CEELBAS Network Projects & Workshops 2007-8

Workshops & Projects 2008-9	Workshops & Projects 2010-11
Workshops & Projects 2009-10	Forthcoming Workshops & Projects

CN07MC-3: Networks and Hierarchies in the Soviet Provinces

Project leader: Professor Yoram Gorlizki
Institution: University of Manchester

This international interdisciplinary workshop arose from a large ESRC-funded project, held by Yoram Gorlizki, on "Networks and Hierarachies in the Soviet Provinces". The purpose of this workshop was twofold: Firstly to present draft papers arising from the project, as well as papers by other participants working on related themes, to a group of international specialits from a variety of disciplines. Secondly to share information and materials with other workshop participants.

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CN07SF-1: Russian for Research

Project leader: Dr. Susan Reid
Institution: University of Sheffield
Project report and presentation by James Wilson

This project aimed to research the need and market for a Russian for Research programme and to develop appropriate teaching materials, with special emphasis on distance learning. The programme is aimed at graduate students studying Russian history, culture or politics with little or no knowledge of Russian, allowing them to comprehend Russian texts that are essential to their research. The principal activities were to identify the specific requirements of graduate students within the CEELBAS Consortium by liaising with member institutions and to develop an effective methodology for delivering a course aimed at achieving competence in reading original texts.

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CN07BH-1: Beyond Europeanization? The (Non-) Impact of the EU on Party Politics in Central and Eastern Europe

Project leader: Dr Tim Haughton
Institution: University of Birmingham
Workshop report

This workshop brought together academics and doctoral students from the CEELBAS network, leading young scholars from the region, distinguished experienced scholars who have worked both comparatively on the domestic politics of the region and on broader themes of Europeanization. Through the presentation of a mixture of comparative and country-based papers this workshop examined the impact of EU membership on domestic party politics in a series of East-Central European cases.

Publication: Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Volume 25, Issue 4, 2009 -  Special Issue: Does EU Membership Matter? Party Politics in Central and Eastern Europe?

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CN07UL-3: Psychoanalysis in Central and Eastern Europe and Russia, 1900 to the present

Project leader: Dr. Tim Beasley-Murray
Institution: UCL
Workshop report

Drawing together leading scholars in the fields of literature and the arts, cultural and intellectual history, the history of medicine, as well as practitioners of psychoanalysis, this workshop initiated a series of research events focused on exploring the impact of psychoanalysis on cultural, political and academic life in Central and Eastern Europe and Russia. This workshop was unique and ground-breaking in its construction of a synoptic view of psychoanalysis in the context of both Russia/the Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe (Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and their successor states, Hungary, Poland/Romania).

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CN07UL-2: The ‘urban’ and ‘rural’ in present-day Bulgaria

Project leader: Dr. Ger Duijzings
Institution: UCL
Workshop report

The aim of this workshop was to investigate current social, economic, cultural developments in Bulgaria, from an interdisciplinary but primarily anthropological perspective, mainly through the prism of urban-rural relations. It focused on the ways in which the ‘urban’ and ‘rural’ have been reconfigured after 1989, both in terms of social and economic change, as well as in political, ideological, and cultural terms (such as in literature and cinema). The focus was also on how these changes continue to affect realities in cities and the countryside now Bulgaria is part of the EU.

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CN07OX-3: Russia Beyond 2008

Project leader: Dr. Christopher Davis
Institution: University of Oxford
Conference report

Russia’s post-communist transition will enter a new phase when Vladimir Putin steps down as the country’s president. Uncertainty about Vladimir Putin’s political role after 2008 continues to shape political developments in Russia, and the solution of this problem will have major consequences for Russia’s social, economic and political development, as well as its relationship with the rest of the world. In this one-day conference, the impact of Putin’s presidency on Russia’s post-Soviet transformation was assessed and the likely consequences of the presidential succession evaluated.

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CN07OX-2: CEELBAS Postgraduate Conference

Project leader: Dr. Christopher Davis
Institution: University of Oxford

This interdisciplinary, one-day graduate event was designed for Masters’-level students from the CEELBAS core partner (Oxford-REES, UCL-SSEES and Birmingham-CREES) and network institutions (Bath, Cambridge, Kent, Manchester, Sheffield, SOAS and Warwick) to discuss recent developments in the study of Russia and Eastern Europe and in the training of postgraduate students in this field. The conference, organised by CEELBAS PDRFs and postgraduate students, provided students from across the CEELBAS institutions with a unique opportunity to meet, to set the agenda for discussion, and gain experience in presenting their ideas.

