The Mission of Humanities Universities in Eastern and Central Europe: Between Training and Bildung

The European Humanities University (EHU) welcomes submissions for our international conference

The Mission of Humanities Universities in Eastern and Central Europe: Between Training and Bildung

to be held in Vilnius, Lithuania on June 6-7 2012. This international conference will be EHU’s highest profile event in 2012 and dedicated to the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the founding of EHU.

We live in societies described by social theorists as functional, where the division of labor puts every person in a precise professional place determined by concrete social needs and goals. In such circumstances the university becomes a mediating structure that trains individuals for these professional spheres, supporting the functional principle and acting according to its logic. But how do universities in Central and Eastern Europe construct and pursue their broader mission in the context of functional societies? Should they pursue only the goal of training professionals, or also embody the integrative mission of cultivating the individual in all respects, as exemplified by the German concept of Bildung in Humboldt’s model of a university?

Holism and integration have been enduring educational goals. From the ancient idea of paideia through the Middle Age model of liberal arts schools, the concordia of the Renaissance to the modern conception of integrative learning, the cultivation of a “good and perfect human” has been and remains the mission of much of higher education, even if the characterization of the end goal of education has changed in public discourse. “To be a good citizen,” “to make the spiritual journey to God,” “to train as a journalist, doctor, teacher” are all goals of contemporary education, and all illustrate the diversity in values and missions of educational institutions, as well as society’s changing attitudes toward its individual members and itself as a community. These changes demonstrate a shift from a holistic, integral vision of humanity to training for particular skills considered important in a functionally differentiated society.

This tendency raises important questions. What happens to those centuries-old spheres of human development such as citizenship, union with the transcendent, and progress toward harmony? Do these changes speak to the fragmentation of our educational models, the disengagement of students, and a reduction of civic activity and public service? What functions can and should universities carry out in Eastern and Central European societies today? How do universities promote their social science and humanities functions while fulfilling their integral mission in human life and society in this region? These are the central questions of this conference.

The conference organizers invite scholars to address these questions and propose papers in line with the conference title, particularly in relation to the following subthemes:

• Models of universities in Central and Eastern Europe and types of transmitted
  knowledge
  
• The University in the region – is it an autonomous corporation?
  
• The civic ethos in university curricula in the region
  
• Explicit and implicit knowledge in the university classroom
  
• Community-based education in the region
  
• Challenges of the Bologna Process for national university policy in the region
  
• The role of research-oriented education in Academia
  
• The mission of EHU in the region–20 years of experience
  
• Integrative university education: pedagogy, values, and identities
  
• Evidence-based research (Scholarship of teaching and learning - SOTL) and student learning
  
• Humanities university core curricula–for what purposes?

Please submit a 250-300 words abstract of your presentation and a CV online: http://conferences.ehu.lt/index.php/humanities/2012 by March 30, 2012. If you are interested in other topics that relate to the conference focus, we encourage you to propose a session/panel and submit a 200-300 words proposal to the email address above.

Eligibility University faculty, experts, and social and political leaders from Central and Eastern Europe as well as other countries.

Conference Language English

Key dates Submission of proposals – March 30, 2012 Notification of acceptance – April 10, 2012 Final programme – May 15, 2012

Fees The amount of conference fee is 30 Euro

Terms and Conditions Conference organizers will cover participants’ expenses for accommodation and some meals. The European Humanities University will assist participants in obtaining visas, if necessary.

We look forward to your participation and please contact us for more information: conference@ehu.lt

Brands, Dreams and Spaces: Making Markets through Marketing and Consumption in Post-Socialist Economies?

Workshop in Sofia/Bulgaria – May 17th - 19th 2012

Brands, Dreams and Spaces:
Making Markets through Marketing and Consumption in Post-Socialist Economies

Organized by the Institute of Geography of the University of Graz/Austria
and the Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography (Leipzig/Germany)

