Summer Institute for Sexualities, Cultures and Politics, Skopje, 13-18 August‏

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS

SUMMER INSTITUTE FOR SEXUALITIES, CULTURES, AND POLITICS:

QUEERNESS, COMMUNITY, AND CAPITAL:
TOWARDS NEW ALLIANCES OF THE POLITICAL

(August 13-18, Skopje, Macedonia)


organized by

Institute for Social Sciences and Humanities “Euro-Balkan”
(Skopje, Macedonia)
in cooperation with
Faculty for Media and Communications at Singidunum University
(Belgrade, Serbia)


CONFIRMED LECTUERS:

• David M. Halperin (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA)
• Jelisaveta Blagojević (Singidunum University, Belgrade, Serbia)
• Marina Gržinić (Slovenian Academy of Science and Art, Ljubljana, Slovenia / Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, Austria)
• Jamie Heckert (University of Essex, UK)

COURSES OFFERED:

• Queerness, the Political, and Community (Lecturers: David M. Halperin, Jelisaveta Blagojević)
• (Queer) Arts, Culture, and Resistance (Lecturer: Marina Gržinić))
• Queering the General Strike and the Occupation (Lecturer: Jamie Heckert)


ELIGIBILITY AND FEE
Participants should be postgraduate students from the Region of the Balkans: preferably MA, PhD student or young researchers) interested in exploring the issues of Gender, Queer, Cultural Studies, Visual Arts and Humanities and/or activism, and related subjects and disciplines, as well as artists, curators, cultural workers, activists and practitioners from various domains. Participants from all countries are eligible to participate.

TUITION FEES

• 60 euro (includes: full time attendance, certificate, coffe breaks, welcome dinner, reading materials, use of library, free internet, social events; ECTS not included; only students from Euro-Balkan institute and Singidunum University can obtain 3 ECTS upon successful completion of the school)


APPLICATION
Send your application as soon as possible! Deadline: August 2, 2012

Download application form<http://euba.edu.mk/tl_files/Dokumenti/Bilten/Application%20Summer%20Institute%202012%20-%20SUMMER%20INSTITUTE%20FOR%20SEXU
ALITIES,%20CULTURES%20AND%20POLITICS.doc> at our website: http://euba.edu.mk/details-ohrid-summer-university/items/summer-institute-for-sexualities-cultures-and-politics.html

Send your application to: spanayotov@gmail.com<mailto:spanayotov@gmail.com>, slavco.euba@gmail.com<mailto:slavco.euba@gmail.com>

FORMAT
a) Intensive lectures
b) Afternoon seminars
c) Presentations by participants

ACCOMMODATION
Admitted particiants are to organize individually their accommodation. However, the organizers will provide assistance and advice in doing so.

SUMMER INSTITUTE DESCRIPTION

The Summer Institute for Sexualities, Cultures, and Politics is a new permanent project initiated by the Department for Gender Studies at the Institute for Social Sciences and Humanities “Euro-Balkan”, Skopje, Macedonia.

The general aim of the Institute is to gather young post-graduate students, scholars and teaching staff from both Eastern and Western Europe and promote a shared platform for research and trans-disciplinary theoretical reflection on the complex modes of interweaving sexuality, culture and politics, and consequently of exchanging and questioning geopolitically determined discourses in the research of sexualities, gender studies, and queer theory. Our idea is to provide students, scholars and teachers with the opportunity to question, decenter and democratize these areas by way of deferring the notion of theoretical and geopolitical privilege which is often implied by these research areas, and thus to introduce new models of rethinking context-specific phenomena related to sexualities and, vice versa, to enrich theoretical paradigms with context specific phenomena and research.

In this way, the Institute’s long-term goal is to

(1) strategically stimulate the particularization and application of key ideas and theories in sexuality research locally, and to

(2) universalize and popularize crucial and underprivileged positions and ideas on the European level, regardless of the East/West divide which is still central to the development of queer theory and sexuality research.

Our endeavor is not to relativize the embeddedness and situatedness of knowledges about sexualities, but to recognize and disrupt the existing invisible borders that obstruct the free dissemination of ideas as they are being determined by various hegemonic forces – political, educational, economic - in both Eastern and Western contexts of doing academic and artistic work related with our desires, bodies, and sexualities.

