[Bilimsel Haber] FELLOWSHIPS- Information Studies of Eurasia, Davis Center, Harvard University, Deadline 1/10/11

[Gonul Pultar]

FELLOWSHIPS- Information Studies of Eurasia, Davis Center, Harvard 
University, _______________________________________________
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    Deadline 1/10/11

Posted by: Joan Gabel <jgabel at fas.harvard.edu>




Informing Eurasia
Informational Approaches to Eurasian Cultures, Politics and Societies
Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University


Dear Colleagues:

The Davis Center is pleased to announce a new Fellows Program for
2011-2012.  The Fellows Program will bring together scholars at early
and later stages in their careers to consider a common theme spanning
the social sciences and humanities.  The Program will be coordinated
by faculty from across Harvard University whose research interests
include aspects of the selected theme.  In 2011-2012, the Fellows
Program will be coordinated by Professors Terry Martin (History),
William Mills Todd III (Slavic Languages and Literatures) and Rawi
Abdelal (Harvard Business School).

The theme for 2011-2012 is "Informing Eurasia: Informational
Approaches to Eurasian Cultures, Politics and Societies." Eurasian
studies currently has no sub-field of "Information Studies," but
historians, literary critics, and social scientists working on Eurasia
have recently produced novel work on surveillance, the social
construction of collective identities, autobiographical and
documentary self-fashioning, horizontal and vertical communication
(rumors, petitions, denunciation), political policing, censorship and
Aesopian strategies, the construction of economic and political data,
and the impact of such information on political and economic
decision-making. The Davis Center invites scholars working on, or
interested in pursuing, such informational approaches to Eurasia to
apply to our Fellows program.

In addition to pursuing their own research, Fellows will participate
in a bi-weekly interdisciplinary seminar series that will explore
informational approaches to Eurasian studies. Papers will be presented
by the visiting Fellows, Harvard faculty, and invited outside
speakers. For more detailed information on the fellows program, and
opportunities to apply for postdoctoral and senior fellowships, visit
the Davis Center web site http://daviscenter.fas.harvard.edu/ or
consult the text below. The convening faculty including myself will
host a question and answer session at the ASEEES Convention, Friday,
November 19, 10-11:30 a.m. in the Lobby Court Coffee Shop at the West
Bonaventure in L.A. Additionally, the Davis Center will be hosting an
online question and answer session on December 15 from 12-2 p.m.
Details will be posted on the Davis Center website by the middle of 
November.

Note that scholars whose work does not address the selected theme are
encouraged to apply for fellowships at the Davis Center, and that
their applications will receive full consideration.

I encourage you to consider applying and to forward this message to
any colleagues or advanced graduate students who may be interested.

Sincerely,

Terry Martin
Director, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies
George F. Baker III Professor of Russian Studies
Harvard University


Fellowships at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies,
    Harvard University
Informing Eurasia: Informational Approaches to Eurasian Cultures,
    Politics and Societies
Deadline: January 10, 2010
More information: http://daviscenter.fas.harvard.edu

The Davis Center is pleased to announce a new Fellows Program for
2011-2012.  The Fellows Program will bring together scholars at early
and later stages in their careers to consider a common theme spanning
the social sciences and humanities.  Professors Terry Martin
(History), William Mills Todd III (Slavic Languages and Literatures)
and Rawi Abdelal (Harvard Business School) will coordinate the
2011-2012 program. We are interested in applications from scholars
currently working on our chosen theme, or equally those working on
unrelated themes, but who are interested in exploring our theme.

The theme for 2011-2012 is "Informing Eurasia: Informational
Approaches to Eurasian Cultures, Politics and Societies." Eurasian
studies currently has no sub-field of "Information Studies," but
historians, literary critics, and social scientists working on Eurasia
have recently produced novel work (described below), that the Davis
Center plans to bring into dialogue.  The Davis Center invites
scholars working on, or interested in pursuing, such informational
approaches to Eurasia to apply to our Fellows program. In addition to
pursuing their own research, Fellows will participate in a bi-weekly
interdisciplinary seminar series that will explore informational
approaches to Eurasian studies.

Our imagined field of "Information Studies" includes, but is hardly
limited to, the following:

History - work on surveillance has analyzed not just how the imperial
Russian and Soviet state gathered information and what information
they gathered, but also how they used various technologies of rule
(e.g. the passport, census, map, autobiography) to categorize
individuals by identity, loyalty, geography and utility. Social and
cultural historians have in turn traced how these categories took on
meaning both collectively (nationalism, class conflict, patriotism,
dissent) and individually (in projects of self-transformation and
self-protection). Political historians have studied how
information-gathering and categorical construction has influenced
policy formation, political policing, mass coercive actions and mass
persuasion. Other work analyzed how subjects spoke to the state
through petitions, denunciations, personal narratives, riots and mass
collective actions; how individuals have communicated information in
periods of censorship through gossip, rumor, and Aesopian language;
and how evolving technology has transformed communicative possibilities.

Literature and culture - scholars have studied the many resources of
language, genre and literary tradition to provoke reflection on
imperial Russian and Soviet information practices and policies. They
have assessed techniques of myth-making, ambivalent representations
and the modeling of alternative realities. Beyond studying individual
works and their reception, they examine actors in the literary process
including authors, publishers, censors, readers, theoreticians and
critics. The Tartu-Moscow semioticians have at times drawn directly on
information theory in developing their approach to the generation of
texts and discourse.  Such everyday and more formal genres as novel,
film, memoir and jokes have proven fertile ground for research, which
has often drawn upon the methods of the social sciences.

Social sciences - scholars have, like historians, evaluated the ways
in which governments collect, disseminate and interpret information.
Some fruitful work explored how processes of reifying economic, social
and political activity lead governments, elites and mass publics to
understand the world around them. For example, economic data regularly
influence public policy-making, and yet the process of categorizing
and accounting for economic activities reveals the necessity of
judgment and the use of prevailing social constructions for creating
meaningful categories. Recent work by scholars who emphasize the
influence of social constructions such as collective identities and
domestic and international norms of appropriate practices, suggest
that information is mediated by particular understandings of the
world. Economic sociologists and political scientists have examined
the cognitive frameworks that are necessarily employed when making
sense of myriad pieces of economic information. Market participants
themselves must attribute meaning to seemingly straightforward
concepts like budget deficits, inflation and rates of growth in
national output in making investment decisions, which in turn can have
self-fulfilling consequences for the sustainability of economic policy
stances.

Types of Fellowships

1) Postdoctoral Fellowships: Junior scholars who will have completed a
Ph.D. or equivalent by September 2011 and no earlier than September
2006. Stipend of up to $37,500.

2) Senior Fellowships: Senior scholars who have made a significant
contribution to the field and have completed a Ph.D. or equivalent by
September 2006 and hold an academic appointment. Stipend of up to
$25,250 to bring salary to full-time level.

3) Regional Fellowships: Senior scholars who have completed a Ph.D. or
equivalent by September 2006 or policy­makers, journalists, and
specialists. Citizens of Russia, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the
Caucasus may apply. Stipend of up to $45,500.

Scholars with outside or sabbatical funding who wish to be in
residence at the Davis Center in 2011-2012 should apply using the
fellowships application and indicate that they do not require Davis
Center funding.

Note that scholars whose work does not address the selected theme are
encouraged to apply for fellowships at the Davis Center, and that
their applications will receive full consideration.




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