CREEES Professional Resources Forum

Deadline for Proposals: January 05, 2019

Call for Papers: “Migrations of Cultures”: An Undergraduate Conference in the Modern Languages
University of Pittsburgh March 22-23, 2019

 Share your research with other undergraduate students! Get real feedback on a paper! Gain conference experience for work or graduate school! Interested?  Then send an abstract to a biannual undergraduate research conference hosted by the Modern Languages Departments at the University of Pittsburgh on March 22-23, 2019. Abstracts should be sent to mecchia@pitt.edu by January 5, 2019.

The papers should address the concept of cultural migrations in the broadest sense of the term, that is, immigrations and emigrations in real and virtual spaces linked to the movements of people(s), language(s) and culture(s). We are looking for multiple disciplinary, geographic, and historical perspectives on the conflicts and opportunities created by the shifting flows of populations, languages and cultural traditions throughout the ages and in the contemporary world. The language of the conference is English but we welcome papers addressing Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, and  Spanish languages and cultures.

Our keynote speaker will be Dr Katelyn Knox, Asst. Professor of French at the University of Central Arkansas, author of Race on Display in 20^th and 21^st Century France (University of Liverpool Press, 2016).  Topics could include:

• Multilingual societies and their conflicts (“language wars”) and advantages
• Linguistic landscapes and their evolution
• Translation as a political tool
• Literatures of the diaspora
• Circulation of texts through multiple areas and in multiple languages
• Travel literature through the ages
• Exiles, migrants, and refugees
• Processes of acculturation
• The politics of cultural production
• Films and the problems of cultural translation

Papers should be twenty minutes long. Papers will be selected by a selection committee staffed by undergraduates from the University of Pittsburgh. Students who submit abstracts will be notified about acceptance by January 20 2019. All inquiries can be directed to Prof. Giuseppina Mecchia, at mecchia@pitt.edu. Limited travel subsidies will be available!

Deadline for Submissions: January 01, 2019

CALL FOR PROPOSALS
Workshop on
Political and Military Histories of Russian-Kurdish Relations
(19th-21st Centuries)
Moscow, 10-11 June 2019

The involvement of Kurdish forces during the Crimean War inaugurated the political and military encounter of Russians and Kurds between Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Since then, these relations have formed an important and disputed aspect of Russian, and later Soviet, policies in the Middle East. Most significantly, these policies have extended well beyond the clash of the Tsarist and Ottoman Empires at the turn of the 20th century.While Russian and Soviet policies have included a sustained focus on the role of the Kurds, their political mobilization and activism in the 1920s-1930s and during the Cold War, the relationship has never been a simple one. It was deeply entangled in the nexus of regional politics and Russian/Soviet policies toward Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria, as well as in global dynamics. Conversely, mobilities and alliances with the ‘’East’’ have been important in shaping political identities, but remain a still understudied part of Kurdish political strategies on the international arena. Organized as part of the research project RUSKURD (Sciences Po Lille-EHESS), in partnership with the CEFR (Moscow) and the IFEA (Istanbul), this workshop aims at exploring key aspects of the political history of Russian-Kurdish relations. Ph.D candidates, postdoctoral researchers and senior researchers are invited to present research based on historical, social and anthropological methods to explore the place of politics, ideology, violence and wars throughout two centuries. Possible topics to be discussed include: The changing dynamics of the Russian-Kurdish relation in military encounters since the mid-19th century, integrating local conflicts and imperial power struggles, Techniques of insurgency and counterinsurgency, and their transformations in the wake of imperial collapse, The geopolitical use of Kurdish political and military forces by Russia and the Soviet Union from the 19th to the late 20th century, The interplay of police and military factors, logics and actors in the construction of a new border order framing Russian-Kurdish relations, Routes, forms and techniques of political and military influence (including both people and goods, notably weapons), Transnational political, diplomatic and military circulations. Travel to and accommodation in Moscow will be taken in charge by the organizers. Administrative help for visa issues will be provided to successful applicants who would need it. Proposals consisting of a resume and a short proposal (one-two pages, summarizing the paper, methodology and sources) should be sent before 1 January 2019 to etienne.peyrat@sciencespo-lille.eu. Successful applicants will be notified by the end of January 2019. Organizing team: Masha Cerovic (EHESS), Adnan Çelik (IFEA), Etienne Peyrat (Sciences Po) More on the project: https://ruskurd.hypotheses.org/