The theme of the 2012 Summer Institute for Sexualities, Cultures, and Politics is:

“Queerness, Community, and Capital: Towards New Alliances of the Political”

In its first and founding activity in Summer 2012, The Institute for Sexualities, Cultures, and Politics aims at exploring and reflecting on the complex entanglements of queer theories and practices, the Political, and cultures. We will provide space to radically question the hegemonic regimes of political communities’ institutions/sustenance, as well as the global and regional regimes of thinking neo-liberal forces. Hence, the Institute’s goal is to trace the multiple pathways through which queerness enters or exits the political projects of community constitution, in its various forms: revived nationalisms, communism’s legacy and the European community, on the one hand, and the global neo-liberal markets’ imperatives and their consequent commodification of identities and processes of de-democratization and de-politicization.
Further, departing from such a research framework, the Institute aims towards re-visioning the dominant forms of queer political struggles and strategies of resistance; also, we want to investigate what are the possibilities stemming from queerness and its already existing political embodiments and specific historical experiences? What opportunities there are in various geopolitical contexts to rethink our shared and general categories of politics, resistance, and community?
Thus, by investigating these multiple entanglements, the Institute will be the host of critical and in-depth analyses of the position queer struggles have in the wider context of struggles for social justice, economic redistribution and human rights, and will provoke discussions about the possibility of envisioning and enacting political alliances beyond the narrow boundaries of identity politics and the exclusionary logic and division of recognition and redistribution. Last but not least, we will particularly raise the question how the political influence of queer is being neutralized or re-radicalized in existing and allegedly queer-friendly political settings?
In the course of 18 days, the wide specter of topics that the Institute covers, are to be organized into a programme structured on the grounds of four major subjects. Each programme section includes morning lectures held by prominent scholars from Europe and SEE, reading seminars, joint discussions and participants’ presentations.


Slavco Dimitrov

Activist, Researcher and Teaching Assistant (Hyperactivist and Hyperpessimist)
Tel: ++389 72 519 006

Conference: The Balkan Wars (1912-1913), A Conference to Mark the 100th Anniversary, Oxford, 17-18 October 2012‏

UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

THE BALKAN WARS (1912-13)
A CONFERENCE TO MARK THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY
Sponsored by the John Fell Fund and the University of Oxford

Modern European History Research Centre

Wednesday 17th and Thursday 18th October 2012

Rees Davies Room ~ Faculty of History ~ George Street ~ Oxford

ALL WELCOME
HOWEVER NUMBERS ARE LIMITED ~ TO RESERVE A PLACE PLEASE CONTACT
tom.buchanan@conted.ox.ac.uk james.pettifer@history.ox.ac.uk jane.cunning@history.ox.ac.uk

This conference will mark the anniversary of a formative event in the modern history of
Europe and open up fresh avenues for reflection on how these conflicts affected the subsequent development of Yugoslavia and the Balkans.
It will thus assist clear thought about the ways in which the historical legacy affects
the present in a troubled region of Europe

Speakers to include:
Keynote Speaker: Sabrina Ramet (Trondheim) ~ Robert Pichler (Graz) ~ Bernd J Fischer (Indiana)
Biljana Vankovska (Skopje) ~ Christian Promitzer (Graz) ~ Michael Llewellyn Smith (Oxford)
Helen Katsiadakis (Athens) ~ Nada Boskovska (Zurich) ~ Eric Weaver (Debrecen)

Conference: Collective Identity and Practices of Citizenship in Postcommunism, University of Wroclaw, 22-23 February 2013‏

CfP: Collective Identity and Practices of Citizenship in Postcommunism,
22-23 FEB 2013
University of Wroclaw, Poland

Large number of postcommunist countries have undergone institution and state building since the start of democratic transition. These have affected issues regarding formal citizenship, but have practices of citizenship changed? The conference invites interested scholars to reflect on dynamics in practices of citizenship across postcommunist states.

We are specifically interested in comparative studies of societies that saw practices of citizenship changing since early 1990s as a result of border changes (including territorial adjustment and dissolution of socialist federations), population dynamics (both demographic, as a result of in and out migration, and resettlement after warfare) and amendments to their citizenship regimes (issuing passports to an ethnic kin folk and provisions for extraterritorial citizenship).