Political changes in transforming economies and post-socialist societies often have been characterized as ‘consumer revolutions’ driven by aspirations for better consumption opportunities and by images of Western consumer goods leading to a better life. The transformation from state-regulated to free market economies, and from the collectively ‘searching’ socialist consumer to the individualized, ‘choosing’ capitalist shopper is an ongoing process that affects all spheres of social life in diverse ways. In the context of the spread of market economy structures, the materiality of everyday life and symbolic meanings of things are changing radically. At the same time, processes of social differentiation are being altered by the formation of new concepts of personhood and identity around consumption. With their marketing strategies and practices firms try to anticipate the consumers’ imaginations of the ‘good life’ and simultaneously produce such imaginations and create new markets. The workshop aims to investigate these economic and symbolic geographies of a ‘good life’ in different contexts, in order to work out common tendencies and differences demonstrating how the global blueprints of a free market society are mediated through historically grounded experiences and local social relations and how the new neoliberal economic structures are being normalized and legitimized in practices of consumption and marketing. We intent to exchange ideas about the role of consumption, marketing and “consumer capitalism” in the new market societies of Eastern Europe and develop further events, collaborative publications and projects in an interdisciplinary and international setting.

The workshop will start Thursday evening with a reception and last until Saturday afternoon. On Friday morning Ivaylo Ditchev (cultural anthropologist, Sofia University) will give a keynote lecture and we will present some results of our project on fashion brands in Bulgaria. In the afternoon we will continue with brief paper presentations (with an emphasis on discussion) and conclude the day in the evening with a conference dinner. On Saturday there will be some more presentations, but notably enough time for intense (group) discussions. For the late afternoon we offer a field trip in the city centre of Sofia.

We expect about 25 participants including scholars from various countries and disciplines (human geography, sociology, anthropology, semiotic studies, marketing) dealing with consumer studies in Eastern and Central Europe and related topics. There is still space for additional participants. Please contact us by March 31st 2012 if you are interested in participating and presenting a paper or serve as a discussant.

Ulrich Ermann, Christian Geiselmann and Yuliana Lazova

Contact: u_ermann@ifl-leipzig.de

Gentrification in post-socialist contexts

CAT thematic workshop: Gentrification in post-socialist contexts

Recently, gentrification has become a topic of intense scholarly debate in many post-socialist countries. However, its form, dynamics and underlying causes seem to differ from those in Western Europe and North America. In addition, context-specific and path-dependent characteristics of specific cities, countries and regions may lead to a range of outcomes, raising questions about comparability between different post-socialist contexts.

This workshop focuses on these differences and aims to shed more light on the similarities and distinctions between processes of gentrification, both between formerly socialist countries as well as between these and the West.
We invite empirical contributions and theoretical reflections on the following topics:

- patterns of gentrification in post-socialist countries
- gentrification in cities at different levels in continental and national urban hierarchies
- gentrification and local (housing) cultures
- (re-)investment strategies and the role of private actors in gentrification
- the role of policies and public actors in gentrification
- forms and patterns of displacement - theoretical and conceptual challenges

The Workshop will be held in Łódź (Poland), at the Institute of Urban Geography and Tourism Studies, September 29-30, 2012. There is no fee; we simply provide a place to meet and exchange ideas. The city can easily be reached by airplane, either directly or by flying to Warsaw. Frequent land transportation connects Łódź to the Polish capital.

As the Workshop focuses on discussion, presentations should not exceed 20 minutes. We aim at submitting the best papers for consideration as part of a special issue in a refereed journal. We welcome abstracts of approximately 200-250 words; make sure to include the full contact details of the author(s). These should be e-mailed by the 30th of June 2012 at the latest to:

Szymon Marcińczak: szymmar@geo.uni.lodz.pl; szymon.marcinczak@geography.umu.se
Matthias Bernt : berntm@irs-net.de
Michael Gentile: michael.gentile@geography.umu.se

Please ensure that your message is sent to all of the above e-mail addresses.
We look forward to seeing you in Łódź!

Landscape as a Factor of Creating Identity

Landscape as a Factor of Creating Identity
22-24 June 2012, Jaroslaw, Poland
http://www.v4landscape.com/conference/?lang=EN&location=register

Landscape is something different from space. It is closely related to the local culture. As such it cannot be measured in hectares and meters, it is not homogenous. It is a complex of spheres and 'points of light', full of symbols and places of memory. A tree can be a tree like thousands of other for a stranger, but in the same time can be the only tree for a local. The tree under which he or she played as a child, under which he or she buried beloved dog. Places and objects of importance, being 'points of light', have all a story to tell. They have been created and shaped by people in the past and in return they have been part of enculturation and education of new generations. Contemporary landscape is the best monument of history - it contains traces of human deeds from the beginning up to our times. There are places, like Stonehenge, that have been observed by hundreds of generations and during all those years influenced human culture. The landscape plays a role impossible to overestimate in creation of identity. People who grow up in a certain environment tend to develop personal, sentimental approach to the landscape they know and describe as 'their'. These sentiments can be easily observed in poetry, music, paintings or sculptures, especially created by artists who miss their familiar landscape being on exile.

