Call for papers: XI World Congress (International Council for Central and East European Studies)

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International Council for Central and East European Studies (ICCEES) (British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies / UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies), WC1H 0AL London (United Kingdom), 21-25 July 2025, Deadline: 31.10.2024. URL: https://www.iccees2025.org/ .

‘Disruption’

The International Council for Central and East European Studies (ICCEES) is proud to announce that its upcoming XI World Congress will be hosted by University College London around the theme of “disruption”. The regions covered by ICCEES are currently navigating a period of profound change and rupture, particularly in the aftermath of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Recent events have shown the need to disrupt conventional approaches to thinking about, studying, and researching these regions – their histories, cultures, languages, politics, economics, infrastructures, and societies.  Place-specific knowledge is as vital as ever in understanding how local and regional processes interact with transregional and global dynamics. At the same time, the need to reassess our methodologies, assumptions, and perspectives has never been more urgent. It is against this backdrop of transformation that we invite scholars, researchers, and practitioners to engage in conversations that push the boundaries of conventional understandings of past events and contemporary developments.

Hosted by University College London (UCL), an institution synonymous with disruptive thinking since its establishment in 1826, and the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES), whose mission is to promote multidisciplinary, critical area studies, the ICCEES 2025 World Congress will provide an ideal setting for a conference centring on the idea of disruption. SSEES is the UK's largest institution for research and teaching on Central, Eastern, and South-East Europe, the Baltics, Russia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. The School is home to one of the world’s largest concentrations of academic staff devoted to the study of this broad cluster of regions, with some 80 academics engaging in teaching and research in the fields of politics, sociology, economics, business, history, languages, literature, and culture, all underpinned by a commitment to language-based, critical area studies.

ICCEES welcomes paper, panel, and roundtable proposals with an area-specific focus as well as positioned within disciplinary and interdisciplinary frameworks. These disciplines and areas include, but are not limited to: Politics; History; Sociology; Geography; Film and Media; Languages and Linguistics; Literatures and Cultures; Anthropology; Economics; Baltic Studies; Black Sea Studies; Caucasus Studies; Central Asian Studies; Central and East European Studies; Habsburg Studies; Polish Studies; Russian Studies; Siberian Studies; South-East European Studies; Ukrainian Studies. We particularly encourage proposals that help push forward efforts to decentre and decolonise the study of the region.

The conference especially welcomes the participation of postgraduate research students and early career scholars.

The conference organisers also look forward to proposals for thematic colloquiums that can be held as part of the conference. If you would like to propose a colloquium, please email the conference organisers at academic.organisers@basees.org

Remote attendance:

We are welcoming remote paper presentations. If you wish to attend remotely, please indicate so when submitting your proposal. However, we cannot accept fully remote panels. The Chair of a panel, who can also be one of the presenters, must attend the conference in-person to lead the session and facilitate the discussion. We are operating a limited hybrid model. Delegates registering for remote attendance will be able to present their paper via Zoom and listen into all paper/panels. Full hybrid, i.e. using special 360° camera, mic and speaker equipment, will only be available in a small number of rooms.

The submission platform will open on June 1, 2024. The deadline for submissions is October 31, 2024. Information regarding registration fees and available travel grants/scholarships will be published in June 2024.

Venue:

UCL Institute of Education

20 Bedford Way,

London WC1H 0AL

Pavlíček Tomáš, W., Hyklová Petra, Šolc Martin: Astronomers behind the Iron Curtain. Open access

 Pavlíček Tomáš, W., Hyklová Petra, Šolc Martin: Astronomers behind the Iron Curtain: The First Postwar Generation in Czechoslovakia. Prague: Matfyzpress 2024. ISBN: 978-80-7378-507-9

Open access: https://matfyzpress.cz/data/web/astronomers-behind-iron-curtain2.pdf

The inauguration of the two-metre telescope at Ondřejov observatory and the 13th General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union in Prague in 1967 was an important turning point in astronomy. After the discovery of quasars, new methods of observation were discussed, and the Space Race between two Cold War rivals was culminating. Luboš Perek, father of the mirror reflector and mastermind of the congress, became a leader of the generation of scholars and the Director of the Astronomical Institute of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences.

