CEELBAS Network Projects and Workshops 2010-11

Workshops & Projects 2007-8	Workshops & Projects 2008-9
Workshops & Projects 2009-10	Forthcoming Workshops & Projects

CN09CB-5: 'Can I See Your ID?' Personhood and Paperwork in and after the Soviet Union

Project Leader: Nikolai Ssorin-Chaikov
Institution: University of Cambridge
Workshop Report

This workshop brought together 12 speakers whose research has explored the social and affective lives of documents in and after the Soviet Union and addressed how issues of state security in the Former Soviet Union translate into the everyday politics of personal identity, informing policies and attitudes towards key contemporary social themes such as migration, citizenship, social inclusion and exclusion, and the modern city. It also brought a particular philosophical, historical and anthropological perspective to debates that have generally been dominated by political science and international relations. Further details of the workshop, including a detailed programme, can be found on the CRASSH website.

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CN09UL-2: Research ethics and the practicalities of doing fieldwork in Russia, Central and Eastern Europe

Project leader: Ulrike Ziemer
Institution: UCL
Workshop Report

The second CEELBAS postgraduate research ethics workshop brought together academics and research students within Russian and East European Studies to exchange ideas and experiences relating to ethical issues during and after fieldwork. Thirteen papers were heard and discussed, covering (1) ethics and researching migration; (2) ethical issues and research on fringe groups; (3) ethics and positionality in ethnographic research; (4) ethics, elites and interviews: in and after the field; (5) film, archives and research ethics. View workshop webpage.

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CN09SF-2: Between History and Past: Soviet Legacy as the Traumatic Object of Contemporary Russian Culture

Project Leader: Evgeny Dobrenko
Institution: University of Sheffield
Workshop Report

This interdisciplinary workshop focused on the role the historical imagination plays in shaping Russia’s contemporary political and cultural self. It was designed to further our understanding of the symbolic mechanisms driving Russian political imagination and to make better sense of the historical ideologies informing the political unconscious of contemporary Russia. View workshop programme. 

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CN09CB-4: Why Democracy for the Post-Socialist Societies?

Project Leader: David Lane
Institution: University of Cambridge
Workshop Report

Building upon the networks created by the previous CEELBAS-supported workshops on ‘International Elites and the Formation of Political Identity in Post Soviet Space’, this workshop examined the role of democracy promotion in the post-socialist states in the context of the post-1989 transformation from Party-led planned communist economies to a market type. Comparisons were made between central and east European societies which have moved concurrently to economic markets and types of pluralist polities, and Chinese developments which have been continuous and led to successful market reforms but are still at a stage when pluralistic competitive forms of participation are a major point of political discussion. Political, economic and social interests promoting and retarding movements to democracy were also discussed. View workshop booklet

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CN09OX-6: Privatisation in Russia 1991 - 1997: Decisions and Outcomes

Project Leader: Carol Leonard
Institution: University of Oxford
Conference Report

This conference explored a range of important and hotly-debated issues relating to privatisation in Russia over the period from 1991 to 1997, bringing a fresh assessment of its success and outcomes. Important and still controversial transition policies were reviewed, obtaining estimates of the policies and their impact from those who helped create them and from leading experts. assess The broader impact of privatisation on the population was assessed, as was place the Russian experience in the broader context of institutional and economic transformation. View conference webpage for further details.

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CN09UL-6: Reading Strategies for Postgraduates: the Finno-Ugric Interface 2 - Estonian element

Project Leader: Kristiina McCabe
Institution: UCL
Project Report

This project oversaw the production of Estonian word-frequency lexica, specifically designed for post-graduate students whose study pathways include Politics, Economics and Sociology. The process involved scanning 300,000 Estonian words (100,000 each on politics, finance/economics, and sociology) of recent text (newspaper articles and academic texts no older than 2007) in order to disseminate the most frequent nouns, verbs, compound verbs and verbal prefixes, the latter two of which are an inherent and integral part of the Estonian language. The lexica is now available for members of the CEELBAS network via the Language Repository.

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CN09MC-1: The Development of Online Materials Enhancing Oral Fluency in Polish

Project leader: Ewa Ochman
Institution: University of Manchester
Project Report

This project saw the production of two sets of online teaching materials which enabling students at Beginners and Intermediate levels of Polish to develop skills needed to communicate effectively in a wide range of situations and to enhance understanding of the social context in which language is being used. Each set of materials consists of 24 units designed to supplement current language instruction by providing a stimulus for a range of dynamic and communicative activities, including surveys, information gap tasks, interviews, role plays and cultural games. These materials are now available for members of the CEELBAS network via the Language Repository.