The conference calls on participants to reflect on the impact such structural factors have had on comparative developments in practices of citizenship across postcommunist region. Departing from the discussion on the concept of citizenship (e.g. T.H. Marshal, W. Kymlicka), its contemporary relevance (e.g. Y. Soysal, D. Miller) and its application in Central and Eastern Europe during democratic transition (e.g. R. Brubaker, M.M. Howard), we are particularly interested in contrastive analyses of continuities and changes in practices (political participation, civic education, community activities) related to formal criteria defining citizenry (citizenship status, passport).

Our focus on practices of citizenship opens the door to consideration of the role civic education plays across the region in framing citizenries during and after democratic transition. Papers reflecting on the role of formal and informal education, cooperation between individuals through social, political and cultural networks are particularly welcome. We are also interested in ways the extant social, political and cultural practices are translated into individual and group activities as practices of active citizenship. Papers relating to these issues might reflect on policies of education and policy initiatives emphasising actions of civil society. All of the above topics could reflect upon domestic, regional and European dynamics of citizen empowerment to make sense of singular initiatives, local practices and case by case interpretations of personal engagement as citizens.

Selection of key issues to be discussed:

X Conceptual and theoretical changes of focus in understanding the post-communist citizenship

X Institutional/legal developments of citizenship in the post-communist countries with a focus on controversies

X The role of transformation processes for the citizenship practices in those countries

X Practices of citizenship and social coherence in the countries in question

X Citizenship and civic education (the role of the education system vis-à-vis citizenship)

X Post-communist citizenship and nationalism (Is there a ‘crisis of the hyphen’ in post-communist countries?)

X Power and citizenship in the post-communist countries (the role ofinequality and class stratification)

X The impact of external actors such as the Russian Federation, the U.S. or the EU on the citizenship practices in post-communist countries

Please submit your paper proposal to the organisers, via http://www.conferencepro.eu/citizenship

If you have any additional queries, please get in touch with us:
Prof. Ireneusz Pawel Karolewski, Willy Brandt Center for German and European Studies, University of Wroclaw & University of Potsdam (karolewski@wbz.uni.wroc.pl) Dr Timofey Agarin, Queen’s University Belfast (t.agarin@qub.ac.uk )

Timeline:
Abstract submission: by September 30 2012 Authors invited to attend the conference will be notified by October 15 2012 First draft submission: by January 31 2013 Conference in Wroclaw, February 22-23 2013 Final draft submission, March 31 2013

Conference will take place in Wroclaw in February 2013. Conference papers will be submitted to The Journal of Social Science Education and published in a contracted special issue “Post-Communist Citizenship“ in 2013. The special issue will include theoretical/conceptual articles, empirical research articles engaging comparative analyses of selected countries. Here, one of the main points of interest is the role offormal civic education (schools and the universities) vis-à-vis the citizenship practices outside formal settling (NGOs, civil societygroups, transnational activist networks). A pool of selected papers will be additionally published as an edited book with the leading academic publisher in 2014. Details will be communicated to the selected participants only.

Scholarship: Tsvetan Stoyanov Fellowship for a Bulgarian Scholar 2013, The Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna‏

Tsvetan Stoyanov Fellowship for a Bulgarian Scholar 2013


The Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) currently accepts applications for the Tsvetan Stoyanov Fellowship for a Bulgarian scholar. The IWM will provide the fellow with an office, access to internet, research and administrative facilities.
The fellow will receive a stipend of Eur 1,500 per month. The 6-month research term must be completed between January and December 2013. Candidates are eligible to apply also for a Robert Bosch Fellowships 2013 at the IWM.

