Thursday 28 July 2022

Call for abstracts: Central and Eastern Europe in academic internationalisation: core/periphery, neoliberalism, and knowledge production

 

The journal Studia Litteraria et Historica invites submissions of abstracts for the 2023 issue aimed at reflecting on dynamics of the academic field in post-socialist/post-communist countries and regions in the context of internationalisation. We invite authors to explore how economic and political forces, historically and today, shape and reshape the field, and, in turn, what role the field has played in maintaining or resisting structural changes in the society at large. Our call rests on three premises. Firstly, we are interested in positioning academic realities of Central and Eastern Europe within broader and ongoing debates on neoliberalism, modernisation, and new conservatisms. Secondly, we are interested in problematising academic internationalisation through the lens of histories of the region, especially its post-socialist changes. Thirdly, we are interested in academia as a specific field of knowledge production and circulation, which is linked to broader knowledge systems. The thematic issue of SLH is meant to bring these concerns together by taking the notions of core and periphery as a starting point in exploring material, organizational and ideational impact of socio-economic and political realities upon academia. We are interested in both international comparative analyses and specific national cases, especially where they can aim to bring new light on the general themes. We invite scholars from various disciplines, fields, and methodological perspectives to offer their reflection. See more specific examples of themes below.

Timeline

The deadline for abstracts (no more than 400 words) submission is 30 September 2022. Please send your abstracts (in English) to: slh@ispan.waw.pl. By the end of October 2022, the authors will be notified on the acceptance along with information on publishing procedures. The deadline for submission of full manuscripts (in English or in Polish) can be expected in late February 2023, and the prospective authors will receive the exact date. The manuscripts will undergo the peer-review process. Accepted manuscripts will be later translated into Polish (or English, in case a manuscript is in Polish), and the publisher will cover the costs of translation. The publishing of the issue is scheduled for December 2023.

Themes

We invite scholars from various disciplines and fields of social sciences and humanities to propose contributions within, but not limited to, the following thematic areas:

· Material conditions of knowledge production and circulation

o historical transformations from state socialism/communism to neoliberal capitalism in Central and Eastern European academia; how capitalism shapes and reshapes academia;

o economic conditions and social relations of knowledge production in academia – international disparities among higher education systems and institutions, internal hierarchies and division of labour, precariousness, unionized and non-unionized labour responses etc.; higher education as public service.

· Structures and practices in organisation of knowledge production and circulation

o international and national policy impact on the organization of research and/or teaching with particular view on performance-based assessment, bureaucracy and audit culture, research selectivity, definitions of and divisions into disciplines;

o intellectual formation and power relations – professional socialisation of academics; relations between core and non-core scholars; cultural capital and social distinction in core-periphery relations; the role of internationalised peer review, granting system, conferences, networking and research collaboration;

o impact upon students and teaching; students’ movements as advocates of change within and beyond academia;

o the role of academic field in capitalism and public sphere – how academic practices and professional ideologies reinforce or challenge competitive environment; what markers of success/failure they produce; how academics are legitimised in non-academic fields (e.g., media, NGOs, government).

· Ideas of knowledge production and circulation

o domination and marginalisation of concepts and theoretical traditions: Central and Eastern Europe vis-à-vis other regions;

o epistemological and linguistic impact of globalized system of journal metrics, publishers’ prestige, university rankings etc.; how trends and topics in scholarship are recognized and legitimized; how linguistic and conceptual hegemony of English language is absorbed, transformed and/or resisted;

o responses to academic internationalisation (e.g., liberal, conservative, socialist, cosmopolitan, nationalist etc.); traditional and non-traditional understandings of academic meritocracy; radical and critical thought in ‘internationalised’ academia.

· Ways to analyse academic internationalisation

o Theories and conceptual tools (e.g., academic capitalism, academic entrepreneurship, world-systems analysis, postcolonial/decolonial perspectives, ecologies of knowledge, economy of symbolic goods etc.) – their usefulness and limitations;

o Methodological reflection on research strategies, conceptualisation and operationalisation, sources and types of data, modes of analysis and validation etc.

Journal information

Studia Litteraria et Historica is a bilingual (Polish and English) online journal published annually by the Institute of Slavic Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences. The journal adheres to full open access policy (free of charge) and is indexed in databases including SCOPUS, ERIH Plus and DOAJ. More about Studia Litteraria et Historica, including past issues: https://ispan.waw.pl/journals/index.php/slh/index.

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