The Balkan Language Initiative

American Councils for International Education announces its Summer 2014, Fall 2014, and Academic Year 2014-15 language study programs in the Balkans. The Balkan Language Initiative Program features language and cultural immersion in:
- Tirana, Albania
- Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Skopje, Macedonia
- Belgrade, Serbia

Applications and complete program information are available at:
 http://www.acBalkansAbroad.org

THE PROGRAM
The Balkan Language Initiative provides participants with intensive individualized instruction in the languages of the Balkans. Courses are designed to strengthen speaking, listening, reading, and writing proficiency in the language of study. Classes are conducted in small groups or private tutorials by native speakers with extensive experience teaching foreign students. In addition to classroom learning, American Councils emphasizes language immersion outside of the academic program through: volunteer opportunities, cultural excursions, extracurricular activities, and life with host families. U.S. undergraduate or graduate credit is provided through Bryn Mawr College.

LANGUAGES OFFERED
- Albanian
- Bosnian
- Macedonian
- Serbian

FINANCIAL AID

American Councils has several scholarship funds for overseas study. Information on these scholarships and many other funding possibilities are available online:
 http://acstudyabroad.org/financialaid/

APPLYING
Applications, additional program information, and eligibility requirements are available at http://www.acBalkansAbroad.org

Applications for the summer 2014 programs are due by February 15, 2014.

Applications for the fall 2014 and academic year 2014-15 programs are due by March 15, 2014.

Must be 18 to apply.

QUESTIONS?
Email: outbound@americancouncils.org

 CONTACT
American Councils for International Education
Attn: Outbound Programs
1828 L Street, N.W. Suite 1200
Washington, D.C. 20036
Web: www.acStudyAbroad.org
Phone: 202.833.7522

CALL FOR PAPERS: STATE VS INDIVIDUAL MORALITY IN POST-SOCIALISM

Deadline 10 February 2014

About STSS (www.tlu.ee/stss)

STSS is fast-growing open-access interdisciplinary journal for the study of transition societies. Created in 2009, it has been indexed by SCOPUS in 2012 and we are currently in Q3 (3rd quartile), ranking 320 out of 552 journals included in sociology and political science. Given that we are an independent journal created only four years ago we believe this is already a good result and we are confident we can improve our ranking quickly in the next few years. Please check our articles if you want to be convinced of our potential. Our primary focus is post-socialist countries of Eastern Europe and the former USSR, although we are open to contributions focusing on any other world region.

We are a bi-annual publication of the Institute of Political Science and Governance and the Institute of International and Social Studies of Tallinn University and it is indexed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), EBSCO, ProQuest, and the International Political Science Abstracts (IPSA). All our articles are available for free through the Central European Online Library and our website www.tlu.ee/stss that you are welcome to visit if you want to learn more about us. In addition to the targeted call given below, we welcome articles all year round.

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We are looking for 1-2 more papers on the topic: STATE VS INDIVIDUAL MORALITY IN POST-SOCIALISM.

Over the past decade we have witnessed a tendency to critically look at the way state morality, laws and rules are constructed. Following the appearance of Gibson-Graham's seminal work (1996), the term diverse economies has come to populate a growing number of scholarly works across a wide range of disciplines. As part of this scholarship alternative narratives to capitalism have been explored and neoliberalism has been criticised. Based on the Bourdieaun remark that individual and state moralities do not necessarily overlap, a number of empirical works (Polese 2008; Rasanayagam 2011; Wanner 2005) have shown the limits of the corrupt-non-corrupt distinction. This, in turn, has highlighted the potential conflict between what is legal (with a definition of legality provided by the state) and what is socially acceptable by the citizens
themselves (van Schendel & Abrahams 2005). This has led to the understanding that what a society, or a group of individuals, is ready to accept and justify is not necessarily what the state official narrative (based on laws and rules) would accept.

We welcome empirically-rich accounts, constructed on recent and/or ongoing research, that broadly deal with the topic suggested above.

The deadline for the 2014 Spring issue is 10 February 2014. However, potential contributors are welcome to contact us at an early stage to discuss an idea you might want to develop or have developed. Please visit the webpage www.tlu.ee/stss for further information on submission guidelines or contact stss@tlu.ee (also if you would like to discuss a proposal).


Suggested preliminary literature

Gibson-Graham, J.K. (1996). The End Of Capitalism (As We Knew It): A Feminist Critique of Political Economy. Oxford UK and Cambridge USA: Blackwell Publishers.

