CfP: DISSENT VERSUS CONFORMISM IN THE NORDIC, BALTIC AND BLACK SEA AREAS

Deadlines: panels 15 Febbraio 2019, papers 1 Marzo 2019

DISSENT VERSUS CONFORMISM IN THE NORDIC, BALTIC AND BLACK SEA AREAS.
THE TENTH ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON NORDIC AND BALTIC STUDIES IN ROMANIA
(Dissent&Conformism)
Constanța, 6-8 June 2019
Organizers
The Romanian Association for Baltic and Nordic Studies
Faculty of History and Political Sciences of Ovidius University of Constanța, Romania
Aims of the Conference The theme of the 2019 conference was crafted with our regretted colleague and distinguished academic Leonidas Donskis. In the meanwhile, conformism seems to have pervaded larger categories of public in East-Central Europe and beyond and new “illiberal democracies” evolved. A composite of authoritarian leader and godfather have taken the reins of power in the area. Populist parties and movements are on the rise. Resurgent nationalisms are again offered as a substitute to solutions. The refugee crisis lingers on and no common decisions have been adopted within the EU to solve it on the basis of the European values. The EU institutions are in need of reform and decisions on the course of the organization and its future enlargement process are still pending. The conference aims at analyzing two often interrelated phenomena: dissent and conformism. Already from the mythological creation of Europe and the Ancient Greeks and Romans dissent and conformism acted as a key factor in structuring the institutions and shaping the people’s attitudes. Dissenting from the underlying Athenian social values led Socrates to death by hemlock poison, while conforming to Roman values turned many foreigners and strangers into citizens and defenders of the Roman Empire. The Christians had initially been ostracized and martyred despite their obedience and allegiance to the political institutions of the Roman Empire. However, their revolutionary religion and devotedness to a single God unleashed against them the hatred of the patrons of the Roman symbolic manipulation of power, especially of the emperors or priests. Eventually, the monotheistic Christian or Muslim religions would be not less harsh with the non-believers and dissidents. Conformism seems to have been the norm of any political system and at the same time the cause of its decay. In the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars nationalism and eventually modern political ideologies became the main competitors for power and control in Europe. Nationalisms unleashed the forces of destruction during the world wars while the clash of ideologies set off ahead of the French Revolution shaped the destiny of Europe during the 20th century. Dictatorships and even more so totalitarian regimes required unwavering conformism and full devotedness from their subjects, while encouraging dissent in the competing camp. Conformism has shown many faces from the Antiquity to Contemporary Age, from pretense to obedience, and an individual person could evolve between the two extremes during his/her lifetime. Sometimes, as many dystopian novels reveal, the conformist grows into dissident and even becomes a major target of his former patrons. Conversely, former dissidents can return to loyalty and often the prize to be paid is betrayal of former affined spirits. The archives of Scandinavian, Baltic and Black Sea regions preserve numerous documents of such instances. Conformism can also take the form of what Zygmunt Bauman and Leonidas Donskis called “liquid modernity”, the situation of an individual who flows from one attitude to another, from one perspective to the other, from one set of values to an opposing one:
The liquid modern variety of adiaphorization is cut after the pattern of the consumer–commodity relation, and its effectiveness relies on the transplantation of that pattern to interhuman relations. As consumers, we do not swear interminable loyalty to the commodity we seek and purchase in order to satisfy our needs or desires, and we continue to use its services as long as but no longer than it delivers on our expectations – or until we come across another commodity that promises to gratify the same desires more thoroughly than the one we purchased before. All consumer goods, including those described as ‘durable’, are eminently exchangeable and expendable; in consumerist – that is consumption inspired and consumption servicing – culture, the time between purchase and disposal tends to shrink to the degree to which the delights derived from the objects of consumption shift from their use to their appropriation. Zygmunt Bauman, and Leonidas Donskis, Moral Blindness: The Loss of Sensitivity in Liquid Modernity (Cambridge, Massachussetts: Polity, 2013), p. 15. Dissidence also embraces a great spectre of attitudes from simple acts of disloyalty to open resistance as it happened in Norway or Denmark during World War II, in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland and the Black Sea region during the dictatorial, totalitarian and occupational regimes, etc. Again, the boundary between these extremes is narrow and simple disloyalty can grow into acts of armed resistance. The archives in the region are filled with documents regarding dissident movements, samizdat literature and transborder cooperation of dissidents, which can offer fresh empirical, methodological and conceptual perspectives to this issue. The conference welcomes proposals from a variety of angles and disciplines, i.e. history, literature, cultural studies, political sciences, philosophy, social sciences, semiotics, European studies, etc. The conference approaches the Nordic&Baltic&Black Sea areas but is not limited to perspectives such as:
 Dissidents and conformists during totalitarianisms and dictatorships
 Dissenting views in Nordic, Baltic and Black Sea region literatures