The formation of the generation was specific with regard to the war experience. This book shows how students of astronomy became experts and brought their knowledge into society using public observatories as places for the promotion of modern science.

call for papers: Russia’s Politics of Truth and its quest for alliances in the Global South. Erfurt

call for papers: Russia’s Politics of Truth and its quest for alliances in the Global South. Erfurt, 24.10.2024 - 25.10.2024, Deadline 01.04.2024.

Since 2014, we have been able to observe Russia portraying itself increasingly not just as the only remaining power of the morally good and historically true. In relation to countries of the Global South, Russia has also especially presented itself as an anti-colonial protecting power. This framing is anchored within two broader narratives:

First, under the slogan of “historical truth”, Putin is pushing a specific historical policy, the central reference point of which is the victory of the Soviet Union over Nazi Germany in the so-called Great Patriotic War. This newly structured and enhanced past is turned into an ever-present prism – through iterative references by the state media, but especially events that allow a large portion of the population to directly participate in the commemoration of this past – by which the present can also be seen and interpreted (McGlynn 2023). At high-profile media events such as the Russia-Africa Summit, the Soviet Union's support of anti-colonial liberation movements has increasingly become part of these historical memory and updating practices, through which the claim of being on the "right side of history" is made.

Second, another anchor point lies in so-called “traditional values”, which primarily conceal an ultra-conservative gender policy that is characterized by homophobia, anti-feminism and anti-queer sentiments. Depictions of Gender Order can function as ‘symbolic border guards’ that allow essentialization and demarcation between communities (Riabova/Riabov 2014). Against this backdrop, comparative perspectives can be fruitful for our analysis: For the Polish case it has already been analyzed how the ultra-conservative gender policy agenda has appropriated an anti-colonial framing, with “gender” being depicted as “Ebola from Brussels” (Korolczuk/Graff 2018). The “traditional family” in this context becomes a signifier for self-determined, autochthonous, or even indigenous ways of life. This agenda is also being pushed and exported through the Russian Orthodox Church, not only within Russia but on a global scale, for example on the African continent.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has sparked intensive discussion within the discipline of East European Studies about decolonizing the subject. In this context, the basic epistemological assumptions of the discipline have been called into question. In relation to present-day Russia, the concept of a Foucauldian regime of truth was suggested to examine the connections between institutional conditions and social systems of norms and values (see Vulpius 2021). This could not only help to analyze the consent to war in parts of Russian society, but also in parts of the Global South.

The aim of the workshop is to analyze these Russian Politics of Truth (Kleeberg/Suter 2014) with a special focus on interconnections with the Global South. With the help of which terms and concepts, but also media and political techniques, is the Putin regime working to restructure the Russian and global past and present? How are new alliances and imagined communities created, especially with countries of the Global South? As an analytical lens we propose methodological approaches such as political epistemology and praxeology.

Contributions may address, but are not limited to:

- Focal points of a shared history / experience between Russian society and societies of the Global South

- Russian media networks and structures in the Global South

- Formations of “historical truth” in Russian society or comparable cases in the Global South

- Moral economies of Good and Evil in relation to the Russian Politics addressing the Global South

- Policies of “traditional values” and gender politics in Russia and / or Global South contexts

- Religious Policies, the role of the Orthodox church especially on the African continent

- Analyses of specific key figures (like Dugin, Medinskiy, …)

- Analyses of specific key scenes of formation/performance of these truth politics (like the Bessmertnyi polk, Immortal Regiment)

- Alliances of the global far right concerning politics of history and gender

- Interconnections between politics, NGOs, thinktanks, and activism

- Differing visions of multipolarity in the Global South

- Adaptations of postcolonial theory

- Theoretical impulses from political epistemology and praxeology

For a 20-minute presentation in English, we kindly invite you to submit your abstract (circa 300-400 words) as well as a short CV (or a link to your profile website) via email forschungsstelle.wahrheit@uni-erfurt.de by April 1st, 2024. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by end of April.