Polese, A. (2008). "If I Receive it, it is a Gift; if I Demand it, then it is a Bribe" on the Local Meaning of Economic Transactions in Post-soviet Ukraine. Anthropology in Action, 15(3), 47-60.

Rasanayagam, J. (2011). Informal Economy in an Informal State in Surviving Post-Socialism. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy,15(11/12), 681-696.

van Schendel, W. & I. Abraham (Eds.) (2005). Illicit Flows and Criminal Things: States, Borders, and the Other Side of Globalization. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Wanner, C. (2005). Money, Morality and New Forms of Exchange in Postsocialist Ukraine. Ethnos 70(4), 515-537.

ARCS RESIDENTIAL FELLOWSHIP FOR SOUTHEAST EUROPEAN SCHOLARS

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: "Fellowship for Southeast European Scholars" The American Research Center in Sofia seeks PhD candidates for a research fellowship position focusing on the Balkans and Southeast Europe, Sofia, Bulgaria; Academic Year 2014-2015 (Application Deadline: October 15, 2013) 
CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: "Fellowship for Southeast European Scholars"


THE PROGRAM: The American Research Center in Sofia invites applications for its new "Residential Fellowship for Southeast European Scholars". The Fellowship is available to PhD candidates and young postdoctoral scholars whose research specialties are in archaeology, history, art/architectural history, cultural anthropology/ethnography, museum studies, or cultural heritage management with a geographic focus on the Balkans (prehistory to present day).


The Fellowship gives 24/7 access to the ARCS Library, access to ARCS resources and expertise, and involves participation in the ARCS Lecture Series and academic excursions. This Fellowship is for a period of three months,February 1 - April 30, 2014, and includes accommodation in Sofia, a monthly stipend of $350, travel expenses related to our academic excursions; Fellows will be reimbursed up to $150 for their round-trip travel from their place of residence to Sofia.


ELIGIBILITY: Applicants must be citizens of one of the seven countries of southeastern Europe served by ARCS: Bulgaria, Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, Republic of Macedonia, Romania and Serbia. Pre-doctoral applicants must be enrolled in a PhD program in SE Europe. Postdoctoral applicants will have completed their degree in the last 8 years (2005 or later) and should hold a position or be independent researchers in SE Europe. English proficiency is required.


APPLICATION PROCEDURE: Please complete the application form, renaming it to include your surname, and send it electronically as a WORD file or PDF. Two letters from scholars in the field commenting on the value and feasibility of the project should be sent separately. All application materials must be in English and emailed to Professor Eric De Sena (sofiadirector@arcsofia.org). The application deadline for this competition is October 15, 2013.


Please direct any question about the fellowship program to Professor De Sena.


For details, see: http://www.arcsofia.org/node/342

University of Bologna - PECOB - Latest Newsletter

Check out new information on PECOB - May 28, 2013

19th Conference on Balkan and South Slavic Linguistics, Literature and Folklore

The 19th Biennial Conference on Balkan and South Slavic Linguistics, Literature and Folklore will take place at The University of Chicago in Chicago, IL, USA, April 25-27, 2014.

Abstract Submission Deadline: Friday, November 15, 2013

Acceptance Notification Date:15 January 2014

The conference organizers are now accepting proposals for papers that treat some aspect of Balkan and/or South Slavic linguistics, literature, or folklore, including culture. Abstracts should be maximum one page, including examples and bibliography, 12-point font, at least 1" margins, and should not contain name(s) or affiliations(s) of the author(s).

Abstracts should be submitted as an email attachment in PDF format to Meredith Clason. The paper title, author name(s), affiliation(s), and contact information should be given in the body of the email. The abstract itself should have only the title.

Questions about the conference may be directed to Meredith Clason.

Save the dates!

The 19th Biennial Conference on Balkan and South Slavic Linguistics, Literature and Folklore will take place at The University of Chicago from April 25-27, 2014.

More information will be available soon.

Questions may be directed to Meredith Clason, Associate Director, Center for East European and Russian/Eurasian Studies (CEERES) mclason [at] chicago.edu

suvremene TEME / CONTEMPORARY issues

Suvremene teme / Contemporary Issues is a peer-reviewed online journal of the Political Science Research Centre (Zagreb), with a focus on Southeastern Europe. It publishes research in Croatian and English in the areas of political science, sociology, contemporary history, philosophy, law and economics.

