Upcoming conference: "Imagining Alternative Modernities"

SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS

ABSTRACT DEADLINE: MARCH 17
 
We are excited to announce the interdisciplinary conference, "Imagining Alternative Modernities: Interventions from the Balkans and South Asia", which will take place at The Ohio State University, Columbus, October 9-11, 2014. The conference completes and complements a series of interdisciplinary activities in 2013-14, supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation through the John E. Sawyer Seminars on the Comparative Study of Cultures grant program. For more information on the seminar, please visit: sawyer.osu.edu.
 

Keynote Speakers:

Tomislav Longinović, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Kalyanakrishnan Sivaramakrishnan, Yale University
 

On the surface, the Balkans and South Asia might seem to have little in common. However, despite many specific differences, they share similar dilemmas of linguistic, religious, cultural, and ethno-national complexity, similar turbulent political developments associated with imperial, post-colonial, and Cold War legacies, and a similar diversity of responses to these historical and contemporary challenges. Both areas have seen a mixing of people through migratory settlement, conquest, contact, and trade. But both have also experienced periods of reaction to cultural hybridity: a radical unmixing of people through partition and population exchange. The impact of these upheavals is seen in the direct violence of war and devastation, but also through crises on the levels of language, religion, and other modes of culture and human creative activity. The unique yet similar issues within each region compel us
towards a comparative approach that will offer a transnational perspective on the intersection of language, religion, culture, and nationalism.

 
We thus invite proposals for paper presentations from any disciplinary or interdisciplinary perspective within the humanities and social sciences addressing one or more of the following themes in the Balkans or in South Asia, or comparatively between the two regions:


1.Violence, Gender, and Human Rights

2.Nation, Religion, Language, and Secularism

3. Minorities, State, Language, and Citizenship

4. Postcolonial and Postsocialist Perspectives on Neoliberalism
 

Additionally, selected papers will be included in a collection of essays resulting from the conference.

Graduate students are encouraged to participate. Limited funding is available for student lodging.

Please send a 350-word abstract in PDF format and brief (one paragraph maximum) bio to sawyerseminar@osu.edu by Monday March 17, 2014 (11:59pm).

Notifications of acceptance will be sent by May 1, 2014 and the program will be announced by June 1, 2014. 

Imagining Alternative Modernities: Interventions from the Balkans and South Asia

We are excited to announce the interdisciplinary conference, "Imagining Alternative Modernities: Interventions from the Balkans and South Asia", which will take place at The Ohio State University, Columbus, October 9-11, 2014. The conference completes and complements a series of interdisciplinary activities in 2013-14, supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation through the John E. Sawyer Seminars on the Comparative Study of Cultures grant program. For more information on the seminar, please visit: sawyer.osu.edu.

On the surface, the Balkans and South Asia might seem to have little in common. However, despite many specific differences, they share similar dilemmas of linguistic, religious, cultural, and ethno-national complexity, similar turbulent political developments associated with imperial, post-colonial, and Cold War legacies, and a similar diversity of responses to these historical and contemporary challenges. Both areas have seen a mixing of people through migratory settlement, conquest, contact, and trade. But both have also experienced periods of reaction to cultural hybridity: a radical unmixing of people through partition and population exchange. The impact of these upheavals is seen in the direct violence of war and devastation, but also through crises on the levels of language, religion, and other modes of culture and human creative activity. The unique yet similar issues within each region compel us towards a comparative approach that will offer a transnational perspective on the intersection of language, religion, culture, and nationalism.

We thus invite proposals for paper presentations from any disciplinary or interdisciplinary perspective within the humanities and social sciences addressing one or more of the following themes in the Balkans or in South Asia, or comparatively between the two regions: 

1. Violence, Gender, and Human Rights 

2. Nation, Religion, Language, and Secularism 

3. Minorities, State, Language, and Citizenship 

4. Postcolonial and Postsocialist Perspectives on Neoliberalism

Additionally, selected papers will be included in a collection of essays resulting from the conference.

Graduate students are encouraged to participate. Limited funding is available for student lodging.

Please send a 350-word abstract in PDF format and brief (one paragraph maximum) bio to sawyerseminar@osu.edu by Monday March 17, 2014 (11:59pm). Notifications of acceptance will be sent by May 1, 2014 and the program will be announced by June 1, 2014. 