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CN07WK-1: ‘Doing culture’: a series of thematic workshops

Project leader: Professor Hilary Pilkington
Institution: Warwick, Sheffield, Manchester
Project report

This series of three workshops entitled ‘Whose culture? Exploring the active audience’, ‘Orality, Technology and the “Narratisation” of Everyday Life’ and ‘Transnormative cultures: Politics, protest and punk’, brought together academics, artistic producers and commentators who share an understanding of music, art, performance etc in (post)socialist societies as a set of everyday cultural practices. 

The workshops develpoped the participants' concerns to develop more sophisticated understandings of the slippery boundaries between cultural production and consumption, audience and artist, 'official' and 'unofficial' art, political engagement and disengagement, 'independent' and 'commercial' art, ‘high’ and ‘popular’ culture, written and oral narratives.

Publications: The Russian Review, Volume 69, Issue 2:
Hilary Pilkington, 'No Longer “On Parade”: Style and the Performance of Skinhead in the Russian Far North'
Dan Healey, 'Active, Passive, and Russian: The National Idea in Gay Men's Pornography'

Research Poster (click to enlarge):

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CN07UL-1: Workshops on Romania and Moldova

Project leader: Professor Dennis Deletant
Institution: UCL
February 2008 Workshop Programme and Report
July 2008 Conference: Cluj-Napoca, Romania - Report

Romania’s membership of the EU formally and finally reversed its political consignment at the end of the Second World War to the Soviet sphere of influence – with the attendant social and cultural development of the Union. The EU’s acceptance of Romania is widely regarded as a leap of faith. How justified is this view? While discussion of the impact of Romania’s admission on Romania and the EU itself has focused on the economic and political dimension, little attention has been paid to the synchronization of behaviour and an acceptance of shared values which are implicit in respect for the acquis communautaire. The aim of the Romanian-Moldovan Studies Group is to assess how far Romania has come since 1990 in adjusting to these particular implications of the acquis.

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CN07MC-4: The Development of Language Materials for Postgraduate Students of Russian Media

Project leader: Professor Stephen Hutchings
Institution: University of Manchester
Project report

The aim of this project was to produce two sets of teaching materials which will enable students at Intermediate and Advanced levels of Russian to develop the skills needed to glean and assess key information from Russian media texts (written and audio-visual) and to develop sensitivity to the sociolinguistic and political contexts in which the texts are disseminated. These materials will be made available for use in other contexts, including partner institutions within CEELBAS.

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CN07SF-2: Modern Russian History and Culture: Northern Discussion Group

Project leader: Dr. Miriam Dobson
Institution: University of Sheffield
Workshop report

This workshop on 'identities and solidarities' was held at the University of Sheffield on 11 April 2008. The Northern Discussion Group aims to provide a forum for informal debate and exchange and this topic was broadly construed to allow contributions from a range of disciplines. Nearly 20 scholars were present and engaged in a fruitful discussion around papers presented by two postgraduates.

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CN07SO-1: Population Movements and Migratory Flows in Post-Soviet Eurasia

Project leader: Dr. Bhavna Dave
Institution: SOAS
Workshop report

Over the past decade, a growing number of Central Asians, particularly from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, as well as from the Caucasus, have begun to fill in the various labour niches in Russia, and increasingly, in Kazakhstan. Oil-generated growth is turning Kazakhstan, a former Soviet periphery and a settler colony, into an attractive destination for migrant workers from the neighbouring Central Asian region, and also from the Middle East and South Asia. These new population movements resemble the migratory patterns seen across the globe. This workshop provided a forum for scholars from Central Asia and Russia to share a multidisciplinary academic environment with scholars in the UK and facilitated a wide-ranging discussion on this topic.

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CN07KT-1: Europe and Beyond: Developments and Dilemmas

Project leader: Amelia Hadfield
Institution: University of Kent
Roundtable report

The Energy Analysis Group of the University of Kent was established in 2006 as a thematic and multi-disciplinary group of British academics who will meet regularly to present their research on European energy security, discuss research methods, network with area specialists, and discuss innovation in teaching methods. This two-day roundtable on European Energy Politics examined issues dominating the current policy and research agendas; explored future problems and possible solutions for the European energy sector; and identified areas of potential research collaboration between British academics. View further event details.

