CBEES Annual Conference 2020

We would like to explore this question alongside other aspects of enduring imperial pasts, with regards to the histories, politics, economics, and cultures of the region. How do these imperial sediments affect social, political, and cultural relations? How are they embedded in media and communication technologies? What kind of appeal does the term “empire” now have and to what ends it is being invoked? Are there different histories, mythologies, and memories to be told, as opposed to national instrumentalizations of history?

With the emphasis on ruptures, continuities, echoes, reproductions, and other forms of endurance, the conference suggests bringing both local dimensions and global entanglements with regards to imperial histories and imperial afterlives into consideration. We are interested in durabilities, mutations, translations, migrations, reciprocities, and coexistence across time and space.

The conference welcomes empirically and theoretically informed discussions that address manifestations—hidden or apparent—of imperial endurances in:

• nature and culture interactions, environments and commodities, production and consumption;
• economies and technologies;
• ethnic, social, political, and religious solidarities and identifications;
• ideologies and politics;
• transfers of knowledge, ideas and information;
• international relations and security;
• imageries, memory, and heritage;
• minorities and diasporas, dialects and languages;
• artistic expressions.

Proposals should include the full title, a brief abstract (400–500 words). Please submit your proposal here.

Participation in the conference is free of charge. For accepted participants, the organisers will provide accommodation during the conference (two nights), as well as some meals.

Michael Khodarkovsky is a Professor of History at Loyola University Chicago. He specializes in the history of the Russian empire, with a broader interest in comparative imperial and colonial history. His books include Russia’s 20th century: A Journey in 100 Histories (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019), Bitter Choices: Loyalty and Betrayal in the Russian Conquest of the North Caucasus (Cornell University Press, 2011), and Russia’s Steppe Frontier: The Making of a Colonial Empire, 1500-1800 (Indiana University Press, 2002).

Klaus Richter is a Senior Lecturer in Eastern Europe at the University of Birmingham and Director of the Birmingham Research Institute for History and Cultures (BRIHC). His scholarly interests include, among others, the history of nationalism, ethnic conflict, and displacement. He is the author of Fragmentation in East Central Europe: Poland and the Baltics, 1915-1929 (Oxford University Press, 2020) and Antisemitismus in Litauen: Christen, Juden und die ‘Emanzipation’ der Bauern, 1889-1914 (Metropol, 2013).

Professor Mark Bassin
Associate Professor Tora Lane
Associate Professor Per-Anders Rudling
Dr. Julia Malitska
Dr. Oleksandr Polianichev
Dr. Kirill Kozhanov.