The landscape as a factor of creating identity, strongly linked with the human feelings, influence perceived quality of life. It can be seen as hidden potential that can be actively and purposefully used to form conscious and deeply integrated societies, yet fragile, easy to be neglected or even destroyed by outside forces or careless development.

This interdisciplinary approach to the question of landscape is still innovatory and rare, especially in the Central-Eastern Europe, where the times of war and communism have by a large scale changed traditional landscape and very often disturbed it. Understanding it's role in shaping of societies and everyday way of life plays crucial part in preserving what's left of the past and strengthening peoples self awareness as a part of society, culture and tradition. Therefore it is needed to initiate a theoretical discourse which may in future bring new solutions and begin to change the way of thinking.

We are inviting representatives of such disciplines as ethnology and cultural anthropology, archeology, history, sociology, musicology, cultural studies, humanistic geography, psychology, architecture, arts etc. to deliver papers.The presentations should take 20 minutes (plus 10 minutes of discussion). You should be ready to send it in a form of articles for the post-conference publication. Abstracts of articles will be published on the site a month before the conference.

How to send an abstract?

After registering for the conference as a speaker, an email with a link will be send. Please use this link to confirm registration. On the same page there will be a place to copy paste the abstract. You can use the supplied link many times and even change the abstract by pasting a new one. The deadline for submitting and changing abstracts is the 11th of March 2012. During the conference speakers will be asked to provide final version of their presentation articles in English before the 30th of August 2012.
If any questions arise please feel free to contact us at wojciech.bedynski@gmail.com.

IMPORTANT:
There is no conference fee for participants whose paper has been accepted (limit: 30). The organizers will provide accommodation, full board, conference handouts and a half-day trip. Participants will
cover only the costs of transport to and from Jaroslaw.

"The Boundaries of Socialism" Everyday Life under Post-Late Socialism

AAA 2012 Meeting: "The Boundaries of Socialism" Everyday Life under Post-Late Socialism

Recent anthropological attention to everyday life in post/late socialist contexts has noted that seemingly mundane activities of daily life can be fruitful conduits into understanding the larger cultural landscape of these post/late socialist contexts (e.g. Caldwell 2011; Gal and Kligman 2000). Consumption in particular, especially when analyzed from the perspective of "the everyday" and removed from "normative analyses primarily derived from economic perspectives" (Thelson 2011:54) provides an excellent forum to understand the intimate details of capitalism in post/late socialist societies outside of the institutions that ostensibly shape everyday life. Moreover, studying consumption and the everyday may develop new theoretical models that can be applied to recently ethnographic work in market oriented socialist economies (e.g. Cuba and Vietnam) that don't necessarily fit existing theoretical approaches to the post-socialist world. This scholarship is crucial for understanding the ways in which globalization and neoliberal capitalism impact the everyday lives of subjects outside of capitalist contexts, which also illuminates features of everyday life for people living under neoliberal capitalism. We broadly conceive of consumption to include the purchasing and acquiring of consumer goods including food, medicine, clothing, water, as well as the consumption of media (TV, movies, music, print media, etc), technology, and flows of information.

In a recent volume on food and everyday life in Eastern Europe, Elizabeth Dunn states that "as the age of post-socialism passes, and as Eastern European countries continue to forge new relationships with global markets and institutions, they will become increasingly defined by the varying contours of the new modernity they create rather than by their shared socialist past" (Dunn 2009:221). Addressing some of the ways in which these new modernities are created and solidified, we ask what these new modernities look like from an ethnographic perspective of everyday consumption and speak to the 2012 conference theme of "borders and crossings" by exploring the disciplinary borders of post-socialist studies. What is revealed by an ethnography that approaches studying consumption from the lens of the everyday rather than the regulatory institutions and regulatory regimes that are so often inescapably linked to shaping modern consumption practices in post/late-socialist contexts? In this panel we explore the boundaries of socialism through the lens of everyday consumption.