Alia Vox

Moscow, Twelfth Balkan Readings

The twelfth Балканские чтения [Balkan Readings] conference, which took place in Moscow on 26-27 March 2013, had as its unifying theme the Balkan picture of the world from the perspective of the five human senses. Twenty-eight papers were presented, reporting on interdisciplinary studies in the areas of religion, mythology, magic, ritual, literature, folk poetry, folk music, drama, artistic performance, cuisine etc with a focus on sensory perception, cognition and language. A number of papers discussed linguistic evidence in support of the underlying unity of the five senses (synaesthesia). Papers differed in perspective: some were theoretically inclined or took a broad comparative perspective (S. M. Tolstaia, N. N. Kazanskii,  T. A. Mikhailova, U. Dukova & P. Assenova, T. V. Tsiv’ian, D. Burkhart), others had elements of comparison (D. S. Ermolin, A. A. Novik, I. A. Sedakova, M. M. Makartsev) or dealt with aspects of a specific tradition - Ancient Greek (M. Evzlin, T. F. Teperik, L. I. Akimova, Ia. L. Zabudskaia), Modern Greek (O. V. Chekha, F. A. Eloeva, A. A. Novokhatko, K. A. Klimova,  A. V. Tunin & V. A. Panov), Latin (A. V. Grosheva), Romanian (A. A. Romanova, I. Stahl, N. G. Golant), Albanian (A.V. Zhugra, M. V. Domosiletskaia), Bulgarian (G. V. Grigorov), Serbian (N. V. Zlydneva) and Slovene (M. Mencej).

The conference proceedings have appeared in: Макарцев, М. М., И. А. Седакова, Т. В. Цивьян (eds.) Балканская картина мира sub specie пяти человеческих чувств. Москва: Институт славяноведения РАН, Центр лингвокультурных исследований «Balcanica», Университет Дмитрия Пожарского, 2013, 184 с. (Балканские чтения 12. Тезисы и материалы) ISBN 978-5-7576-0270-7.

CALL FOR PAPERS: "Dropping out of Socialism: Alternative Cultures in the Soviet Bloc"

The Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) are calling for proposals for articles relating to subcultures, drop-outs and the underground in late socialist societies. Any group and any time period between 1956 and 1991 will be considered, University of Bristol, UK; Workshop TBA Spring 2014 (Abstract Deadline: June 1, 2013)

Much emphasis has been placed in recent years on questions of conformity and everyday ordinariness in socialist societies. This project aims to look at increasingly forgotten elements in these societies: those who did not conform did not live the ordinary life, yet were also part of the late socialist every day.

Ranging from teddy boys, hippies and punks to non-conformist artists, Buddhists, yoga teachers or lesbian and gay communities, the list of 'drop-outs' is long and varied, yet in danger of being buried by histories that left better documentation and more archival traces. We intend to write these individuals and groups into the newly emerging history of late socialism and examine both their internal functioning as well as their complex relationship with mainstream society and socialist authorities. Was it possible to drop out from socialist society? How far could one distance oneself from the realities of late socialist life? What does the existence of alternative cultures and their daily practices say about the last three decades of socialism in Europe? Did they hasten its decline - or were they indeed a factor in its longevity?

We are calling for proposals for articles relating to subcultures, drop-outs and the underground in late socialist societies. Any group and any time period between 1956 and 1991 will be considered.

The workshop and subsequent publication of articles in a special journal issue is part of the AHRC sponsored project 'Dropping out of Socialism', which examines a variety of drop-out cultures in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. We are planning to hold a workshop in Bristol, UK in the spring of 2014, when authors present their articles for discussion. A final manuscript will be expected by the summer of 2014.

Please send a short proposal (max 500 words) and a CV to:

josie.mclellan@bristol.ac.uk by 1 June 2013.

For further questions please contact: 

juliane.furst@bristol.ac.uk

2013 Summer School in Comparative Conflict Studies

Call for Applications

The Center for Comparative Conflict Studies (CFCCS) at the Faculty of Media and Communications (FMK), Singidunum University invites you to apply for the forth Summer School in Comparative Conflict Studies. The 2013 Summer School will take place at the Faculty of Media and Communications in Belgrade, from July 1-8, 2013.

