[Discussion] "Post Post Socialism?"

[Gonul Pultar]

Distrib. by: Central-Eurasia-L - Announcement List for Central Eurasian 
Studies


CONF./CFP- 2005 SOYUZ Symposium, March 2005, Indiana University

CALL FOR PAPERS: 2005 SOYUZ symposium, "Post Post Socialism?"
Indiana University, Bloomington

SOYUZ, the Post-Communist Cultural Studies Interest Group of the American
Anthropological Association (AAA), invites paper submissions for its 2005
meeting, to be held March 4-5, 2005, at Indiana University in Bloomington.
The two-day symposium is an intimate forum where scholars (including
graduate students, junior faculty, and senior faculty) from across the 
world
can exchange ideas and engage in dialogue.

The theme of this year's symposium is "Post Post-Socialism?" Scholars have
recently begun suggesting that many aspects of social and cultural life 
once
considered unique to socialist and post-socialist societies actually have
parallels in post-colonial, post-modern, and post-welfare societies. Just
what these parallels are still requires concrete discussion, but in all
cases we sense that old analytical models that anticipate stability in
social organization and relations, centralized systems of political power,
and master cultural narratives ­ have lost much of their explanatory
potential. Empirically, we see societies in transition, states struggling
to maintain authority, citizens who hold diverse hierarchies of values, and
a general fragmentation of order, power, and cultural norms and
expectations. Is this kaleidoscope of social and cultural forms really a
new phenomenon? Has it always been there? Does it really reflect a
transitory moment, to be resolved soon into new patterns of order and
authority? Or will the study of culture and society be increasingly
challenged by these changes?

We would like to develop this line of inquiry as it applies to the
post-socialist societies of Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Asia,
Africa, and Latin America. Participants in SOYUZ symposia have
traditionally been specialists in the study of Eastern Europe and the 
former
Soviet Union. In the last several years, however, we have encouraged
specialists on other socialist and post-socialist societies to join our
discussions to better clarify what social and cultural patterns are best
identified as "socialist" or "post-socialist"; which are local 
variations of
these broad patterns; and which ought better to be considered under other
analytical categories ("European," "national," "rural," etc.).

Proposed papers should therefore be based on ethnographic research in a
socialist or post-socialist society. Presentations may come from any
discipline (anthropology, sociology, folklore, political science, history,
literary scholarship, etc.), if they strive to creatively and successfully
combine solid ethnographic and/or empirical evidence with theory. We are
also open to multiple topics (including, but not limited to, such recently
popular themes as memory and nostalgia, tourism, new economic patterns
including consumption, advertising, and property restitution, health and
healing, national and transnational identity processes and politics, the
constraints and promises of membership in the EU or other international
organizations, gender and sexuality, youth and the elderly, minority
relations, media, high culture, and the entertainment industries, and
folklore and folklife). We do, however, request that participants
critically reflect on the significance of post-socialism as an analytical
and comparative category, particularly in the current era of "posts".
Papers from graduate students who are completing or have completed their
dissertation research are especially encouraged and welcome.

We tentatively hope to have travel scholarships available for up to two
foreign scholars.

Please send an abstract (no longer than 500 words) and a brief CV by 
October
15, 2004 to:

Sarah D. Phillips
Department of Anthropology
Indiana University
Student Building 130
701 E. Kirkwood Ave.
Bloomington, IN 47405
USA

E-mail: sadphill@indiana.edu 
<https://charon.bcc.bilkent.edu.tr/basilix/basilix.php?RequestID=CMPSNEW&premail=-1&is_ssl=&cmps_to=sadphill@indiana.edu>

Applicants will be notified of the organizing committee's decision in
December, 2004.