Possible topics may include:
-domestic spaces and material culture
-shopping, dining out, vacations and leisure
-food purchases, cuisine, fine dining vs everyday foods
-bureaucracy and everyday life
-work/life balance
-private vs public life
-consumption of old and new media
-the use of old and new technologies
-migration and diasporic influences on consumption at home

Session Co-Chairs: Hanna Garth (UCLA) and Sarah Grant (UCR). Existing topics include "Household Food Acquisition under Cuba's Changing Food Rationing System" and "Gia Ca Phe: Blogging Vietnam in the Global Coffee Industry".

Please email us ASAP if you are interested in participating in this volunteered session. If we get enough interest we may propose a double session. We are in the process of soliciting 1-2 discussants. Abstracts are due to the session co-chairs by March 15th, 2012:
Hanna.garth@gmail.com
Sarahggrant@gmail.com

Redefining the Nation. Ethnicity and Nationhood in Communist and Post-Communist Societies

Student Conference

Redefining the Nation. Ethnicity and Nationhood in Communist and Post-Communist Societies
Department of Political Science, University of Bucharest
May 18-19, 2012

Deadline for submitting the abstract: March 30, 2012 http://fspubconference2012.wordpress.com/

The process of continuous definition and institutionalisation of the concept of nation is an important dimension of political and social realities throughout the world. The phenomenon of nation-building permeates multiple areas of politics and everyday life, acquiring diverse forms. Laboratories for numerous nation-building projects across time, post-communist societies can be said to offer a privileged position for observing this protean nature of nationalism.

Far from losing its significance, nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the Caucasus and Central Asia adjusted itself to changing circumstances, political regimes and social orders. Arguably incommensurable, the nation-building strategies and manifestations of nationalism specific to the communist and post-communist periods respectively are strongly connected through a burgeoning “nation-talk”, i.e. the permanent usage of nation and ethnicity as key categories of social and political practices.

The student conference organized by the Department of Political Science, University of Bucharest, in collaboration with Université Paris 1 - Panthéon Sorbonne, Université Libre de Bruxelles (CEVIPOL), and the Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes and the Memory of the Romanian Exile (Bucharest), is an invitation to reflect upon the changing nature of nationalism in communist and post-communist societies. The last decades have brought forth a wide range of mutations from and denials of the traditional nation-state-centred nationalism, which in the view of Ernest Gellner sought the congruence of cultural and political boundaries. The different transborder and substate models of nationalism or the long-distance nationalism (Benedict Anderson) facilitated by new communication technologies can be seen as indications of these
developments.

We welcome theoretical or empirical papers addressing the following or related topics:
• communism and nation-building;
• nationalism and transition to democracy;
• memories of past conflict and the politics of reconciliation;
• nationhood and ethnicity in everyday life;
• ethnicised aggression and aggressive ethnicity;
• ethnopolitical settlements, relationship between majorities and minorities;
• transborder nation-building;
• long-distance nationalism, migration and diasporas;
• regional identities and substate nation-building;
• border identities;
• racism, xenophobia;
• human rights and minority rights, group rights, pluralism.

The conference is open to both undergraduate (final years) and postgraduate students from different fields of social sciences and humanities: Political Science, Anthropology, History, Sociology, Economics, etc.
The conference will take place at the Political Science Department, University of Bucharest: 8, Spiru Haret Street, 010175, Bucharest (District 1), Romania.

Applications, in English or French, consisting of a paper abstract of 250 words and a short CV (one paragraph) must be submitted by 30 March 2012, to: conference@fspub.unibuc.ro. Please mention if partial funding for travel or accommodation costs is needed (currently available funding is very limited).

The selected papers should be submitted by May 7th (cca. 20,000–25,000 characters). The languages of the conference will be English and French. However, the final paper can be written in Romanian, English, or French.

The conference is part of the activities undertaken by the consortium Université Libre de Bruxelles – University of Bucarest – University of Wroclaw – Babes-Bolyai University, within the framework of the common MA program « Central and Eastern European Politics and Societies» (http://ceeps.uni.wroc.pl/).

It is organized in partnership with Babes-Bolyai University, European Studies Department, Ambassade de France en Roumanie. Service de Coopération et d’Action Culturelle, Bucharest; Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie, Bucharest, Délégation Wallonie- Bruxelles International, Bucharest; The Policy Center for Roma and Minorities, Bucharest; Europe Direct CENTRAS, Bucharest and Political Science Students Association University of Bucharest.