We are now receiving applications for the following four courses to choose from:

1. The Politics of Land and Identity: States and Minorities in Conflict

Prof. Oren Yiftachel (Ben-Gurion University, Israel)

2. International Intervention in a Globalised World

Dr. Maxine David (University of Surrey, UK) 

3. The Role of Social Memory Studies in Conflict Analysis and Transformation
Dr. Orli Fridman (Faculty of Media & Communications (FMK) & SIT study Abroad, Serbia)

4. From the discourse of brotherhood and unity to the discourses of EU integration: the case of "transition" in Serbia

Dr. Jelisaveta Blagojević (Faculty of Media & Communications (FMK), Serbia)

**Language instruction in all courses is English**

We invite graduate students, advanced undergraduate students, NGO leaders and civil society activists from all countries to apply.

Reduced tuition is available for applicants from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia. This reduced tuition is also available for students from other conflict or post-conflict regions.

A limited number of travel and accommodation scholarships may be available for applicants from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia. 

Deadline to submit applications: May 13, 2013 

Application form and cost information are available on our website and Facebook page.

FOR MORE DETAILS please visit www.cfccs.org
Visit our FACEBOOK Page
Check out our MA program in Politics and Conflict Studies

SEESA Sponsored Panel at ASEEES 45th Annual Convention

SEESA sponsored panel entitled "Post-Socialist Identities in a Global Context: Cultural Negotiations in Southeast European Literature and Theatre" at the ASEEES 45th Annual Convention, to be held at the Boston Marriott Copley Place in Boston, MA, from November 21-24, 2013.

• Chair: Laura Olson Osterman, U of Colorado, Boulder
• Discussant: Antje Postema, U of Chicago
• Post-Socialist Masculinity in Crisis: Georgi Gospodinov’s 'Natural Novel', Angelina Ilieva, U of Chicago
• Miljenko Jergović at the Crossroads of post-Communism, Ex-Yugoslavia, and Globalization, Cynthia Simmons, Boston College
• Post-Communist Dialogs with the post-Colonial Balkans in the Bulgarian Theatre, Vessela Warner, U of Alabama at Birmingham

Workshop in Scholarly and Literary Translation from Slavic Languages

Call for Applications:

Workshop in Scholarly and Literary Translation from Slavic Languages


The Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign is pleased to announce a Workshop in Scholarly and Literary Translation from Slavic Languages to take place during the annual Summer Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois. The workshop will run from June 10 to June 15, 2013.

This workshop offers advanced graduate students and recent post-doctoral scholars an opportunity to build skills through an intensive experience of translation with guidance from experienced translators, as they will be paired with mentors who work in the same language(s). The program will also include presentations by specialists in translation.

Prospective participants must submit an application for the Summer Research Laboratory to be considered for admission to the Workshop. For more information and to apply please see the REEEC SRL page:

http://www.reeec.illinois.edu/srl/?utm_source=transwksp&utm_medium=listserv&utm_campaign=SRL2013 

To be considered for the Translation Workshop, include the language you would like to work with, information about the text you want to work with (author, title, publication date, etc.), and a draft translation of one page from that text. The draft doesn’t have to be perfect; it is meant to show the selection committee the point where you are starting.

Mentors and Languages:

Brian Baer (Russian), Professor and Graduate Coordinator, Modern and Classical Language Studies, Kent State University. Translation series editor at Kent State University Press, editor of the journal Translation and Interpreting Studies, ed. of Contexts, Subtexts and Pretexts: Literary Translation in Eastern Europe and Russia (Johns Benjamins, 2011); co-editor, Russian Writers on Translation (forthcoming, St. Jerome Press)

David Cooper (Czech, Russian, and Slovak), Associate Professor and Director of Russian, East European and Eurasian Center, UIUC. Creating the Nation: Identity and Aesthetics in Early Nineteenth-Century Russia and Bohemia (Northern Illinois UP, 2010); editor and translator, Traditional Slovak Folktales (collected by Pavol Dobšinský, 2001)

Sibelan Forrester (Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian and Russian), Professor of Russian, Swarthmore College. Co-editor of Engendering Slavic Literatures (Indiana UP, 1996) and Over the Wall/After the Fall: Post-Communist Cultures through an East/West Gaze (Indiana UP, 2004); translator of Irena Vrkljan, The Silk, The Shears (Northwestern UP, 1999), Elena Ignatova, The Diving Bell (Zephyr Press, 2006), and Vladimir Propp, The Russian Folktale (Wayne State UP, 2012)

