Fourth Baltic Conference on the Environmental Humanities and Social Sciences, BALTEHUMS IV: Worlds in Relation

 We are pleased to announce that the Fourth Baltic Conference on the Environmental Humanities and Social Sciences, BALTEHUMS IV: Worlds in Relation, will take place in Riga, Latvia, on 1-3 December 2026, hosted by the University of Latvia and the Baltic Studies Centre. The call for contributions is now open!

This year’s theme, Worlds in Relation, invites us to think with the Baltic Sea region as a landscape of transitions and intertwined histories and to explore how changing relations between humans, nonhumans, and environments are narrated, negotiated and tended across time. We welcome contributions from environmental humanities, social sciences, and related fields, including work on environmental histories and memories; seasonal rhythms and winter histories; water cultures and hydrosocial perspectives; climate change and biodiversity loss; human-animal relations and multispecies commons; everyday environmental practices and ecological knowledges; infrastructures and interventions in land and water; environmental philosophy and ethics of care; and artistic, literary, and sensory engagements with more‑than‑human worlds.

Abstracts of up to 300 words should be submitted via the online platform by 15 June 2026. The conference will be held on‑site in Riga, at the House of Science of the University of Latvia, and in keeping with BALTEHUMS tradition, there is no conference fee.  Further details, including submission links, can be found on the conference website: https://eztf.lu.lv/baltehums-iv/ 

We are currently finalising the keynote programme and other event details, including opportunities for more informal exchanges during the conference days and will share updates with you over the coming months. 

We would be very grateful if you could circulate this call through your networks and encourage colleagues, students and collaborators who work on the Baltic region (broadly understood) to submit proposals.

With warm greetings,

Anita Zariņa

Kati Lindström

on behalf of the BALTEHUMS IV organising committees

Silke Pasewalck , Rūta Eidukevičienė , Antje Johanning-Radžienė und Martin Klöker (ed.): Baltische Bildungsgeschichte(n). De Gruyter Oldenbourg 2022. Open access

Silke Pasewalck , Rūta Eidukevičienė , Antje Johanning-Radžienė und Martin Klöker (ed.): Baltische Bildungsgeschichte(n). De Gruyter Oldenbourg 2022. ISBN: 9783110998672

Open access: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110987133/html?lang=de#contents .

ÜBER DIESES BUCH

Für die baltischen Länder ist Bildung ein Schlüsselthema, das ihre Geschichte und ihr Selbstverständnis sowohl im Hinblick auf die Fremdbestimmung als auch auf die eigene Staatenbildung betrifft. Im Zuge von Handelskontakten, Christianisierung, Ordenskriegen und Rechtsimport gerieten die autochthonen Völkerschaften des baltischen Raums unter kulturelle, sprachliche und politische Einflüsse unterschiedlichen Gewichts. Sie waren dadurch zum Teil gewaltvollen Formierungsprozessen ausgesetzt. Im vorliegenden Band wird das Baltikum in Geschichte und Gegenwart aus der Perspektive eines weit gefassten Bildungsbegriffs untersucht. Die Beiträge stammen aus der Feder von Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftlern aus Estland, Lettland, Litauen und Deutschland, insbesondere der Germanistik, aber auch der Geschichte, Bildungsgeschichte, Rechtsgeschichte, Slavistik und Komparatistik. Der Band zeigt wesentliche Aspekte der baltischen Bildungsgeschichte und ihrer Narrationen an beispielhaften Analysen und Fallstudien für alle drei baltischen Länder auf.

AUTORENINFORMATION

Silke Pasewalck, BKGE; Rūta Eidukevičienė, Vytautas Magnus Universität Kaunas, Litauen; Antje Johanning-Radžienė, Herder-Institut in Marburg; Martin Klöker, Under und Tuglas Literaturzentrum der Estnischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Tallinn.

