratic politics are being mediated and how methodologically such relations can be traced, mapped, analysed, theorised and better understood?

Building on the success of the July 2011 interdisciplinary workshop, Creating Publics[1], we seek working papers from fields including (but not limited to): anthropology, politics and public policy, cultural studies, environmental studies, sociology, science and technology studies, information studies, geography, planning and media studies. We hope that through engaging with empirical and/or conceptual works together, this workshop will serve as an opening for conversations about the creation of publics and democracies.

We invite abstracts of up to 250 words to be submitted to Sarah Batt (a.s.c.batt@open.ac.uk) by 16 March 2012. For further information or if you have questions, please contact Sue Pell (exs02sp@gold.ac.uk). The workshop programme will be announced in May.

The two-day workshop event will be held in central London on 18 & 19 June 2012. This initiative is a collaboration organised by: The Publics Research Programme at The Centre for Citizenship, Identities and Governance at the Open University; The Centre for the Study of Democracy at the University of Westminster; The Centre for Global Media and Democracy at Goldsmiths College, University of London.

[1] Creating Publics, July 2010: see http://www8.open.ac.uk/ccig/events/creating-publics-workshop

See: Publics Research Programme: http://www8.open.ac.uk/ccig/programmes/publics

Centre for the Study of Democracy: http://www.westminster.ac.uk/research/a-z/centre-for-the-study-of-democracy

Petro Jacyk VISITING SCHOLARS PROGRAM

Petro Jacyk VISITING SCHOLARS PROGRAM, CERES, Toronto

Deadline: March 1, 2012

The Program invites applications from scholars of Ukraine outside of Canada for appointments as a Petro Jacyk Visiting Scholar at the University of Toronto. The prospective candidates spend four to six weeks in Toronto conducting research and interacting with Canadian scholars. They are expected to present a seminar on their work and to take part in relevant scholarly events. In exceptional circumstances, arrangements may be made for them to teach. Visits will be scheduled during the sessions of the university, that is, between September and April.

Petro Jacyk Visiting Scholar positions are open to scholars working in the social sciences and humanities, including recent PhD or kandydat nauk degree recipients. To support the new generation of young Ukrainian scholars, the Program also recentlyintroduced "young scholar" category for those who are under 35 and have not yet received their doctorate. The Program is especially interested in applicants whose work relates to the current thematic focus of the program "Challenges of Independent Ukraine". This focus includes Ukraine's state- and institution- building, law and governance; problems of democratization; education, culture and national identity; and foreign policy and international relations.

The Program covers round-trip airfare, gives a stipend for living (typically $1,500 CDN per month), and provides shared office space. The program also provides access to the university library as well as assists in arranging housing at a reasonable cost. Housing and other living expenses are to be covered by the stipend. Although official test results are not required, solid knowledge of English is essential for successful participation in the program.

Applicants should submit a completed application form along with:

• a two-page description of their research proposal (double-spaced)
  
• a curriculum vitae
  
• two confidential letters of reference

Applicants may submit applications electronically, by fax, or by regular mail. Referees should email two letters of reference directly to the email address indicated below or mail them in sealed and signed envelopes. In the letter of application, please indicate the proposed length of stay and the approximate starting date. If you wish to do so, you may identify a faculty member at CERES who you think can provide guidance for you during your tenure in Toronto (you do not need to contact the faculty member personally). Otherwise, a faculty member will be appointed to selected candidate by the selection committee.

All application materials, including letters, must be in English. If translation of letters is needed, it must be arranged by the referee, certified by a qualified translator or agency, and included in the envelope together with the original letter.