All details of the application procedure are available on www.iwm.at/fellowships.htm

Summer School: GIZ – DAAD Summer School on the ‘Social Dimensions of Human Trafficking in the Balkans’, Belgrade, 10-28 September 2012‏

Open Call for applications
(deadline: 01 of August, 2012 - CET 00.00h)
GIZ – DAAD Summer School on the ‘’Social Dimensions of Human Trafficking in the Balkans’’
10th of September until 28th of September, 2012
Belgrade

Background and Description
The German International Cooperation (GIZ) and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) are inviting PhD and/or MA students, junior researchers and junior professionals and experts from any disciplinary background working on the outlined topics to participate in a 3-week long Summer School on The Social Dimension of Human Trafficking on the Balkans from September 10th to 28th 2012 in Belgrade. After a fruitful and successful Forum in Skopje, Macedonia in November 2011, in 2012 the issues of human trafficking will be addressed within the context of social vulnerabilities trying to find out jointly causes and cures researching ongoing projects within the region.
Through its innovative learning approach, the GIZ-DAAD-Summer School ‘Social Dimensions of Human Trafficking on the Balkans’ aims at introducing participants from the Balkan and Germany to the current problematic, to state-of-the-art approaches and varying forms of implementation. This Summer School on the Balkans will be the ninth within this framework after Vietnam (2), Egypt, Brazil, Peru and India (3). It will focus on strengthening sustainable links between researchers, policy makers, development practitioners and businesspeople, as well as strengthening the scientific and institutional bonds throughout the region. By introducing new teaching and educational methods based on peer-and action-learning and inter-disciplinary training for participants with different cultural and technical backgrounds, the Summer School meets the requirements of the current labour market and responds to the region’s needs for creative and decisive intellectuals, future decision-makers and representatives of their country within the increasingly international governance-framework.



Overall goal
The Summer School aims to contribute towards sustainable development on the Balkans by bridging the communication gap between research, policies and implementation in the field of combating Trafficking in Human Persons. Through improved communication and networking the mutual benefits could be achieved at different levels with relatively small efforts and can serve as examples for further policy-fields.

Some objectives and challenges for Social Dimensions of Human Trafficking on the Balkans

• To understand the vulnerable groups’ perspective of their life world
• To transcend life worlds of different classes and cultures by common action research
• To offer international experiences concerning the social dimensions of human trafficking
• To identify interfaces of security and social agendas and discuss possible co-operations
• To possibly elaborate a framework for further international and national co-operations after the end of the summer school

Benefits for the participants
• Understanding of the underlying concept of sustainable development within the field of international cooperation
• Insights on the social dimension of human trafficking within an international framework of practitioners and academics.
• Acquisition of new learning methods and soft skills (team work, intercultural communication, peer learning)
• Building of a professional network including the possibility to participate in an ongoing project on the social dimension of human trafficking on the Balkans

Expectations towards the participants
• High motivation to transcend the own academic and/or professional horizon and to deal with new perspectives on known issues
• Readiness to contribute to the common learning process with own experiences and knowledge
• Preparedness to work “after hours”
• Tolerance and openness towards “the other”
• Drafting of a group-report and preparation of a group presentation
Structure of the GIZ-DAAD-Summer School
The duration of the Summer School will be from September 10th to 28th 2012 and will take place at the University of Belgrade and it is jointly supported by GIZ, DAAD and the University of Belgrade.
e-learning to level and to complement the knowledge of the participants will take place from -the moment of the confirmation of participation
First week ‘State-of-the-art in Human Trafficking research’: In the first week, the political and juridical frameworks, state-of-the-art methods and peer-learning techniques will be presented to the participants by well selected resource persons. A first, topic-related excursion will take place. In the end of the week, group work regarding different research sites on the Balkans will be initiated; research questions will be elaborated.
Second week ‘Action research’: Participants will start to carry out well prepared action research on causes, forms and handling of human trafficking at their research-sites in Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia, and Macedonia under the guidance of regional partners of GIZ. By the end of the week the participants will discuss their results with local experts from the different fields and perspectives.
Third week ‘Learning Dialogs’: During the third and final week, learning-dialogues with leading scientists and practitioners from the Balkans and Germany will be held at Belgrade University. The learning process will be concluded by delivering a presentation of the results in a public symposium on the last day. Students are required to submit group-based research papers one month after the Summer School ends. Research papers will be disseminated to a large network of anti-trafficking actors in the Balkan region Europe, thereby, exposing Summer School students to the professional world.
Some learning-goals for the Summer School “The Social Dimensions of Human Trafficking on the Balkans”
• To understand the vulnerable groups’ perspective of their life world;
• To transcend life worlds of different classes and cultures by common action research;
• To offer international experiences (north-south-north & south-south) concerning the social dimensions of human trafficking;
• To identify interfaces of security and social agendas and discuss possible co-operations; and
• To possibly elaborate a framework for further international and national co-operations after the end of the summer school