 Utopias and dystopias in Nordic, Baltic and Black Sea region literatures

 Enemy at the gate: dissent and conformism during the two world wars

 Conforming to or resenting the Nordic values

 Rethinking conformism in the Nordic societies

 21st century dissenters in the Black Sea area

 Europeanists and nationalists: a remodeling of dissent and conformism

 Ideologies without ideals: on moral blindness and apathy

Education reforms in the Nordic, Baltic and Black Sea countries and cognitive autonomy

 Nordic, Baltic and Nordic-Baltic cultural cooperation

Submission Guidelines

All papers must be original and not simultaneously submitted to another journal or conference: full papers discussing the dissent and conformism in their multifarious manifestations during the dictatorial and totalitarian political systems, wars, etc. or the way they reflected in literature, newspapers, education, etc.

Submission web page of Dissentism2019 is: https://easychair.org/ conferences/?conf= dissentism2019

Keynote addresses To be decided
Conference Schedule and Deadlines
• Publication of the call for papers: December 6th, 2018
• Proposals for panels and roundtables (approx. 500 words): February 15th, 2019
• Abstracts for individual papers (approx. 300 words): March 1st, 2019
• Notification of acceptance: March 15th, 2019
• Publication of the conference program: March 20th, 2019
• Conference: June 6th-8th, 2019
• Deadline for submitting the conference articles: June 30th, 2019
• Publication of conference articles: September 1st, 2019 and December 15th, 2019.
Organizing Committees Honorary Chairs of the Organizing Committee H.E. Ms. Päivi Pohjanheimo, The Ambassador of Finland in Bucharest Prof. Dr. Sorin Rugină, Rector of Ovidius University of Constanța
Organizing committee
Prof.Dr.Hab. Silviu Miloiu, The Romanian Association for Baltic and Nordic Studies & Valahia University of Târgovişte
Lecturer Dr. Alexandru Bobe, Deputy Rector of Ovidius University of Constanța, Honorary Consul of Estonia in Constanța
Assoc.Prof.Dr. Emanuel Plopeanu, Ovidius University of Constanța
Assist. Dr. Costel Coroban, The Romanian Association for Baltic and Nordic Studies & Ovidius University of Constanța
Assist. Dr. Gabriel Stelian Manea, Ovidius University of Constanța
Assist. Dr. Adrian-Alexandru Herța, Ovidius University of Constanța
Assist. Dr. Georgiana Țăranu, Ovidius University of Constanța
Scientific Committee
Prof.Dr. Florin Anghel, Ovidius University of Constanța
Dr. Bogdan Schipor, A.D. Xenopol Institute of History of the Romanian Academy & The Romanian Association for Baltic and Nordic Studies
Program Committee
Prof.Dr.Hab. Silviu Miloiu, The Romanian Association for Baltic and Nordic Studies & Valahia University of Târgovişte
Lecturer Dr. Crina Leon, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași & The Romanian Association for Baltic and Nordic Studies
Assist. Dr. Costel Coroban, The Romanian Association for Baltic and Nordic Studies & Ovidius University of Constanța
Assist. Dr. Adrian Herța, Ovidius University of Constanța
Secretary of the Scientific Committee Assist. Dr. Costel Coroban, The Romanian Association for Baltic and Nordic Studies & Ovidius University of Constanța
Publication
Dissentism2019 proceedings will be published in The Romanian Journal for Baltic and Nordic Studies, vol. 11 (2019).
Venue
The conference will be held in Constanța, Romania, at Ovidius University of Constanța, Aleea Universității, no. 1, Campus, building B, Amphitheatre A2..
Contact
All questions about submissions should be emailed to baltoskandia@gmail.com or editorial@arsbn.ro.

Author: Aisseco

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