deadline 5 november 2017
OVERLAPPING EASTS: FROM SHARED NEIGHBOURHOODS TO GLOBALISED BORDERLANDS
And
RETHINKING REVOLUTION: 1917-2017
Conference, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, ITALY
18-19 December 2017
CALL FOR PAPERS
The aim of the 2 days international conference is to stir a debate on the restructuring of the post-Soviet space and to rethink the heritage of the Russian Revolution especially in terms of political change. The first day conference will revolve around 4 topics:
1) Overlapping institutions and projects in the Eurasian spaces
Post-Soviet countries are embedded in a multiform variety of regional assemblages, created along regionally-scaled intergovernmental linkages, as well as transnational and trans-state interactions. The panel aims at analysing instances of convergence, divergence, competition and/or complementarity among regional frameworks and institutions, across different policy-areas and issues.
2) Eastern Partnership and the European Neighbourhood Policy Review Process
This panel will be dedicated to critically assess the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and the Eastern Partnership (EaP) in the light also of the EU’s Global Strategy. It aims at initiating a debate on the effectiveness and legitimacy of the restructured ENP and its impact on the targeted countries and well as the broader regional environment, including regional powers such as Russia, Turkey, China and Iran. It will examine to which extent these policy frameworks affect both longstanding and emerging threats: frozen/unfrozen conflicts, secessionist movements and new forms of de facto statehood, from Eastern Ukraine to Georgia (Abkhazia and South Ossetia), Moldavia (Transdniestria), and Azerbaijan (Nagorno‐Karabakh).
3) Post-Soviet as “Peripheries”, “Borderlands”, “Frontiers”
Terms such as “Near Abroad” or “Neighbourhood” are intimately ingrained with a conceptualization of (at least, some) post-Soviet countries as “buffers” or “insulators”, spaces of separation and disconnection featuring a disjunctive role and a limited local agency. The panel seeks to gather papers revolving around narrations and discursive practices that contribute to shaping an alternative, take on the political value of marginal and peripheral spaces and borderlands; the reflection will be devoted to unfolding patterns of de-territorialization and re-territorialization of regional complexes and orders.
4) Post-Soviet as the New Post-Colonial…?
In 2001 David Chioni Moore asked: “Is the Post- in Postcolonial the Post- in Post-Soviet?”: the panel seeks to review the replies answered to that question, and the reactions triggered by applying post-colonial lenses to the post-Soviet study. The reflection runs along two directions: on the one hand, investigations on the extent to which post-Sovietness conveys some forms of post-coloniality may touch upon the characteristics of Soviet and post-Soviet subalternity and the structures of post-imperial and post-socialist hegemony.
The conference panels will be complemented by two interactive round-tables on searching and teaching on Post-Soviet space and Russia.
The second day of the conference will be devoted to discuss the Russian Revolution in its centenary. This will be the occasion to reflect on the heritage of the 1917 Russian Revolution while questioning what is the meaning of “revolution” in current politics. We seek papers that confront this topic from various perspectives: philosophy, art, history, political science, international relations, and sociology.
The conference will start on 18 December at 9.00 a.m. and close on 19 December at 16.30. The organizers will be able to provide accommodation for 1/2 nights. We would kindly ask you to make your own travel arrangements. We will reimburse your travel costs (fair fares according to the Financial Tables for Erasmus +) on presentation of original train tickets and boarding passes for all selected contributors.
Please send your abstracts (max.300 words) along with a brief one-page CV to PostSovietRevolconference@gmail.com by November 5. Decisions on accepted papers will be communicated by 15 November 2017.
Important dates
5 November 2017 deadline for abstract submission (max 300 words)
15 November 2017 notification of acceptance
11 December 2017 deadline for full paper submission
18-19 December 2017 Conference
Conference Organizers
Serena Giusti
Alessandra Russo
Elisa Piras
Carolina de Stefano
Kristina Khutsishvili
Kamran Ismayilov
Luigi Cino
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at account: PostSovietRevolconference@gmail.com