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CN07BT-1: Temporary Migration and Community Cohesion: the Nature and Impact of Migration from East-Central to Western Europe

Project leader: Anne White
Institution: University of Bath
Workshop report

This workshop explored East-West migration from a range of postcommunist European countries, both within and outside the European Union, to a range of destinations in Western and Southern Europe. Attention was paid to both sending and receiving communities.

Focusing on particular groups of migrants and particular places, the papers presented at the workshop explored the links between 'temporariness' and community cohesion. View further event details.

Publication: Europe-Asia Studies, Volume 60, Issue 9, 2008 - Special Section: 'Temporary Migration and Community Cohesion: The Nature and Impact of Migration from East-Central to Western Europe'

Polish Migration Website and Network - University of Bath

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CN07CB-3: The 'Coloured' Revolutions: Causes, Processes and Consequences

Project leader: David Lane
Institution: University of Cambridge
Workshop report and working papers

A contemporary political phenomenon has been the occurrence in post-Soviet space of democratic 'revolutions', inspired by Western democratic models and supported, to varying degrees, by Western funded non-governmental organizations.

Unlike traditional revolutions, these have the distinctive character of being supported by, if not led and financed from, external sources. The aim of this workshop was to discuss the phenomenon of 'coloured' revolutions: their origin, processes and to evaluate their success and failure from a political and sociological point of view.

Publication: Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Volume 25, Issue 2-3, 2009 - Special Issue: Rethinking the ‘Coloured Revolutions'

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CN07MC-2: Media Research Methodologies Workshop and Web Forum

Project leader: Professor Stephen Hutchings, Dr. Natalya Rulyova
Institution: University of Manchester, University of Birmingham
Activity report

A one-day workshop on media research methodologies was held at the University of Birmingham on 28 March 2008. Presentation topics included: television audience research among post-Soviet young people, researching the Russian-language internet, Russian television news and politics, researching Russian radio and researching the Ukrainian media. CEELBAS funding also supported the establishment and maintenance of a web forum onto which recordings of the workshop contributions will be uploaded as part of a larger, longer-term initiative in post-Soviet media research.

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CN07CB-2: The Politics of Literature in Contemporary Russia/Russian Cuture in European Context

Project leader: Dr. Hubertus Jahn, Professor Andrei Zorin
Institution: University of Cambridge, University of Oxford
Workshop report

Two interdiscipinary thematic workshops were held in March 2008. The aim of the workshops was twofold: First, to assess recent developments in the relationship between literature and politics in Russia as well as changes within the field of Russian literature itself, in particular the changing nature of publishing and the political responsibility of writers (or lack thereof) in society. Second, to gauge the European dimensions of Russian culture, in particular the mutual exchanges and influences in literature over a longer period of time, with their effects both in Russia and in Europe.

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CN07MC-1: The Public and Private in Communist and Post-Communist Russia and Eastern Europe

Project leader: Dr. Lynne Attwood
Institution: University of Manchester
Project report

The Centre for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies at the University of Manchester hosted a series of thematic seminars on the subject of the public and private in Russia, Central and Eastern Europe. In relation to communist and post-communist Eastern Europe, exploration of this theme has only recently begun. Linked to the CEELBAS priority research area 'Identities and Solidarities', the series indicated to audiences the enormous range of research projects which can be undertaken on the subject of the public and private in Russia, Central and Eastern Europe.

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CN07OX-1: Language Workshop

Project leader: Dr. Robin Aizlewood, Dr. Jan Fellerer, Dr. Robert Vanderplank
Institution: UCL, University of Oxford
Workshop report

The workshop, held at Wolfson College Oxford, brought together language teaching specialists from across the CEELBAS network, with invited outside participants, to share information on language training for research (provision, syllabus, delivery) with a view to: identifying a convergence of the syllabus and sharing of practice, discussing the potential for innovation/development in modes of delivery, and mapping skills/competence against existing frameworks.

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CN07CB-1: Cultural Memory in Russia: Interdisciplinary Approaches

Project leader: Dr. Aleksandr Etkind
Institution: University of Cambridge
Workshop report

The Department of Slavonic Studies at the University of Cambridge held a one-day workshop in collaboration with the Moscow journal and publishing house Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie. The workshop explored interdisciplinary methods and practices in elucidating a contemporary revision of Russian cultural memory, with regard to genre, cultural material, political functions, and social agents. View workshop programme.

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