The conference will take place 24th to 25th October 2024 at the University of Erfurt in an in-person format. However, in an effort to ensure a wider debate, we will allow virtual participation for the small number of speakers who may have difficulties attending in person. No fee is required in order to attend. We will try to cover the travel and accommodation costs for all speakers. The publication of the conference proceedings will be considered.

Literature:

McGlynn, Jade: Memory Makers. The Politics of the Past in Putin’s Russia, Bloomsbury 2023.

Riabova, Tatiana; Riabov, Oleg: The Decline of Gayropa? How Russia intends to Save the World, in: Eurozine, 05.02.2014, https://www.eurozine.com/the-decline-of-gayropa/

Edenborg, Emil: Anti-Gender Politics as Discourse Coalitions: Russia’s Domestic and International. Promotion of “Traditional Values”, in: Problems of Post-Communism 70/2 (2023), p. 175-184.

Korolczuk, Elżbieta; Graff, Agnieszka: Gender as “Ebola from Brussels”: The Anticolonial Frame and the Rise of Illiberal Populism. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 43/4 (2018), p. 797–821.

Vulpius, Ricarda: Sollte der Krieg Russlands gegen die Ukraine die Epistemologie der Osteuropäischen Geschichte verändern und wenn ja, wie?, [Should Russia's war against Ukraine change the epistemology of Eastern European history and if so, how?], in: Jahrbücher für Osteuropäische Geschicht 69/4 (2021), p. 588-592.

Kleeberg, Bernhard; Suter, Robert: »Doing truth« Bausteine einer Praxeologie der Wahrheit [Doing Truth. Components of a Praxeology of Truth], in: Zeitschrift für Kulturphilosophie 2 (2014), p. 211-226.

Вопросы истории естествознания и техники//Voprosy Istorii Estestvoznaniia i Tekhniki 2023

 All issues 2023 of the journal Вопросы истории естествознания и техники//Voprosy Istorii Estestvoznaniia i Tekhniki are online [all articles in Russian with English abstracts]

Issue 1: https://vietmag.org/issue.2023.1.1/ .

Issue 2: https://vietmag.org/issue.2023.2.2/ .

Issue 3: https://vietmag.org/issue.2023.3.3/ .

Issue 4: https://vietmag.org/issue.2023.4.4/ .

Социология науки и технологий / Sociology of Science and Technology

Социология науки и технологий / Sociology of Science and Technology, Том 14, №3, 4, 2023 are online (open access)

№ 3: http://sst.nw.ru/Files/2023/2023_3_%20SNIT.pdf .

№ 4: https://sst.nw.ru/Files/2023/2023_4_%20SNIT.pdf .

online event: Natalia Judzińska (Polish Academy of Sciences), To the left of the lecture theatre. The ghetto benches at Polish universities in the interwar period,

 online event: Natalia Judzińska (Polish Academy of Sciences), To the left of the lecture theatre. The ghetto benches at Polish universities in the interwar period, Tuesday, March 26, 17:00 CET, zoom

The aim of this presentation is to outline the ethno-religious spatial segregation system in Polish universities between the First and Second World Wars. The presentation will focus on the institutional aspect of the introduced regulations, and the Stefan Batory University in Vilnius has been chosen as the case study. The events presented will be set in a socio-cultural context.

Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82961863362 .

Event by Modern Jewish History Seminar, Prague and Ústav pro soudobé dějiny AV ČR, v.v.i.

Hybrid event: March 22, 17:00 CET. The Urban Landscape of Knowledge in the Cold War Soviet Union

 Hybrid event: March 22, 17:00 CET. The Urban Landscape of Knowledge in the Cold War Soviet Union, by Alexey Golubev (University of Houston)

https://a.bikbov.ru/2024/02/zoom-seminar-late-soviet-revisited/ .