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CN09UL-5: Public Engagement and Knowledge Exchange Workshop: March 25th 2011

Project leader: Alena Ledeneva
Institution: UCL 

‘Excellence with Impact’: Language-Based Area Studies, Knowledge Exchange and Research Excellence

A joint workshop with the other LBAS Centres, highlighting the impact of the LBAS Initaitive and its significant achievements in knowledge exchange and user engagement. Discussion with senior figures from our Funders (HEFCE, SFC, ESRC, AHRC), knowldge exchange partners, area studies academics and experts addreesed some of the key challenges for the future and considered ways to define, measure and sustain research excellence and impact. Roundtable Report.

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CN09OX-1: Productive Language for Fieldwork Training: Russian

Project leader: Anna Pleshakova
Institution: University of Oxford
Project Report

This project used authentic radio interviews with Russian politicians, writers and journalists to create a set of language materials for advanced learners of Russian, focusing especially on the development of productive language for fieldwork. These materials address a real gap in the provision of contemporary, advanced-level resources for postgraduate students undertaking fieldwork or interviews in Russian, and have been designed for easy adaptation for use within VLE. The materials are now available to members of the CEELBAS network via the Language Repository.

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CN09WK-2: Rottenbeat: Academic and musical dialogue with new Russian punk: 3rd-5th May 2011

Project Leader: Hilary Pilkington
Institution: University of Warwick

This project linked an open academic-practitioner workshop on the contemporary Russian artistic ‘underground’ with live (not-for-profit) music performances by invited punk/avant-garde bands.

The project drew on the well-established international network of scholars from the ‘Doing Culture’ and ‘Situating Culture’ series of workshops funded by CEELBAS, and also involved a broad range of non-academic professionals such as music producers, journalists, cultural critics etc. Read full report.

Research Poster (click to enlarge)

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CN09UL-12: Russian Archive Training Scheme: April 2011

Project Leader: Polly Jones
Institution: UCL
Project Report

This well-established week-long doctoral archive-training workshop in Russia, organised via collaboration between CEELBAS, CRCEES and BASEES, consisted of guided tours of all the key archives and libraries of Moscow. Participants were then assisted with independent research into the archive and library catalogues, with the result that  by the end of the trip they were able to navigate around Moscow and to conduct research in the archives and libraries independently. In addition, the scheme helped to generate a sense of community between doctoral researchers from various UK institutions, who were also able to make the acquaintance of members of past cohorts currently researching in Moscow.  

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CN09SF-1: Materials for developing language skills for postgraduate students of Polish and Czech

Project leaders: Ludek Knittl and Karolina Ziolo
Institution: University of Sheffield
Project Report

This innovative project addressed the gap in language skills provision encountered by advanced students of Czech and Polish. Ten interactive web-based self-study units in each language were developed, incorporating authentic materials and virtual learning tools (Moodle and Hot Potatoes), and introducing language styles and registers of the respective languages that other textbooks either do not deal with at all or only mention briefly. Both sets of materials can be accessed through the Language Repository (free self-registration required for students outside the University of Sheffield).

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CN09UL-7: Communicative Ukrainian for fieldwork and research

Project Leader: Marta Jenkala
Institution: UCL
Project Report

This project produced a set of web-based research-relevant Ukrainian language materials, focusing primarily on comprehension and production of study- or fieldwork-related spoken Ukrainian to complement a Read Ukrainian! course produced previously. These open-access materials provide invaluable support for both teachers and students of Ukrainian, particularly given that there are very few (if any) Ukrainian language courses beyond beginners level which address the very specific needs of those undertaking research or fieldwork in the region. Both sets of materials can be accessed through the Language Repository.

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CN09UL-8: Reading Strategies for Postgraduates: The Finno-Ugric Interface 2 - Finnish and Hungarian elements

Project Leaders: Riitta-Liisa Valijarvi and Eszter Tarsoly
Institution: UCL
Project Report - Hungarian / Project Report - Finnish

Following on from the previous CEELBAS project to produce graded readers of Finnish and Hungarian for postgraduate students, this project 1) produced four more chapters for each graded reader, 2) continued testing the materials in practice in order to improve previously written chapters, and 3) investigated the different approaches used in the materials that teach postgraduate students to acquire reading skills. In addition to the materials development, an academic article on The Role of Linguistics in Language Teaching was published in the peer-reviewed The Language Learning Journal, and the project leaders presented a paper at the Languages for the 21st Century conference held in Sheffield on 1-2 September 2010 on methodological considerations of writing graded readers. Both sets of materials can be accessed through the Language Repository.