Catherine Gibson: Geographies of Nationhood: Cartography, Science, and Society in the Russian Imperial Baltic. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press 2022. ISBN: 9780192844323

 

Offers a new and refined explanation of the history of ethnographic cartography

Traces the geographical imagination of national territories in the Baltic

Provides the first social history of mapmaking in imperial Russia focusing on non-elites and provincial map production

Uses extensive multi-archival research and features over fifty maps

Geographies of Nationhood examines the meteoric rise of ethnographic mapmaking in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a form of visual and material culture that gave expression to territorialised visions of nationhood. In the Russian Empire's Baltic provinces, the development of ethnographic cartography, as part of the broader field of statistical data visualisation, progressively became a tool that lent legitimacy and an experiential dimension to nationalist arguments, as well as a wide range of alternative spatial configurations that rendered the inhabitants of the Baltic as part of local, imperial, and global geographies. Catherine Gibson argues that map production and the spread of cartographic literacy as a mass phenomenon in Baltic society transformed how people made sense of linguistic, ethnic, and religious similarities and differences by imbuing them with an alleged scientific objectivity that was later used to determine the political structuring of the Baltic region and beyond. Geographies of Nationhood treads new ground by expanding the focus beyond elites to include a diverse range of mapmakers, such as local bureaucrats, commercial enterprises, clergymen, family members, teachers, and landowners. It shifts the focus from imperial learned and military institutions to examine the proliferation of mapmaking across diverse sites in the Empire, including the provincial administration, local learned societies, private homes, and schools. Understanding ethnographic maps in the social context of their production, circulation, consumption, and reception is crucial for assessing their impact as powerful shapers of popular geographical conceptions of nationhood, state-building, and border-drawing.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

1. Networks of Cartographic Influence, Patronage, and Reception

2. Provincial Map Production and the Rise of Cartographic Entrepreneurship

3. The Baltic Question in Cartographic Imagination

4. Mapping Latvians in Local and Global Perspectives

5. Post-War Ethnic Boundary Mapping from Above and Below

Epilogue: Afterlives of Maps

Catherine Gibson, Research Fellow, School of Theology & Religious Studies, University of Tartu

Catherine Gibson is a historian of modern Eastern Europe and the Russian Empire. She is currently a Research Fellow in the School of Theology & Religious Studies at the University of Tartu. She received her PhD from the European University Institute in 2019. She is co-editor of The Palgrave Handbook of Slavic Languages, Borders, and Identities and her research has appeared in the journals Past & Present, Journal of Social History, Journal of History Geography, and Nationalities Papers.

CALL FOR PAPERS: International Congress “JURI LOTMAN’S SEMIOSPHERE”. 25–28 February 2022, Tallinn & Tartu, Estonia

2022 marks the centenary of the birth of Juri Lotman (28 February 1922), renowned Russian-Estonian semiotician, literary scholar and cultural historian. To celebrate this anniversary and commemorate his distinguished contribution to humanities and beyond, the University of Tartu, Tallinn University, Juri Lotman’s Semiotics Repository and the Estonian Association of Semiotics will be hosting an International Congress “Juri Lotman’s Semiosphere”.

The concept of semiosphere is one of the key outcomes of Lotman’s lifelong study of culture. It ties together the copious collection of topics and ideas that run across his works. The semiosphere is the hallmark of Lotman’s holistic and dynamic thinking, of the creative intellectual dialogue he had with scholars from various fields. For Lotman, the semiosphere as a space for meaning generation is the precondition for any act of communication:

(J. Lotman, “On the Semiosphere” [1984], transl .W. Clark. Sign Systems Studies, 33 (1), 2005: 218–9)Without the semiosphere, language not only does not function, it does not exist. The different substructures of the semiosphere are linked in their interaction and cannot function without the support of each other. This is the sense of semiosphere in the contemporary world, steadily expanding into space over the centuries, it has now taken on a global character, and includes within itself the call signs of satellites, the verse of poets and the cry of animals. The interdependence of these elements of the semiosphere is not metaphorical, but a reality.

The congress is dedicated to Juri Lotman’s semiosphere, his expanding universe of the mind, a space of inspiring and unexpected dialogues that is continuously explored and rediscovered in various areas of research.

The congress aims to celebrate the centenary of Lotman’s birth by bringing together scholars from diverse fields of studies related to the intellectual legacy of Lotman. We wish to discuss his rich work, pioneering ideas and the vitality of new scholarship surrounding them, to trace the trajectories and developments of his ideas and to promote a space for interdisciplinary encounters and new approaches, as well as for commemoration of Lotman as eminent scholar and great humanist.