Call for Papers: Continuity and Change in Southeastern Europe

Posted on behalf of
Ilyana Sawka
Program Coordinator
Kokkalis Program on Southeastern & East-Central Europe

A Harvard University conference – February 4, 2011

The Kokkalis Program on Southeastern and East-Central Europe, John F. Kennedy School of Government, and the Southeastern Europe Study Group, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University, invite scholars, researchers, university faculty, public policy practitioners, and graduate students at advanced stages of research to submit 500-word proposals for papers to be delivered at the symposium “Continuity and Change in Southeastern Europe” on February 4, 2011, at Harvard University.



Deadline for submission: November 15, 2010. Proposals should be submitted along with a recent CV to Andrew Hall at Andrew_Hall@hks.harvard.edu. Small stipends for travel and accommodation will be available for selected participants.



Proposals must fall into one of the below thematic units:



I) Institutional Legacies: Tracing Historical Continuities

Over the last century and a half, Southeastern Europe has been marked by a large number of critical junctures: from the collapse of multinational empires to the long period of wars form 1912-18 and World War II to the emergence of Communist states and their collapse. These monumental changes often disguise lines of continuity, especially in regard to institutions. This panel will bring together papers that help understand how and why institutional continuities and legacies persist over time. Avoiding historical determinism, the papers will shed light on particular paths institutional developments have taken and how this helps understand Southeastern Europe today. From ethnographic micro-cases to larger comparative studies, papers representing a variety of disciplines and approaches are welcome.

Chair: Dr. Florian Bieber, Editor-in-Chief, Nationalities Papers



II) Domestic-International Relationships in Political Reform in Southeastern Europe

What do case studies of political reform in post-socialist Southeastern Europe tell us about the conditions under which international actors can work together with domestic actors to develop institutions that are responsive to and valued by ordinary citizens? How have domestic actors in Southeastern Europe been able to incorporate domestic values and traditions into new institutions in the face of pressure to adopt Western models? Under what conditions are international actors who promote reform sensitive to local knowledge? This panel seeks to learn from case studies of reform that are considered unsuccessful, as well as those considered successful. Papers will increase our understanding of the processes and outcomes of political reform viewed as valuable by Southeastern European peoples through investigations of case studies that cover various Southeast European countries and issue areas.

Chair: Dr. Paula Pickering, Associate Professor, Department of Government, College of William and Mary



III) Gender, Nation and Globalization

The last two decades have been a time of tremendous upheaval for the nations of Southeastern Europe, which have variously weathered the storms of sudden economic change, political disintegration, social instability, increasing crime and corruption, massive out migration, violence, and war. Most recently, the region has been wracked with the economic turmoil of the global financial crisis and individual men and women are facing the ever-growing hardships of recession and IMF-imposed structural adjustment. Throughout these twenty years, idealized notions of masculinity and femininity have shifted and been reimagined to take account of the local realities in an era of globalization. In some cases, traditional gender norms and expectations have been subverted and/or overthrown altogether, with both men and women gaining from an increase of possible gender subjectivities. In other cases, traditional roles for what makes a “real man” or a “good woman” have reasserted themselves with newfound force, finding allies in new or old religious movements and nationalist political rhetorics. This panel aims to explore the continuities and changes in gender norms and gender politics in Southeastern Europe, and welcomes all papers that explore these dynamics with an eye to seeing the complex interactions between local and global forces.

Chair: Dr. Kristen Ghodsee, Associate Professor of Gender and Women's Studies, Bowdoin College



Areas of focus: Albania § Bosnia-Herzegovina § Bulgaria § Croatia § Cyprus § F.Y.R. of Macedonia § Greece § Hungary § Kosovo § Moldova § Montenegro § Romania § Serbia § Slovenia § Turkey

For more information on the Kokkalis Program, visit:
http://www.hks.harvard.edu/kokkalis

Minority languages in Greece

The session on minority languages in Greece will take place on 27 October 2009 in the Lucy Ellis lounge at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 6 to 7.30pm. The film Sabiha will be introduced by the film director, Dr Evangelia Adamou (CNRS-LACITO, an expert on minority languages in Greece). The screening will be followed by open discussion with the audience.