Monday, November 30, 2009

The Ottoman Past in the Balkan Present: Music and Mediation

Finnish Institute at Athens & Department of Turkish and Modern Asian Studies, University of Athens will organize a conference in Athens, from 30 September to 2 October 2010.

Through the ages, the Balkans has experienced various political, cultural and social phases. The peninsula has been conceptualised in a number of different, often competing and contrasted, ways (Byzantine, Ottoman, Balkan, the East, Eastern Europe) in academic and other discourses. However, in one way or another, the long period of Ottoman rule constitutes an integral aspect of all those perceptions.

In the aforementioned processes, music has often played a central role, either in a direct or an indirect way: music and its representations mediate national ideologies and various viewpoints, such as Orientalism, Balkanism and Occidentalism, which have a particular relationship with history in the
Balkans. Simultaneously, music is mediated through space and time, through various means of documentation and transmission (orality, visual arts, photographs, written text, scores and recordings).

Against this background and in the light of the current political expansion of the EU in the Balkan area, the exploration of issues related to cultural identity and relations to the Ottoman past gains more prominence and requires a critical, interdisciplinary dialogue. In particular, the changes that the EU expansion will bring about to the existing structures of Balkan societies, cultures and cultural policies from a musical point of view remain to be addressed.

This conference welcomes innovative interdisciplinary (e.g. ethnomusicology, history, anthropology, cultural studies) papers addressing the following topics:

- How are Orientalism, Balkanism and Occidentalism expressed and constituted through music and its representations in the Balkans
- Nationalism mediated through music and *vice versa*
- Music, propaganda and the media: radio, television, the press and the Internet
- Beyond music: analysing Balkan soundscapes as products of the past

Abstracts (max 300 words) of papers and poster presentations should be submitted by February 15, 2010 to the following email address:

The languages of the conference are English and Greek. Please specify possible AV needs. All abstracts will be reviewed and authors will be notified about the results by April 14, 2010.

*Keynote Speakers*

Prof. Derek B. Scott, University of Leeds
Title: *Imagining the Balkans, Imagining Europe*

Prof. Cem Behar, Bogazici University
Title: TBA

* *

*Conference Committee *

Dr. Martti Leiwo, *Director of the Finnish Institute at Athens *

Prof. Athanasios Markopoulos, *Head of the Department of Turkish and Modern
Asian Studies, University of Athens *

Prof. Vesa Kurkela, *Sibelius Academy & University of Tampere *

Dr. Risto Pekka Pennanen, *Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies*

Prof. Aimilia Themopoulou, *Department of Turkish and Modern Asian Studies*,
*University of Athens*

Dr. Panagiotis Poulos, *Department of Turkish and Modern Asian
Studies*, *University of Athens*

Dr. Aspasia Theodosiou, *Department of Popular and Traditional Music, TEI of
Epirus & Department of Social Anthropology, University of Manchester*

The Finnish Institute at Athens, http://www.finninstitute.gr/

Department of Turkish and Modern Asian Studies, University of Athens,
http://www.turkmas.uoa.gr/


For further information, please visit the conference website:
http://www.turkmas.uoa.gr/conf2010=

Monday, November 23, 2009

More Research Funding

NCEEER was created in 1978 to develop and sustain long-term, high-quality programs for post-doctoral research on the social, political, economic, environmental, and historical development of Eurasia and Central and Eastern Europe. From broad, cross-cultural analyses to more focused studies of particular problems, NCEEER supports research projects that facilitate a mutually beneficial exchange of information between scholars and policy-makers and contribute to a better understanding of current developments and future prospects in the post-communist countries of Europe and Eurasia.

Eligible Southeast European/Balkan countries:
  • Albania
  • Bosnia-Herzegovina
  • Bulgaria
  • Croatia
  • Kosovo
  • Macedonia
  • Moldova
  • Montenegro
  • Romania
  • Serbia
  • Slovenia
For more information, go to: http://nceeer.org/Programs/programs.php

Friday, November 20, 2009

Title VIII-sponsored East European Language, Conference and Travel Grants

The American Council of Learned Societies has revised the guidelines and application instructions for our Title VIII-sponsored East European Language, Conference and Travel Grants.