The congress will take place on 25–26 February at Tallinn University and on 27–28 February at the University of Tartu, Estonia. The official languages of the congress are English and Russian.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:

Aleida Assmann (University of Konstanz, Germany)

Mieke Bal (Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis, Netherlands)

Sergey Nekludov (Russian State University for the Humanities)

Yuri Tsivian (The University of Chicago, USA)

Boris Uspenskij (National Research University Higher School of Economics, Russia)

PAPER PROPOSALS

We invite proposals for individual presentations (20 minutes + 10 minutes for discussion). You can submit your abstract here on the Congress website (the link for submissions will be opened on the 1st of March).

PANEL PROPOSALS

If you are interested in organizing a thematic panel involving 3 or 4 presentations, please submit on the Congress webpage a short description of the panel (ca 200 words) and the abstracts of each paper in the panel (ca 250 words each).

PLEASE INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION IN YOUR SUBMISSION:

Author’s name

Institutional affiliation and academic status

Email address

Title of submission and abstract in English or Russian

A maximum of six keywords

Short biography (max 100 words)

All proposals should be written in English or in Russian. Please specify whether you prefer to deliver your paper or hold your panel in Tallinn or in Tartu.

DEADLINES:

Submissions open: 1 March 2021

Deadline for submissions: 15 May 2021

Presenters will be informed of decision by 31 August 2021

Confirmation of attendance by 30 September 2021

Early Registration starts: 1 October 2021

Registration closes: 15 January 2022

URL: http://jurilotman.ee/call-for-papers/

Call for Papers: Early Modern Natural Law around the Baltic Sea: Teaching and Use. Tartu, Estonia. 02.09.2021 - 04.09.2021. Deadline 10.01.2021

The Network on Natural Law 1625–1850 in collaboration with the University of Tartu and the Research Centre for Early-Modern Natural Law invite papers for the international conference Early Modern Natural Law around the Baltic Sea: Teaching and Use (2-4 September 2021). The aim of the conference is to take a comparative look at the teaching and use of natural law around the Baltic Sea in the early modern period.

EARLY MODERN NATURAL LAW AROUND THE BALTIC SEA: TEACHING AND USE

The aim of the conference is to take a comparative look at the teaching and use of natural law around the Baltic Sea in the early modern period. The region was at that time dominated by two Protestant monarchies, Sweden and Denmark-Norway, which also exercised control over a number of territories on the eastern and southern coasts of the Sea. With its strong links to German and Dutch academic culture, the region stood at the forefront of the formation of natural law as an academic discipline: in Uppsala, natural law was taught on the basis of Grotius as early as in 1655, and Samuel Pufendorf published his most influential works as a professor at the University of Lund in the 1670s. In the Danish Knights’ Academy in Sorø Grotius and Selden were taught between the 1630s and 50s, Pufendorf, Thomasius et al. at the similar academy in Copenhagen and at the University from 1690 onwards. Ius naturae et gentium was also taught at the University of Kiel (Schleswig-Holstein, in union with Denmark) from its foundation in 1665, and it also proliferated in the Swedish provincial universities of Dorpat (Livonia), Åbo (Finland) and Greifswald (Pomerania). As in other European countries, the use of natural law in the region was not restricted to academic teaching and theoretical discussion but became also an intellectual resource for conceptualizing and legitimating political developments, and informing legal, political and social reforms.

Rather than focusing on close textual analysis of particular theoretical works, we invite papers that look at the uses of natural law in these academic and pragmatic contexts. In particular, we would welcome contributions that explore:

- Factors that influenced the introduction (or disappearance) of natural law as a dominant academic discipline, language or culture, and its position in relation to other traditions, in specific national or regional contexts

- The reception and adaptation of both well- and less-known natural law authors and works (Grotius, Pufendorf, Thomasius, Wolff, Rachel, Burlamaqui, etc.) in the academic environment, either at a particular university, or comparatively in a broader national or regional context

- The theoretical foci of natural law lectures, disputations, textbooks, etc., and their relationship with various pragmatic contexts of the period

- The practical and polemical use of natural law in the efforts of legitimation outside academia, both domestically and internationally (e.g., the questions of absolutism, political, social and religious reform and “improvement”, colonialism, serfdom, protection of individual rights, etc).

The papers will be selected with a view to the publication of a collective volume in the Brill series “Early Modern Natural Law: Studies & Sources”.

