[Bilimsel Haber] CONF./CFP- The Socialist 1960s, Univ. of Illinois, June 24-26, 2010

[Gonul Pultar]

CONF./CFP- The Socialist 1960s, Univ. of Illinois, June 24-26, 2010

Posted by: Tracie L Wilson <wilsont at ad.uiuc.edu>


Call for Proposals
The Socialist 1960s: Popular Culture and the Socialist City in Global
Perspective
Deadline for submissions: October 15, 2009


2010 Fisher Forum, Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, June 24-26, 2010

The 1960s witnessed an explosion of cross-cultural fertilization in a 
time of world competition for the hegemony of two enduring "systems" -
capitalism and socialism. As a moment when decolonization created
immense possibilities for liberation movements throughout the world,
the 1960s became the heyday of the "Second World" appeals to the newly
decolonized societies of the "Third World," as well as the reemergence
of a European "First World" as a postwar consumer society in reaction
to American hegemony.  This was the moment when the "orderedness" of
the three worlds was arguably the most prominent in popular discourse
and culture, and a moment when that order was contested and
destabilized.  The patterns that first emerged in the 1960s - cultural
contest, political mobility, urbanization and the rise of urban youth
movements, women's rights, the hegemony of popular over "high" culture
driven by technology - form the bases of today's discussions of
globalization, its challenges, dangers, and contestation.

The purpose of this conference will be to use the Second World, the
socialist societies of the 1960s, as the center from which to explore
global interconnections and uncover new and perhaps surprising
patterns of cultural cross-pollination. This forum will be structured
around cities as the units of analysis, and it will focus on the arena
of popular culture as played out in these city spaces.   More
specifically, we invite paper proposals that focus on one of three
realms of  urban popular culture - media (including cinema,
television, popular music); material culture (including spaces and
their uses as well as commodities), and leisure (including tourism and
other activities).  We consider these exemplary of the circulation of
objects, images, sounds, and impressions on a level different from
political programs, literature and "fine arts." Several thematic
threads will tie together this consideration of the circulation of
popular culture around and through the Second world: mobility and
cultural transmission; youth cultures and student movements; gender;
consumerism and hedonism; the state and cultural exchange; technology
and cultural dissemination; cosmopolitan political mobilization.  Our
aims will be to consider what the "1960s" meant in socialist
countries, and to discuss the balance in the 1960s between cultural
global integration and continuing political differentiation.

The core of the forum will be the socialist societies of eastern
Europe and the Soviet Union, but the forum would be enriched by
participation from scholars who study other socialist societies. We
anticipate that the conference will result in a published volume:
submissions should be original work, not previously published.

The conference organizers are Diane P. Koenker, University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign (dkoenker at illinois.edu) and Anne E. Gorsuch,
University of British Columbia (gorsuch at interchange.ubc.ca).  We
welcome advance inquiries.

Please send proposed paper title and abstracts to each of the
organizers by October 15, 2009.  Proposals should indicate which of
the conference themes the paper addresses, and the term "Sixties" or
"1960s" should be explicit in the paper title. Selection of
participants will be made by November 30, 2009, and conference papers
should be submitted by April 1, 2010.

The Ralph and Ruth Fisher Forum is held in conjunction with the Summer
Research Laboratory on Russia, Eastern Europe, and Eurasia. The
conference is made possible by Mary and Hal Zirin's generous gift to
the Ralph and Ruth Fisher Endowment Fund in honor of Professor Ralph
Fisher and his wife Ruth. Ralph Fisher is Professor Emeritus of
History at the University of Illinois and founder of the Russian, East
European, and Eurasian Center and the Summer Research Lab.


Tracie L Wilson, PhD
Associate Director
Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
104 International Studies Building
910 South Fifth Street
Champaign, IL 61820
USA

217.333.6022
wilsont at illinois.edu



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Studies