Fellowships in Imre Kertész Kolleg Jena, Jena

Imre Kertész Kolleg Jena, Jena
Bewerbungsschluss: 31.03.2012

For the academic year 2012/13, Fellowships are available for a period up to twelve months from September 2012. Applications are invited from noted scholars in the history of Europe's East or neighboring disciplines with a clear preference for projects focusing on East Central and South Eastern Europe.

Fellows are expected to conduct a larger scholarly project corresponding to the research profile of the Kolleg. Fellows are expected to work at the Imre Kertész Kolleg and to reside in Jena.

Stipends range from EUR 3.500 to EUR 5.300 per month according to the academic position at the home institution.

Further information on the Kolleg can be found here:
http://www.imre-kertesz-kolleg.uni-jena.de

Applications should include:

- curriculum vitae
- list of publications
- project proposal in English (not exceeding 8 pages)
- a statement on the relevance of the research project to the Kolleg's
research profile (not exceeding 2 pages)

Application must be received no later than 31st March, 2012 and should
be sent to the directors of the Kolleg:
Prof. Dr. Wlodzimierz Borodziej
Prof. Dr. Joachim v. Puttkamer
Imre Kertész Kolleg Jena
Am Planetarium 7
07743 Jena
Germany

Representing the Past in Architecture

Interdisciplinary conference
“Representing the Past in Architecture”
Vilnius, on October 8-11, 2012.

The conference is organised by the Herder-Institut (Marburg), the Lithuanian Institute of History (Vilnius) and the Nordost-Institut (IKGN e.V., Lüneburg).

Short Description of the Theme of the Conference:

In 2001 Lithuanian government decided to begin rebuilding the Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania in Vilnius, which was completely destroyed at the end of the 18th century. Among many things this (re-)construction indicated a search for the new/old history, for the country’s self- assertion, for the state’s representation, as well as manifested one of the ways in promoting new post-Soviet Lithuanian national identity. This example, however, was not unique: one can recall the rebuilding of the Royal Castle in Warsaw in the 1970s, or recent discussions about the restoration of the Stadtschloss in Berlin.

However, some scholars tend to argue that such resurrection of historical structures in contemporary time is more than a mere act of representation. As French philosopher Jean Baudrillard has pointed out, such objects become simulacra which not just represent, but rather simulate or imitate certain aspects of the past, and at the same time are imbued with particular contemporary meanings and connotations. Therefore, among the questions that we would like to discuss during the event are: What impact do the rebuilt structures have on the historical perception and formation of identities? How do they represent or simulate the past? What old and new connotations can be identified in the object(s)? Why were these particular structures chosen to be rebuilt? Therefore one of the main aims of the conference is to discuss such examples of (re-)constructed histories, which are expressed not only in different architectural forms, but also monuments, city planning, parks, squares, etc.

Under such general guidelines the organisers of the upcoming interdisciplinary conference cordially invite young scholars (up to the age of 35) to present and discuss their cases. Framework for the discussions will also be guided by presentations given by several keynote speakers. Even though our primary focus is on Central, Eastern and Northern Europe, yet other relevant proposals pertaining to the topic will be considered too.

Travel (only within Europe) and accommodation costs will be covered by the organisers. The language of the proceedings is English.

A short description of the proposed conference paper (1-2 pages, preferably in Word) together with your CV should be sent to: Dr. Heidi Hein-Kircher, Herder-Institut Marburg, forum@herder-institut.de. The closing deadline for applications is April 30, 2012.

Violence and its Aftermath in the Soviet and Post-Soviet Context

Fourth International Social Science Summer School in Ukraine
"Violence and its Aftermath in the Soviet and Post-Soviet Context"
Zhytomyr (Ukraine), 4-10 July 2012

Partners:
Embassy of France in Ukraine
Chair of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Ottawa (Canada)
Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales [EHESS] (France)
Internet network historians.in.ua
Research project "Understanding Violence in Russia" -
russiaviolence.hypotheses.org
Doctoral School of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (Ukraine)
French-Russian Centre for Humanities and Social Sciences in Moscow (Russia)
Zhytomyr State University (Ukraine)

Program description:
"How naive, how kindly and patriarchal the old prisons huddled on the outskirts of towns now appeared beside these camp-cities, beside the awful crimson-black glow that hung over the gas ovens! You might well think that the management of such a vast number of prisoners would have required an equally vast army of guards and supervisors. In fact, whole weeks would pass by without anyone in an SS uniform so much as appearing inside the barrack-huts. It was the prisoners themselves who policed the camp-cities (...) It seemed as though the German authorities could disappear altogether, the prisoners would maintain the high-voltage current in the wires and go on with their work."