The three-week program will introduce participants to anti-trafficking by first providing a broader overview of main theoretical frameworks applied in anti-trafficking research followed by global governance in anti-trafficking and finally narrowing down to more specific thematic areas:
1. Theoretical and juridical frameworks in anti-trafficking research: migration, human rights and security

2. Governance: Think globally, act locally:Introductory lecture will provide an overview of treaties, international instruments, main international institutions and regional bodies as well as mechanisms implemented at national and local level.
3. Thematic areas:

• Rethinking reintegration models aimed for trafficking survivors
• Empowerment of vulnerable groups and addressing socio-economic and cultural conditioning of HT
• Developing early warning system as a prevention tool for targeting potential victims
• Exploring connections between communication and anti-trafficking
• NGO-Government cooperation

Interested applicants should apply no later than 01 of August, 2012 - CET 00.00h by either filling out the online form at http://www.htsocialprotection.org/summerschool.html or if you encounter problems please download the application form here and send all documents (CV and completed application form) to sppht@giz.de

Workshop: Mapping Neoliberalism and Its Countermovements in the Former Second World, Budapest, 23-27 July 2012‏

Mapping Neoliberalism and Its Countermovements in the Former Second World
a five-day workshop, July 23rd-27th, 2012
Budapest, Hungary


DESCRIPTION
In early July 2011, under the auspices of Budapest’s Central European University, a summer school took place. Its unwieldy title (The “(Neo)liberalization of Socialism and the Crises of Capital”) and stellar faculty attracted a group of young scholars interested in transcending the worn-out paradigms through which postsocialist societies are still interpreted in media, policy analysis, and academic research: communism v. democracy, transition, “return to Europe.” Many of the participants turned out to be no mere detached, Weberian scholars but social movement activists in their own contexts, whose theories draw on their political practices.

Inspired by the experience of mutual recognition, by the stakes of our conversation, and the opportunity to talk to other scholars from a region whose cultural and intellectual interconnections have been largely severed, we have organized a workshop from July
23rd to 27th, 2012, once again in Budapest. We have conceived it as at the same time a narrower and more ambitious event than last year’s. Narrower, because we lack the institutional affiliations, the major funding, and the intellectual resources that made
last year’s summer school possible. Ours will be a summer school without teachers. More ambitious, because the conversation has already begun, the commonalities/ camaraderies have been established, potential allies identified, and the urgency to formulate
intellectual and activist agendas and link them up across national borders — even greater!

In this spirit, we propose the following three themes as our main intellectual agenda for the workshop:
• Postsocialist neoliberalism. What is the explanatory power of concepts such as "neoliberalism" and "peripheral capitalism", “Third-Worldization” and "dependent development” when applied to the former Second World? What are their material expressions in
people’s everyday lives? What ideological justifications have been propagated to legitimate this developmental model?
• Countermovements. What forms does resistence to postsocialist neoliberalism take? Can the strength of right-wing and nationalist parties be explained this way? What does the left look like in every one Uof the societies represented at this workshop?
• We ourselves, as postsocialist scholars and activists. What are our locations in the academy and outside of it? How can we carry out critical research and participate in social movements? How can we help each other, across borders?


PARTICIPANTS AND CONTRIBUTORS
Over the course of a week in late July, more than 40 participants from a dozen of postsocialist countries will be answering the above questions. We hope, however, to reach a wider audience by opening sections of the workshop to the general public, audio-recording others, and linking it with regional journals/ internet sites of social critique with which our participants are affiliated: Commons (Ukraine), Critic Atac (Romania), Krytyka Polityczna (Poland), New Left Perspectives (Bulgaria), Prasvet (Belarus), Rabkor (Russia), and others.

The event is made possible thanks to the help of Corvinus University’s College for Advanced Studies and Theory (TEK), CEU’s Center for Historical Studies (Pasts, Inc.), the Global Civil Society Program of Tomori Pal College, Social Center Haspel in Sofia, and
the Budapest Center for Architecture.