Please send the presentation proposals (up to 250 words) by 10 January 2021 to Pärtel Piirimäe (partel.piirimae@ut.ee). Authors will be notified of acceptance or non-acceptance by 10 February 2021.

The conference is organized by the Chair in Intellectual History, University of Tartu (Prof. Pärtel Piirimäe), in conjunction with the international research project “Natural Law 1625-1850” (Halle/Erfurt, directors Knud Haakonssen, Frank Grunert and Diethelm Klippel).

Silke Pasewalck and Matthias Weber (eds.) Bildungspraktiken der Aufklärung / Education practices of the Enlightenment. Thematic issue of Journal for the Culture and History of the Germans in Eastern Europe 1 (2020). (OPEN ACCESS)

  

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110671827 / URL:  https://www.degruyter.com/view/serial/JKGE-B

Inhalt

Silke Pasewalck/Matthias Weber

Einleitung 1

Marc Banditt

Die Dichotomie der Expansion: Der Aufstieg Russlands und Danzigs Rolle als ein Knotenpunkt der Gelehrsamkeit im 18. Jahrhundert - 9

Liisa-Helena Lumberg

The World on Your Pencil Tip: Baltic German Artists’ Travel Materials as Mediators of Knowledge in the Context of Travelling in the Enlightenment - 29

Julija Boguna

Nützt es dem Volke, übersetzt zu werden? Oder: Was Translation über die (livländische) Aufklärung verraten kann - 51

Agnieszka Pufelska

Die schwer erkämpfte Befreiung aus der Unmündigkeit Bildungswege von Frauen im 18. Jahrhundert - 73

Katarzyna Chlewicka

Schwieriger Kulturtransfer: Lorenz Christoph Mizler de Kolofs Bemühungen um die Etablierung gelehrter Zeitschriften in Polen am Beispiel der Warschauer Bibliothek (1753–55) - 93

Anna Mikołajewska

Presse als Medium des gelehrten Gedankenaustausches in der Frühaufklärung: Die Zeitschriftenprojekte des Georg Peter Schultz in Thorn - 113

Ivo Cerman

Die Erziehungskunst nach Karl Heinrich Seibt: Zur Pädagogik der Aufklärung in Prag - 135

Armin Langer

Educating the Jews to Become Germans: Naftali Herz Homberg’s ‘Civilizing Mission’ to the Jewish Community of Galicia - 157

Benedikt Stimmer

‚Zivilisierung‘ durch Sprache? Die Verbreitung des Deutschen im Rahmen der habsburgischen Schulpolitik in Galizien 1772–1790 - 179

Harald Heppner/Sabine Jesner

Aufklärung mittels ‚Aufklärung‘ Die Rolle des habsburgischen Militärs im Donau-Karpatenraum im 18. Jahrhundert - 197

János Ugrai

A Prehistory to the Success of Modernization: Differences between Denominations in the Shaping of Hungarian Public Education during the Enlightenment Period - 213

Call for Papers: Adolf von Harnack – Bridging the Gaps. University of Tartu, 17.05.2021 - 19.05.2021. Deadline 30.11.2020

 In 2021 it will be 170 years since the birth of Adolf von Harnack – a Baltic-German Lutheran theologian, a church historian, leading figure in German science management and a notable social figure of the 19th and the 20th century. After two large conferences in 1998 and 2001 devoted to Harnack, it is time to organise a third conference at the University of Tartu, a place, where Harnack was born and began his studies.

Adolf von Harnack – Bridging the Gaps

In 2021 it will be 170 years since the birth of Adolf von Harnack – a Baltic-German Lutheran theologian, a church historian, leading figure in German science management and a notable social figure of the 19th and the 20th century. Harnack was not only born in Dorpat (Tartu) and studied there, but he remained profoundly shaped by a certain type of Baltic-German Academia and Piety, even when he moved to Leipzig, Gießen, Marburg and Berlin in later years. After two large conferences in 1998 and 2001 devoted to Harnack and organized by the Max-Planck-Society and the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences (two institutions which predecessors, the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Society and the Prussian Academy of Sciences, were deeply influenced by Harnack), it is time to deal with certain overlooked aspects, to enrich the image of a man of many talents in the context of his different networks and to confront Harnack-Studies with new ideas about the History of Christianity and his very challenging lifetime, full of rapid social and religious change in Russia and Germany, since the appearance of new scholarly work at the turn of the millennium.