Deadlines are as follows:

Language Grants to Individuals for Summer Study—January 15, 2010
Language Grants to Institutions for Summer Courses—January 15, 2010
Heritage Speakers Research Grant—January 15, 2010
Conference Grants—January 29, 2010
Travel Grants—January 29, 2010

For further information please visit http://www.acls.org/programs/eesp


Support is available for language study and research related to the following Southeast European Countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo/a, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Southeast European Studies in the European Reference Index for the Humanities (ERIH)

In an attempt to identify and compare Humanities excellence at a supra-national European level, the European Science Foundation launched in 2001 its ERIH initiative. At present it is a reference index of the top journals in 15 areas of the Humanities, across the continent and beyond. Eventually ERIH will be extended to include book-form publications and non-traditional formats. Journals included in the lists are assigned to one of the three categories: A (high-ranking international publications with a very strong reputation among researchers of the field in different countries, regularly cited all over the world), B (standard international publications with a good reputation among researchers of the field in different countries) and C (research journals with an important local / regional significance in Europe, occasionally cited outside the publishing country though their main target group is the domestic academic community). The criteria used are listed at the European Science Foundation website. The initial lists that have been compiled so far are also available at the website.

Southeast European area studies were represented by specialized journals Ethnologia Balkanica. Journal of Southeast European Anthropology (B), Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans (B), Zeitschrift für Balkanologie (B), Balkanistika (Bulgaria)(C) and Balkansko ezikoznanie (Linguistique Balkanique) (C). Other periodicals of interest for scholars working in Southeast European studies, included in ERIH, are Slavic and East European Journal (A), Anthropology of East Europe Review (B) and Slavonic and East European Review (B). The majority of publications dealing with parts of the Southeast European area were assigned category (C). The exception - mysteriously - are hellenic studies which usually got category (B) and exceptionally also (A), for instance Journal of Hellenic Studies (A) and Ta Istorika (A). Not all journals of interest to scholars in Southeast European studies are included in ERIH.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

First Bulgarian Online School "По жицата"

Established in 2005 as a joint initiative of the Bulgarian Business Center and New Internet Technologies, this school offers online classes in Bulgarian language, history, and literature to young heritage speakers of Bulgarian. In 2006 the school also started teaching Bulgarian as a second language. Bulgarian National Television presented the school "По жицата" to its audience on 1 November 2009. You can see the clip here. To learn more about the school's founders Valentin Nenkov and Nadežda Dimitrova and the school's teaching team go to http://bulgarian-online-school.com/bg-about-us. The school's name literally means By the Wire and is an allusion to the title of a famous short story by Bulgarian author Jordan Jovkov (1880-1937).

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Институт за съвременни дигитални архиви (ИСДА)

A great new resourse for those interested in the last twenty years of Bulgarian history: the Institute for Contemporary Digital Archives, an independent non-profit foundation, was established in 2008 by the historian Martin Ivanov (Institute for History of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences/Sofia University), the sociologist Venelin Stojchev (Sofia University) and the communications scholar Orlin Spasov (Sofia University). The institute aims to identify, digitalize and place in the public domain important organizational and private documents. The three current projects of the institute are: A Citizens' Transition Archive (1989-2009), Interviews with Key Figures in Bulgarian post-1989 Civil Society and Interviews with Key Figures of the Bulgarian post-1989 Liberal Political Formations.

Friday, November 6, 2009

Southeast European Studies on Web of Science

WEB OF SCIENCE is a database that includes a full range of disciplines and covers over 10,000 of the highest impact journals worldwide and over 110,000 conference proceedings and provides a citation index. It is the product of Thomson Reuters, "the world’s leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals". An overview of its sources showed that the social sciences dealing with Southeast European topics were much better represented than the humanities or linguistics. The relevant periodicals can be divided into three groups:

Periodicals explicitly targetting the Southeast European area:

SOUTHEAST EUROPEAN AND BLACK SEA STUDIES
JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN EUROPE AND THE BALKANS
JOURNAL OF BALKAN AND NEAR EASTERN STUDIES
BALKAN STUDIES
SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE
BYZANTINOSLAVICA

Periodicals targetting Eastern Europe of which the Southeast can be seen as a part

SLAVIC AND EAST EUROPEAN JOURNAL
SLAVONIC AND EAST EUROPEAN REVIEW
EAST EUROPEAN POLITICS AND SOCIETIES
OSTEUROPA
OSTERREICHISCHE OSTHEFTE
JAHRBUCHER FUR GESCHICHTE OSTEUROPAS
EAST EUROPEAN QUARTERLY
EASTERN EUROPEAN ECONOMICS

Periodicals specializing in parts of the Southeast European area

BULGARIAN HISTORICAL REVIEW-REVUE BULGARE D HISTOIRE
ANNALES-ANALI ZA ISTRSKE IN MEDITERANSKE STUDIJE-SERIES HISTORIA ET SOCIOLOGIA
BYZANTINE AND MODERN GREEK STUDIES
JOURNAL OF MODERN GREEK STUDIES
REVUE ROUMAINE D HISTOIRE
ROMANIAN REVIEW
ZIVA ANTIKA

Many more important journals will have to be included into this database before we could deem its coverage satisfactory.