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CN09UL-9: Aural materials to support PG students’ Fieldwork: Serbian and Croatian

Project Leader: Jelena Calic
Institution: UCL
Project Report

This collection of audio and video materials contains over two hours of listening material with accompanying activities, exercises and background information. The special focus has been to enable postgraduate students and researchers to effectively and successfully conduct interviews. Additionally, the aim has been to enhance students’ knowledge about the region's culture, history and current social and political developments, the materials being comprised of samples from contemporary media in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia. The 14 interviews are divided into thematic blocks covering the topics most frequently researched by students (such as migration, human rights, culture, sport, politics/current affairs), and the materials have been designed in such a way that they can be simultaneously used as a self-study or teacher-supported resource. The materials are available through the Language Repository.

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CN09UL-10: Enhancing reading skills for Polish for research purposes

Project Leader: Dorota Holowiak
Institution: UCL
Project Report

The project explored new ways of enhancing reading comprehension skills in Polish and consequently equip ab initio students with a reading competence adequate to meeting the demands of thesis-writing. The interactive materials that were created within the project are arranged six self-study modules (available through the Language Repository), designed using authentic texts which offer a taste of journalistic writing in Polish. To support the overall enhancement and application of reading skills, the project has also produced a guide to the tasks, as well as mock-exams for each module.  

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CN09BH-2: Oral Russian for Fieldwork course materials

Project Leader: Cai Wilkinson
Institution: University of Birmingham
Project Report

This project produced a set of materials covering 12 topics to equip students with essential vocabulary and skills to effectively communicate information in a Russophone environment. Each topic is designed to provide 2 hours of materials for use in class, plus an additional 2-4 hours of self-study to consolidate the material. The materials as a whole are designed to be used in conjunction with the previously-developed CEELBAS-funded Intermediate Russian Aural for Fieldwork course, and add a directly practical aspect to the process of language learning that takes into account the realities of undertaking fieldwork and uses typical situations and scenarios to structure learning. Available through the Language Repository.

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CN09OX-7: Cognitive Linguistic Methods in Cultural Analysis: Interdisciplinary Perspective

Project Leader: Anna Pleshakova
Institution: University of Oxford
Workshop Report

Workshop to discuss cognitive linguistics as a promising theoretical foundation for interdisciplinary cultural research, specifically in the area of Russian and East European Studies (REES) and to promote an open dialogue between cognitive linguists, linguists and scholars from other humanities and social sciences fields interested in cultural research. View Full Report and download workshop materials.

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CN10SF-1: Victims of Stalinist Terror in Eastern Europe after Stalin

Project Leader: Miriam Dobson
Institution: University of Sheffield
Workshop Report

This network workshop in Sheffield brought together scholars from across Europe (UK, Bulgaria, Moldova, Hungary, Czech Republic, Latvia and France) to address our understanding of issues relating to the rehabilitation of victims of 'Stalinist' terror in the post-Stalinist era. The workshop encouraged lively and useful discussion concerning the historical and cultural dynamics of a wide range of East European states and regions, and successfully promoted new national and international research collaboration on this burgeoning theme in the historiography of post-war communist societies.

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CN10BH-1: Novelty and Endurance: Understanding Change and Stability in Central and East European Party Politics  

Project Leader: Tim Haughton
Institution: University of Birmingham
Workshop Report

Bringing together 15 scholars based in 8 different countries, this one-day workshop combined a focus on regional party politics with wider geographical expertise, addressing themes through a variety of different methodological approaches. It successfully generated new insights into patterns of change and continuity within the party politics of Central and Eastern Europe; showed how this can help illuminate the wider comparative study of party systems in young and established democracies; contributed to ongoing debates concerning the quality of democratic representation across the continent; and consolidated and expanded an active network of scholars combining in-depth country and cross-country expertise. View blogs by participants, Sean Hanley, Kevin Deegan-Krause and Andreas Johansson Heino, and the newly-formed Party Change Research Group facebook page.

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CN10BH-2: Genre in Contemporary Russian Culture

Project Leader: Natalia Rulyova
Institution: The University of Birmingham
Workshop Report

This one-day thematic and interdisciplinary workshop examined developments in our understanding of genre in the context of contemporary Russian culture, with participation from leading scholars in the fields of Russian prose, poetry, film, television and new media. The workshop successfully developed a new research cluster around this theme and created a welcome platform for the discussion of new and original approaches to genre in the digital age. It has also acted as a stepping-stone towards a major project proposal to apply genre studies approaches to the study of European cultures. View programme and abstracts of papers presented.

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