THE SOVIET OTHERWISE: AFFECTS, MARGINS, AND IMAGINARIES
IN THE LATE SOVIET ERA
Tallinn Summer School invites students to Estonia to study cultural-historical processes in the late Soviet Union and to study them “otherwise” – by way of less travelled paths for researching the period from the mid-1950s to the 1990s.
The years after Stalinism and before perestroika have been labelled in various ways – as “thaw” and “stagnation”, as “really existing”, as “mature” or “late” socialism. While studies of the Soviet era have generally moved on from totalitarian and revisionist paradigms towards more complex analytical approaches, the social and cultural complexities and pluralities of the period call for constant innovation in understanding the period. Indeed, the controversies, contingencies and legacies of the last decades of the USSR have resisted a simple overarching theory. Recent interest in the postwar processes of modernization in the West, concern with the prehistories of deregulation and globalisation, but also the ongoing events in Ukraine and the world, and the rise of right-wing movements — all these give us new comparative contexts for revisiting and studying the diverse histories of the Soviet Union.
At the 2019 Tallinn Summer School, we aim to bring together leading scholars and PhD students who are interested in discussing and studying the Soviet otherwise and considering some of its continuing ramifications in the post-Soviet era. We propose to consider the Soviet “otherwise” in at least two ways. First, we invite students to touch upon the unspeakable, silenced, and marginalized in late Soviet society: people, deeds, and thoughts, but also feelings, moods and sensations that caused cultural discomfort or embarrassment, or were taken as insignificant, trivial, or too intimate for inclusion in the sphere of open social discourse. Second, we invite students to explore research methodologies that are still new or little explored in the context of Soviet studies. We look for research agendas that pursue dialogue with various strands of critical theory, including (but not limited to) affect studies, postcolonial studies, new materialism, gender and queer studies. The main focus of the summer school will be on the late Soviet period, but we also welcome approaches to the post-Soviet era that are interested in continuities between the late and the post.
This course provides students with methodological and practical knowledge on innovative perspectives and approaches to the period of late socialism. It is designed to build up both analytical and practical skills, consisting of an intense series of plenary lectures and seminars and combining macro-level discussions with case studies and student workshops.
FACULTY
The faculty combine local and international scholars from the fields of cultural history, post-colonial studies, the history of Soviet identities, everyday studies, urban studies, media studies, the study of local elites, visual culture studies, and other related fields.
Faculty include Anne Gorsuch (U of British Columbia), Serguei Oushakine (Princeton U) and Jonathan Flatley(Wayne State U) as keynote speakers.
The following international faculty have also confirmed their participation: Rasa Balockaite (Vytautas Magnus U), David Ilmar Beecher (U of California, Berkeley), Natalya Chernyshova (U of Winchester), Alissa Klots (European U at St. Petersburg), Neringa Klumbyte (Miami U), Diane Koenker (UCL SSEES), Aro Velmet (U of Southern California and Oxford U), Zbigniew Wojnowski (U of Roehampton).
TIMETABLE
TBC
COURSE HISTORY
The last Tallinn Summer School course on late socialism took place in 2015 and gathered 50 PhD students and 20 academics, including Catriona Kelly, Juliane Fürst and Polly Jones as keynote speakers. See also the 2015 programme and some photos.
PARTICIPANTS
The course is designed for PhD students in the Humanities and Social Sciences, but highly motivated and prepared MA students and non-degree scholars are also welcome to apply. Participants should have an upper-intermediate command of English as this will be the language of instruction. Students are expected to do some preparatory reading in order to participate in the seminars and workshops.
Students will have the option of presenting their own research during the student colloquia.
To apply, please register and complete the 300-500 word personal motivation statement. Your personal statement should include the short information of your CV and your research interests. In addition, please provide a title and short description for your student presentation (if applicable).
The registration opens on 01 February 2019 and will close on 30 April 2019. Notices of course admission will be emailed on a rolling basis. Applicants who require an early decision should contact the organisers.
CREDIT POINTS
Students should inform the organisers about their wish to acquire credit points while registering in the course. Students are evaluated on pass/fail basis.
– Upon full and active participation in the summer school, together with a student presentation, students can be awarded 3 ECTS.
– Upon full and active participation in the summer school, together with a student presentation and submission of a 3000-word final essay (deadline: 01 Sept 2019), students can be awarded 6 ECTS.
For more information click "LINK TO ORIGINAL" below.
This opportunity has expired. It was originally published here:
http://summerschool.tlu.ee/the-soviet-otherwise/