This is the way Vasily Grossman, a Soviet writer born in a Jewish family in central Ukraine, defines in his major novel Life and Fate the level and sophistication of violence reached in the XXth century. The novel dedicated to the Second World War is a reflection on the management of violence in war conditions and its ambiguity, but also on the violence experienced by political prisoners in Stalinist camps and on the pervasiveness of violence in all spheres of life. Having lost his mother in the Berdichev ghetto during the war, the writer dedicated his novel to her and her shadow is present in the author?s whole work of writing and memory.

Following Grossman's path, not only symbolically but also physically by installing the school near his native city, the Summer School will address the complexity and the aftermaths of violence, not only in war times, but also in times of peace, in the Soviet and post-Soviet context.

The Fourth International Social Science Summer School in Ukraine will provide a unique forum for the presentation and discussion of the latest research on violence issues, involving specialists of the topic, as well as young promising researchers.

The School is interdisciplinary. The organizers welcome proposals from the disciplines of history, sociology, anthropology, political science, economics, and adjacent fields. While the primary focus will be on the socialist and post-socialist era (in the former Soviet Union, Central, Eastern and Southern Europe), pre-Soviet history may also be examined. The discussions and presentations will analyse different dimensions of violence: war and non-war situations; state management of violence, as well as individual and collective strategies; mechanisms of violence outbreak; violent practices and post-violence situations; perpetrators and victims; sources and methods.

Some of the issues of particular interest to the School include:

-State monopoly of violence, implementation and resistance (past and present)
-Soviet repressive practices
-Police: use of force and violent practices
-Justice, prison, coercion
-Terrorism and anti-terrorism
-State management of public protest
-Violence of/towards economic actors (mafia, raids)

-War and post-war, conflict situations
-Mobilization and control of violence in combat
-Civil population during war and post-conflict
-Ethnic conflicts, border conflicts, other forms of mass violence
-Return to civilian life

-Violent practices and violent behaviour
-State and non-state violence towards property or objects
-Social, domestic and everyday violence
-Gendered dimension of violence
-Violence and non-violence as a strategy for political, social and
economical actors
-Public protest practices: strikes, demonstrations
-Education and socialization to violence

-Memory and representation of violence
-Collective memory of violence
-Representation of violence in media and art
-Life course and trauma
-Veterans and veterans? movements

The Summer School is designed to be interdisciplinary and international. Participants are expected to present their own work and to participate in group discussions. The School?s program consists of lectures, panel presentations and discussions, as well field trips within the region, followed by discussion sessions.

Location:
Zhytomyr (Central Ukraine, 130 km from Kyiv) is nowadays a middle-sized city of 278,000 inhabitants in a mostly rural area. The official founding date is 884, though this fact and has only a legendary basis. The first records of the town date from 1240 and are linked to Zhytomyr being sacked by the Mongols of Batu Khan. Successively Lithuanian, Polish, Russian, Soviet and Ukrainian, the town has been destroyed and rebuilt several times.

During the 20th century Zhytomyr has gradually lost its multicultural nature. The predominant Jewish community was largely annihilated in the Holocaust; the Soviet migration policy has brought there a more
mixed population. Today, Zhytomyr is a rather typical post-Soviet city, combining in its landscape architectural traces of the old times, past conflicts injuries, Soviet urbanization marks and post-Soviet commercial development.

Duration:
One week, Wednesday 4 - Tuesday 10 July 2012.

Eligibility
The Summer School is open to PhD students (or students enrolled in a kandidat nauk program) and young researchers (up to six years removed from their PhD or kandidat nauk degree). Empirically grounded proposals are particularly welcomed.The working language of the Summer School will be English, and it is important that prospective participants have a good knowledge of this language.
The selection committee will select candidates based on their responses to this Call for Proposals. The selected candidates will be advised before the end of May.