The conference is titled “Adolf von Harnack – bridging the gaps”, because Harnack was not only a scholar of ancient Christianity, esteemed by Theologians as well as Ancient Historians, but made significant contributions to contemporary discussions on the “essence of Christianity” and on the understanding of History. He was part of a discussion on the institutional framework of Theology and Religious Studies in Germany, but also involved in the Institution-Building of Institutes for Sciences, Libraries and Social Work. As a public intellectual of the German Empire before 1918 and the first German republic after 1918 he contributed significantly to a large number of public debates. He also bridged the gaps between scientific cultures in Europe, Britain and the United States. What made him able to bridge so many gaps between Science and Humanities, Theology and other Humanities, University and broader public understanding of science? And what was the reason, that he could not bridge certain gaps, e.g. between University and Church, between German Protestantism and Russian Orthodoxy? The conference will be organized by the School of Theology and Religious Studies of Tartu University, because the Baltic-German background is crucial to understand Harnack and to answer such questions.

Can one use Harnack’s views to bridge those and other gaps also in the 21st century? Christianity as a source for practical religious life and personal freedom has not lost its meaning in the 21st century too, but the situation of Theology and Religion in the Baltic States, Germany and in the rest of Europe is quite different from Harnack’s times. The conference will focus on these and related questions, and calls to reflect upon Harnack’s role and influence on the debates of his own time and his relevance for the presence.

We welcome scholarly presentations Harnack’s life and the Baltic background, his successful and/or failed attempts to bridge the gaps between History and Theology, Theology and Religious Studies, Sciences and Humanities, University and public understanding of science, Academia and Weimar Republic and on his participation in debates on social cohesion and national German politics, as well as on his influence on theological discussions outside Germany.

Keynote speakers:

- Friedrich Wilhelm Graf (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich)
- Christoph Markschies (Humboldt University of Berlin)
- Jonathan Teubner (Australian Catholic University, Humboldt University of Berlin)

Kontakt

Priit Rohtmets
priit.rohtmets@ut.ee

Сурен Золян, Юрий Лотман: о смысле, тексте, истории. Темы и вариации, М.: Издательский Дом ЯСК, 2020

Лотмановское наследие может дать импульс принципиально новым трансдисциплинарным направлениям исследований. Совмещение ипостасей историка русской культуры и семиотика-теоретика позволило Ю. М. Лотману наметить новые подходы к культуре и истории, естественным приращением к которым будет также и предлагаемый лингвосемиотический ракурс рассмотрения. В книге дан анализ ряда ключевых идей Лотмана, рассматривается их возможное развитие в новом контексте. Гераклитовский образ «Самовозрастающего Логоса» рассматривается как основа научной концепции Ю. М. Лотмана, описанные им механизмы создания и умножения смыслов применены к его же собственной концепции. Динамический подход к сотворению текста, осмысление и переосмысление истории, взаимодействие и взаимоперетекание текста и поведения — лейтмотивы книги.

В первой части, «Темы», систематизированы взгляды Ю. М. Лотмана на природу текста как динамическое единство создаваемых и транслируемых смыслов в процессе коммуникации автора и читателя. Действия и события описываются как обладающие социальным смыслом знаки, тексты и коммуникативные акты. Перетекание текстов в жизнь и историю становится определяющим для инновативных подходов Ю. М. Лотмана к истории и социальной семиотике. Благодаря этому объясняются механизмы переосмысления истории применительно к новым контекстам. Второй раздел, «Вариации», составляют образцы приложения идей Ю. М. Лотмана к описанию текстов и смыслов. Собранные воедино, предлагаемые «темы и вариации» создают кумулятивный и синергетический эффект — показывая возможность «новой жизни» лотмановских идей и приглашая к диалогу относительно их дальнейшего развития. В Приложении помещены очерк «Ю. М. Лотман и Армения» и статья Михаила Лотмана о концепции текста в Московско-тартуской школе. Сурен Золян, доктор филологических наук, главный научный сотрудник Института гуманитарных наук, главный научный редактор журнала БФУ им. И. Канта «Слово.ру: балтийский акцент»

Предпросмотр: http://www.lrc-press.ru/pics/previews/ru/(1244)Zolyan-2020-fragment.pdf

URL: http://www.lrc-press.ru/index.php?b=1244