Amelia Glaser (Russian, Ukrainian and Yiddish), Associate Professor and Director of Russian and Soviet Studies Program, University of California - San Diego. Jews and Ukrainians in Russia’s Literary Borderlands: From the Shtetl Fair to the Petersburg Bookshop (Northwestern UP, 2012); translator and co-ed. of Proletpen: America’s Rebel Yiddish Poets (U of Wisconsin Press, 2005)

Joanna Trzeciak (Polish and Russian), Associate Professor of Russian and Polish Translation, Kent State University. Translator of Miracle Fair: Selected poems of Wislawa Szymborska (W. W. Norton, 2002) and Sobbing Superpower: Selected Poems of Tadeusz Różewicz (W. W. Norton, 2011)

Russell Valentino (Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, Italian, Russian), Professor and Chair, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Indiana University. Editor-in-chief, The Iowa Review, translator of Fulvio Tomizza, Materada (Northwestern UP, 2000), Carlo Michelstaedter, Persuasion and Rhetoric (Yale UP, 2005), Sabit Madaliev, The Silence of the Sufi: And I Do Call to Witness the Self-Reproaching Spirit (Autumn Hill Books, 2006), and Predrag Matvejević, The Other Venice: Secrets of the City (Reaktion Books, 2007)

Other workshop components include: daily meetings between participants and mentors; dedicated time for work on individual translation projects; access to the exceptional library resources of the University of Illinois; and bibliographic support from the Slavic Reference Service.

Those selected will receive funding support as well as access to the University of Illinois Library and Slavic Reference Service.

Participants should bring one text in the language they specialize in to work on independently and in the workshop setting during the course of the workshop. (This text can be, but does not have to be, connected to the sample submitted with the application.)

Translations in Russian, Czech, Polish, Slovak, Bosnian, Croatian or Serbian, Ukrainian, or Yiddish are preferred, but anyone with translation projects in a regional language is encouraged to apply. For more information contact the workshop organizer, Dr. Sibelan Forrester of Swarthmore College, at <sforres1@swarthmore.edu>.

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Journal of Balkanology /Zeitschrift für Balkanologie

Founded in 1962 by Günter Reichenkron, Franz Dölger and Alois Schmaus, the Journal of Balkanology by international standards counts as one of the leading publications specializing in Balkanology. It continues to profile the teaching and research program developed by the former Institute of Balkanology at the Free University Berlin and continued by the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, with the objective of studying the Balkan peninsula’s cultures in their linguistic and non-linguistic manifestations, across ethnic and linguistic families, on a comparative, interdisciplinary-integrative basis. The Journal of Balkanology is therefore also a forum for scholarly discourse on the core questions that occupy Balkanology or Southeast European studies. Its goal ultimately, however, is to convey to the scholarly community and to an interested readership the widest possible range of findings from interdisciplinary and comparative research on a broadly conceived Southeastern Europe stretching from Turkey across the Balkans to Hungary. It covers the gamut of subject areas of linguistics, cultural studies, literature, ethnology, regional studies and folklore. Contributions by European and non-European Balkanologists and specialists on Southeastern Europe will be published here in German, English, French, Russian and Italian.

The University of Washington is inaugurating a "Discovery Seminar to Romania" this Autumn

In Bucharest, Brasov, Sibiu, and Suceava, the major stops of our journey in Romania, students will attend lectures offered by Romanian scholars and will also directly encounter artifacts, edifices, monuments, and artwork previewed in class. Lectures will address topics from medieval history to the 19th century transformation into a nation-state and 20th century literature (Blandiana, Cartarescu, Popescu, Manea), as well as the struggles of artists under communist censorship. In Bucharest, students will have the opportunity to meet award-winning directors (Cristi Puiu and Cristian Mungiu) and watch some of their internationally acclaimed movies.

For more information see:

The Honors webpage:

<http://depts.washington.edu/uwhonors/international/romania/>
and the facebook page:
<http://www.facebook.com/ExplorationSeminarRomania2013>

Pecob: news about central eastern Europe and the Balkan countries

Pecob: news about central eastern Europe and the Balkan countries: "Portal on Central Eastern and Balkan Europe"

The Portal aims to provide experts, scholars and interested users with scientific content on the region. This content covers Politics, Economics, Society, Culture, History, Agricultural and the Media coming from or focusing on the following countries: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia Czech Republic, Cyprus, Estonia, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey, Ukraine.