Program Costs
There is no program fee. Local transportation from/to Kyiv, accommodation, meals, classes, lectures, seminars and excursions are provided by the organizers and free of charge. The participants or their universities should only pay the travel expenses from the participant's country to Kyiv.

How to apply?
To be considered for the Summer School, candidates must complete an application form (that includes a 500 word project proposal) and add a CV. They can also send an additional written sample, such as a conference paper, a dissertation chapter, or a publication (optional). The application must be sent by e-mail to ukrainesummerschool@gmail.com, by 15 April 2012.

The application form can be requested at ukrainesummerschool@gmail.com or downloaded on the following address:
http://historians.in.ua/index.php/ogoloshennya/89-summer-school-in-ukraine-2012
For more information, please contact us at ukrainesummerschool@gmail.com

Deadline for applications: 15th April 2012

Flashbacks - Nostalgic media and mediated forms of nostalgia

Flashbacks - Nostalgic media and mediated forms of nostalgia

Institute of Communication, Media and Journalism studies
University of Geneva - Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences - Department of Sociology
13-14 September 2012

Deadline for proposals: May 6, 2012

Send abstracts of max. 500 words, bibliography and biographical statement to:

flashbacks2012@gmail.com

Confirmed speakers: Prof. Daniel Dayan, Prof. Ute Holl, Prof. Andrew Hoskins

Media are time machines. They remember and forget. Media screen and record parts of memory and history as well as they maintain collective memories and contribute to historical narratives by (re)shaping events, happenings or other incidents. Media also tend to remind their own past by re-using archive-images in the present, for example. In this sense, media seem to be nostalgic of the past as well as of their own one. Nostalgiaas a concept, feeling or expression is not new. The notion has been introduced by a doctor in Switzerland (17th century) to describe the phenomenon of homesickness. Related to nostalgia is also the idea of melancholia or yearning. These days, there seems to be a BOOM of nostalgia: The
Artist (revival of the silent film) or television series like Mad Men - exploring aesthetics and social life of the sixties - are examples of what we could name nostalgic media (makers). Digital photography on cell phones gets a polaroid-touch; the retro design becomes digitized. Advertising for watches or cars is linked to nostalgic forms of family tradition. Fans of the fifties organise parties and fashion events to feel like being part of the past in the present. Being nostalgic and remembering pieces of the past also includes forgetting. What kind of memories are discriminated? Can media really be nostalgic? Which specific forms of nostalgia appear in contemporary society and why? Can people be nostalgic if they did not experience the past they pretend being nostalgic of? What kind of politics of nostalgia exist? What is the impact of nostalgia on the media market and its influence on economy? Finally, given the arbitrary (?) use of the past in all its imaginable variations and cultural systems, is it still possible to use the word nostalgia or should there be a neologism describing the transformation of the past in(to) the digital era? Could it even be possible to be simply nostalgic of nostalgia; finally describing the eternal research for (lost) identity?

This international conference aims to explore nostalgia as a (mass) media phenomena and also seeks for contributions that treat any other mediated forms of nostalgia.

Topics may include, but will not be limited to, the following:

*nostalgia and (mass)media*
-publics, web- and fan-communities
-audiovisual narratives, screening, recording
-seriality, flashbacks and temporality
-news, journalism, (printed) press
-broadcast revivals, archive discoveries
-political past, political systems, (n)ostalgia, institutions
-special nostalgic broadcast (home country, culinary traditions etc.)
-photography, comics, video games and new technologies

*mediated forms of nostalgia*
-architecture, (product)-design and fashion
-psychological aspects and history of nostalgia
-migration, home-comers, homesickness
-geographical maps, tourist attractions and villages
-folklore, traditions, regional nostalgia
-museums, exhibitions and contemporary art
-flea markets, vintage stores and fairs, parties, concerts

*economy, marketing and nostalgia*
-Vintage-retro branding
-retro-design (cars, watches, furniture)
-advertising, marketing and luxury products
-music and arts business

*theories and methodologies*
-nostalgic media studies and critical approaches
-the come-back of philosophers and thinkers "of the past" in
-science, arts and other research domains

Deadline for proposals: May 6, 2012

Send abstracts of max. 500 words, bibliography and biographical statement to:

flashbacks2012@gmail.com

Participants will have to cover their own travel and accommodation expenses. Travel information as well as a list of affordable hotels and other accommodations will be posted on the conference website in June.

