Call for Papers. XII St. Petersburg International Colloquium on Russian History

 
24.08.2021
 
University
 
Конкурсы

The international colloquium on Russian history in St. Petersburg, held every three years for the past thirty years to bring scholars from around the world to discuss their research in the late Imperial to the early Soviet periods, announces its forthcoming colloquium on the boundaries of politics in Russia from the mid-19th to early-20th centuries. The 2022 colloquium aims to examine the spatial boundaries of politics, looking at the physical and symbolic aspects of the intersection between politics and space. The conference will move away from traditional political history that focuses on the ruling elites and privileges ideology in studying politics, to consider new methods and concepts for understanding the political. We hope to evaluate the history of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union through a study of space as a political phenomenon from several different angles: where political power can be realized, lost, or never found; where politics can be mobilized and demobilized; and where the growth of civil society and the revolutionary movement can be found, both in the centre and in the peripheries. We are interested in physical spaces of politics and their boundaries, from the courtrooms to squares and streets, to imagined spaces of utopia, revolution, religion, nationalism, and so forth.

We propose to discuss the involvement in politics of different social groups and the experiences of individuals, and we will pay special attention to how space was gendered and how individuals’ gender identity shaped political experience. In addition, we hope to analyze the complex relationship between law and disorder, legality and illegality, social control and revolution, and the boundaries of political violence. The organisers of the colloquium ask that submissions offer original theoretical approaches and/or present new sources, either new archival documents or materials that have traditionally been neglected by those working in the discipline of history.

The Organizational Committee invites proposals for other topics to the extent they bring new and fresh approaches to the general themes of the colloquium. Interdisciplinary approaches are especially welcome.

The conference has a broad remit, but is particularly interested in the following overarching and often overlapping themes:

• Spaces of law and public control (courts, prisons, exile, police stations).

• Political space on the edges of the empire

• Representation of political space in art

• Imagined and created spaces

• Political places at the grassroots level (clubs, communities, inns, streets)

• The Struggle for political space, including appropriation, control, destruction

• Communication between people and the state (petitions, resolutions, demonstrations)

• Political identification and self-identification

• The language of politics and the use of political terms (democracy, dictatorship, nation)

 

Organizational information

The colloquium will be held from 6 to 8 June 2022 in St. Petersburg, Russia. The organizers have a certain amount of funds in order to partially or fully reimburse the travel and accommodation costs of the participants.

Please send the application form in Russian or English to spbcolloquium@gmail.com. Application deadline is 30 October, 2021. The deadline for consideration of applications is 15 January, 2022.

Speakers invited by the Organizing committee to participate in the colloquium submit a full text of the report (no more than 5 thousand words) in electronic form no later than 15 March, 2022. The working language of the conference is Russian.

The Organizing committee assists in translating reports from European languages. The texts of the reports at the colloquium are not read out. The reports will be available for preliminary review by all participants of the colloquium. To present a report at the colloquium, the author is given 5-10 minutes. Before the opening of the discussion, scientific comments on the reports are provided in each section. After the completion of the colloquium, authors will have the opportunity to prepare their reports for publication. The publication of the materials of the colloquium, including both reports and speeches in the discussion, is expected in 2024.

 

Organizing committee of the XII St. Petersburg International Colloquium

- Konstantin Tarasov, St. Petersburg Institute of History of the RAS, Research fellow, Department of the History of Revolutions and Social Movement of Russia
- Julia Safronova, European university at St. Petersburg, Associate professor, Chair, Department of History
- Aaron Retish, Wayne State University, Associate Professor, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences
- Murray Frame, University of Dundee, Interim Dean, School of Humanities
- Ekaterina Boltunova, Higher School of Economics, Professor, Head, International Laboratory 'Russia’s Regions in Historical Perspective'

 

Первоисточник новости и приведенного выше информационного письма — сайт Санкт-Петербургского Института истории Российской академии наук, одного из организаторов коллоквиума. 

 

Изображение: Санкт-Петербургский Институт истории РАН