Contact information:

Svitlana Frunchak Petro Jacyk Program for the Study of Ukraine; Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies Munk School of Global Affairs University of Toronto 1 Devonshire Place Toronto, ON M5S 3K7 Canada

e-mail: jacyk.program@utoronto.ca

Tel: (416) 946-8113
Fax: (416) 946-8939

To download application forms, please visit http://www.utoronto.ca/jacyk/Visiting%20Scholars%20Program.htm

Towards a Common Past? Conflicting Memories in Contemporary Europe

Conference Announcement

We have the pleasure to inform you about an interdisciplinary conference in memory studies that is organized by Nordic Network in Memory Studies and held at Lund University in Lund, Sweden 14-16 May 2012

The theme of the conference is:
Towards a Common Past? Conflicting Memories in Contemporary Europe

Since the 1980s Memory Studies have developed intensively as a creative, interdisciplinary and well-established field of research. Yet the field remains fragmented: national research environments tend to focus on representations of cultural memory within specific national contexts, and researchers coming from different disciplines are frequently holding on to their own theoretical and methodological approaches. We hope that the conference will generate discussions about the state of the art in Memory Studies as well as the future of the research in the field. How can we consolidate Memory Studies? What kind of new directions within the field we can identify today?

We would also like to involve you in the discussion on the idea of ‘European Memory’, what it is and how it relates to the memories of nations, regions, migrant communities and the world outside Europe. Drawing on recent theoretical insights pointing to the importance of memory migration and mediation, the influence of new media, changing cultural contexts, and memory as a source of transcultural ethics, the conference will explore how memory works as a transcultural and transnational force, mainly but not solely in Europe.

We welcome papers that aim to explore the tension between attempts by European cultural and political elites to create some form of common European memory or at least a unitary memory ethos on one hand and numerous ‘memory conflicts’, caused by divided and contested memories of oppression and violence on the other. Understanding the conflict-provoking potential of this memory legacy and exploring how it may be managed in a reconciliatory fashion constitute an acute challenge to interdisciplinary Memory Studies.

We are convinced that the future of Memory Studies lies in interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary cooperation, however difficult such an endeavor might be. Hence we warmly welcome to our conference scholars from different disciplines – the humanities, political and social sciences (including psychology and communication studies), history, etc.

Keynote speakers for this three-day conference include

• Claus Leggewie – Professor of Political Science at Justus-Liebig University Giessen
  
• Daniel Levy – Associate Professor of Sociology at Stony Brook University
  
• Leyla Neyzi, Professor of Social Anthropology, Sabanci University in Istanbul
  
• Jeffrey Olick, Professor of Sociology at University of Virginia
  
• James E. Young, Professor of English and Judaic Studies at University of Massachusetts

The papers at the conference will be presented and discussed in thematic workshops. If you are interested in participating in one or more of the following workshops please contact the chair of the workshop directly (see the contact details below). If you are not sure which workshop is most suitable for your paper please send a short abstract to the coordinator niklas.bernsand@slav.lu.se for suggestions. A selection of the papers presented at the conference will be subsequently published.

WORKSHOPS

1. Remembering forced migrations and ethnic cleansings in Europe (Chair: Barbara.Tornquist-Plewa@slav.lu.se)
   
2. Memory and Place in European Cities (Chair: Bo.Larsson@cfe.lu.se)
   
3. Memory, Emotions and Politics (Chair: Tea.Sindbaek@cfe.lu.se)
   
4. Asymmetric memories in Europe (chair: Conny.Mithander@kau.se)
   
5. Transnational cultural memory (chair: John.Sundholm@kau.se)
   
6. Remediating memory (chair: Maria.Holmgren.Troy@kau.se)
   
7. Memory and Literary Representation (Chair: Alexandre.dessingue@uis.no)
   
8. Nordic realms of memory (Chair: Peter.Stadius@helsinki.fi)
   
9. Memory in News Media (Chair: Niklas.Bernsand@slav.lu.se)

Deadline The deadline for submitting your abstract to a Workshop Chair (with a copy to the conference coordinator) Niklas.Bernsand@slav.lu.se is March 1, 2012.

We look forward to seeing you in Lund in 2012. Please notice that no conference fee is required.

Conference Chair: Barbara Törnquist-Plewa (e-mail: Barbara.Tornquist-Plewa@slav.lu.se)

Conference Coordinator: Niklas Bernsand (e-mail : Niklas.Bernsand@slav.lu.se)