Participation fees will be announced but will not exceed 100 CHF (and less for students).

For any other inquiries feel free to contact Katharina Niemeyer
(Katharina.Niemeyer@unige.ch / katharinaniemeyer@gmail.com).

7th Changing Europe Summer School

7th Changing Europe Summer School

“Central Eastern Europe and the CIS between post-socialist path-dependence, Europeanization and globalization”

National Research University - Higher School of Economics & Research Centre for East European Studies (University of Bremen)

Moscow, 29 July – 05 August 2012

The topic: The Summer School wants to look at the development of those countries, which until the end of the 1980s were part of the socialist world. Even after more than 20 years since the end of socialism many scholars still see a dominance of post-socialist path-dependences in the political, economic and societal developments of these countries. At the same time the Central Eastern European states, which have joined the EU, have undergone a strong process of Europeanization and it can be argued that the EU in various ways has also had an impact on developments in the post-Soviet countries, most of which are united in the CIS. In addition all countries are subjected to a multitude of pressures resulting from the ongoing process of globalization, ranging from financial crises to cultural exchanges.

We invite young academics working on the role of post-socialist path-dependence, Europeanization and Globalization in the countries of Central Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union to apply to the 7th Changing Europe Summer School.

The Summer School: Each year the Changing Europe Summer School brings together about 20 young academics (i.e. mainly doctoral students from disciplines like sociology, political science, economics, social anthropology, law, geography and history) working on issues related to countries in Central and Eastern Europe. Participation in the Summer School gives them a chance to discuss their research projects and to become better integrated into the international academic community.

The core of the Summer School consists of the presentation of doctoral research projects and their discussion with senior researchers of international repute in their respective fields. In addition, there will be several sessions with experts on funding, access to information, publication strategies and policy consulting. The sessions will be framed by lectures and excursions as well as other activities designed to give participants the opportunity to socialize and establish contacts. Selected contributions to the Summer School will be published in an edited volume in English. The participants will be invited to join our alumni network.

Paper proposals: Paper proposals must be based on original doctoral research projects and may not exceed 1000 words. They must be drafted in English and must connect an empirical question with a theoretical approach and concept in order to be accepted. An international review panel will assess the papers for the conference in an anonymous review process (for more information about the reviewers, see www.changing-europe.de). The deadline for receipt of paper proposals is 31 March 2012. Please submit your proposal according to the guidelines at www.changing-europe.de.

Costs: Funding by the organizer covers participation fees and accommodation (double rooms in students’ hall of residence). Participants will have to cover their travel costs themselves.

Information: More information about the Changing Europe Summer Schools is available at www.changing-europe.de

Postdoctoral Fellows Program

National Research University Higher School of Economics: Postdoctoral Fellows Program in Moscow, Russian Federation
Website: www.hse.ru/en

Application deadlines: March 15, 2012 April 15, 2012

The leading Russian University, National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE), invites applications for its 2012-2013 postdoctoral fellows program. This competitive institutional award is open to recent doctorates (Ph.D. degree within the past 3 years from non-Russian universities) and doctoral students who have completed their Ph.D. thesis in Economics and Sociology. We welcome applicants with research interests across the full range of sociology and economics fields.

The appointment is for one year with a salary of 120,000 rubles per month for the research fellowship in economics and 100,000 rubles per month for the research fellowship in sociology. Research-related travel funding up to 60,000 rubles per year may be made available to each fellow. The postdoctoral fellow will be eligible for one roundtrip flight (economy class), health insurance, accommodation at HSE professors’ guesthouse, administrative support, and free Russian language training course.

Successful applicants can begin their program on June 1, 2012 or September 1, 2012.

The postdoctoral fellow is expected to pursue his/her own independent research interests, make no less than two presentations of the research before the affiliated department or broader audience, and deliver about 15 hours of individual consultations on academic writing for their Russian colleagues and/or students.

To apply, submit a cover letter and CV, a short (2-3 pages) statement of research interests and proposed research, and the names and contact information for 2 references. Applications should be submitted electronically to the attention of Mr. Boris Zhelezov (bzhelezov@hse.ru)

Additional information about HSE can be found at:
- http://www.hse.ru/en for general information
- http://ir.hse.ru/istaff/Departments for HSE international academic staff
- http://ir.hse.ru/istaff/conditions for information about HSE professors’ guest house