CEELBAS Network Projects & Workshops 2009-10

Workshops & Projects 2007-8	Workshops & Projects 2008-9
Workshops & Projects 2010-11	Forthcoming Workshops & Projects

CN09CB-2 Russia on Edge: Reclaiming the Periphery in Contemporary Russian Culture

Project leader: Dr Emma Widdis
Institution: University of Cambridge
Workshop report

Addressing a common theme that emerged in the course of a seminar series hosted by Cambridge's Study Group on Contemporary Russian Culture, this one-and-a-half day international workshop examined recent shifts in cultural focus from Russia's political centre to its spatial and social periphery.

Looking at contemporary Russian culture from a trans-disciplinary perspective, speakers and panels on a wide range of topics, including literature / language, fashion, ethnography, new media, contemporary art, gay culture, and contemporary film, critically examined traditional views of centre and periphery. Further details, programme and abstracts are available on the conference website.

Publication: Studies in Eastern European Thought special issue on 'Russia on Edge' (Vol. 63, Issue 2, May 2011)

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CN09CB-1 International Elites and the Formation of Political Identity in Post Soviet Space

Project leader: Dr David Lane
Institution: University of Cambridge

The first of these two workshops outlined domestic and external influences on identity formation. Papers addressed the ways in which internationalization of economics and politics interact with domestic interests to shape national identity: view report , programme / abstracts and list of participants.

The second workshop concentrated on external influences on personal and state identity. It took into account the role of globalization (global and regional companies and political institutions) and the role of global/international elites in the formation of pacts and alliances and in the formation of national and cross-national identities. The eight papers presented at the workshop are all available electronically on the CEELBAS website. View workshop report.

Together the two workshops have encouraged the formation of a network of postgraduate students and early-career and established academics working on current macro socio-political changes in post-communist countires. 

Publication: Europe-Asia Studies special issue on 'Elites and Identities in Post-Soviet Space' (Vol. 63, Issue 6, August 2011)

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CN09UL-1 Archive-training Workshop in Russia

Project leader: Dr Polly Jones
Institution: UCL
Workshop report

This 8-day visit to Moscow enabled 11 PhD students from a range of CEELBAS and other UK universities to gain invaluable, hands-on research training in Russian archives. Daily researcher-led visits to Moscow’s main libraries and all the major state and party archives have given the workshop participants the practical and methodological expertise to conduct their research effectively on the longer independent research trips they are planning in academic year 2010/11. The trip has also helped to generate a sense of community between doctoral researchers from across the UK.

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CN08OX-2 Beyond Nationalism?: 20th Century East-Central European Cultural Processes

Project leader: Dr Robert Pyrah
Institution: University of Oxford
Workshop Report

This international workshop aimed to open new research vistas on the theme of East-Central European 'cultural processes' by engaging an international, trans-generational group of leading scholars and young researchers pursuing innovative work in the field of history, cultural history/studies, and comparative artistic/literary studies. The workshop was hosted by the highly regarded L'viv Center for Urban History of East-Central Europe in L'viv, Ukraine. View detailed report on the workshop by Dr. Pyrah. A report (in Ukrainian) was also publioshed in the journal Krytyka.

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CN09WK-1 Midlands Russia Seminars

Project Leader: Mark Harrison
Institution: University of Warwick
Seminars Report

This series consisted of four multidisciplinary seminars, attended by both academics and postgraduate students, held at the University of Birminham and the University of Warwick. The series continued the tradition of high-level seminar discussion on Russia in the midlands fostered by a similar inititative in 2008 (view details). Further information and  can be found on the seminar series' webpage.

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CN09BT-1 Contemporary Russia: Sources of Stability and Change

Project leader: Rosalind Marsh
Institution: University of Bath
Workshop Report

This workshop brought together leading international scholars, research users, academics and PhD students from the CEELBAS network and other UK universities in different areas of contemporary Russian Studies to discuss the achievements and problems of Russia in 2010, more than ten years after Yeltsin’s resignation on New Year’s Eve, 1999. The sources of stability and change in Russia’s new order were examined from a number of different perspectives – socio-political, economic, cultural, and linguistic – and an attempt was made to assess what future developments may be expected to emerge. 

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CN09OX-3 Postgraduate Conference: Russia and Eastern Europe in the
21st Century: Looking Back, Looking Forward

Project Leader: Christopher Davis
Institution: University of Oxford
Conference Report

This conference presented a chance to share the research work of the CEELBAS partner universities and the CEELBAS affiliated universities, and to discuss opportunities for careers development. Further details available here.

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CN09BH-1 New Media in New Europe-Asia

Project leader: Dr Natalia Rulyova
Institution: University of Birmingham
Workshops Report

These two linked workshops explored the new media phenomenon and its landscape; they encouraged a range of qualitative and quantitative approaches to the study of new media and digital technologies in Russia, Eurasia and Central Europe, and took themes raised at other CEELBAS workshops on situating culture and explored them further. View workshop website for more details. A further report is available in the online journal Digital Icons.

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CN09KT-1 2009-2010 EAG Lecture Series in European Energy Security

Project leader: Dr Amelia Hadfield
Institution: University of Kent
Workshops Report

These three workshops brought together CEELBAS representatives and other Language-Based Area Studies colleagues with researchers and practitioners dealing with energy security. A total of six panel sessions were held covering key trends in the academic-policy community, the business community and global isues, with the audiences comprising academics, postgraqduate students and members of Kent's own Energy Analysis Group, as well as national and European policy makers and think tank researchers.

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CN09OX-4 Recent Developments in the Post-Soviet Media Landscape: Ukraine, Belarus and Russia

Project leader: Galina Miazhevich
Institution: University of Oxford

The aims of the workshop, held at the Rothermere American Institute (RAI), were three-fold: 1) to question the transferability of the concept of ‘globalised democracy’ to the post-Soviet media, 2) to explore the intersection of new and traditional media in post-Soviet space and 3) to provide the grounds for a critical reflection on the interaction between media, politics and culture in the three selected states, focusing in particular on how developments in the Ukrainian and Belarusian media systems reflect, resist, interact with and differ from those in Russia. Involving leading international academics dealing with the media in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, as well as practising journalists/media analysts from the region and from the West, the workshop facilitated a dialogue between academics and practitioners, and between 'East' and 'West', helping to identify the underlying logic driving post-Soviet media transformations, and to project those transformations into the future. A workshop summary, including audio recordings of the presentations, is now available on the RAI website. A further report is available in the online journal Digital Icons.

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