PROGRAM
Monday, 23 July
12.00 – 13.00
Registration and coffee

13.00 – 14.30
Talk: Mary Taylor via skype
The 2011 Neoliberalizing Socialism in Budapest: the 2011 CEU summer course

15.00 – 17.00
First Round of Introductions
All participants will briefly explain who they are, what they are fighting for (in research and activism) and introduce the institutions, publications, and groups with which they are affiliated.

18.00 – 19.00
Attila Melegh talk, “"The Global 1950s”"


TUESDAY, 24 July
10.00 – 11.00 József Böröcz talk, "Whitening Histories"

11.30 – 14.30 Excavating the origins of the neoliberal present in the late socialist past
Coordinators: Dan Cirjan, Rossen Djagalov, Piotr Wcislik
One of the recurring problems of most scholarship on postsocialism has been its tendency to build its analyses against the background of an undifferentiated socialist past, a homogenous set of institutions, economic practices and types of governance, which
seem to have remained constant throughout the communist period only to be reshaped by the “great transformation” of the 1990s. This panel, by contrast, is based on the premise that a more nuanced, global, and historically informed perspective on late socialism
will provide us with the much-needed understanding of the elements that were “re-formed”, reframed and re-organized through neoliberal policies under neoliberalism.

Late socialism also saw the emergence a particular type of discourse coming from dissidents, the “democratic opposition”, and reformists, which framed and interpreted “actually existing socialism” and its “crisis” outside of the official Party monologue. This
type of discourse proved pivotal in shaping the postsocialist public sphere and paved the way for the “neoliberalization of the Left,” especially the reformist left, after 1989. In this sense, the panel has a dual aim: on the one hand, it seeks to understand
the late-socialist reforms in the spheres of production and welfare provision and their relationship to world-economic processes, especially the capitalist restructuring of the 1970s and 1980s. On the other, it aims at reconstructing the process through which
elements in the political thinking of the Left could lead to embracing neoliberalism as a progressive project.


15.30 – 18.30
History of class formation in CEE
Coordinators: Mikolaj Lewicki, Maciek Gdula, Adam Ostolski, Przemyslaw Sadura
The transformation of social structures after 1989 in so called post-communist countries is rarely analyzed with reference to the notion of class. The popularity of concepts such as inequality, social mobility and stratification contribute to naturalization
of capitalism and do not form a basis for critique of new order. We would like to offer an analysis of social structures in Central and Eastern Europe from a number of class-oriented perspectives. The focus will be on three interconnected aspects:
changes in composition of class system, different class cultures and social conflicts. This approach offers not only a much richer perspective on what has happened during last twenty years but also allows us to pose questions about the prospects of social and
political change.



Wednesday, 25 July
10.00 – 14.00
"Is the revolution necessarily urban?"
Coordinators: Mariann Dosa, Csaba Jelinek, Zsuzsanna Pósfai
Many writings from critical/radical urban studies scholars since the 1980s highlight the pivotal role of cities and urban landscapes in neoliberal restructuring and governance. Apart from these theories, the emerging leftist struggles against the neoliberal
hegemony have often been situated in and focused on the urban realm. An especially powerful and well-known concept encapsulating the intimate relationship between urban phenomenon and (counter-)hegemonic forces of neoliberalism is the Right to the City (RTC)
framework developed by David Harvey. Recognizing the fact that many of the young critical scholars from our region have a special interest either in critical urban research or in urban movements, this session tries (1) to theoretically reflect on the role
of cities in leftist countermovements, (2) to explore postsocialist specifics and differences within the region regarding urban scholarship, marginality and movements and (3) to speculate about the potentials of a future urban focused coalition among the leftist
actors in the region.

We will begin this session by introducing Harvey's urban theories and his Right to the City concept. Two case studies — the Hungarian City is for All and the Polish RTC movement — will inform our discussion. Workshop participants will help us establish our
empirical base by answering the following questions about urban life in their societies: How was the privatization of the housing stock/ urban space carried out? Is there a housing crisis, and if yes, what characterizes it (is it quantitative, qualitative
or accessibility crisis)? What is the structure of the housing sector and what are the main processes in it? What are the forms of urban marginality?

We will then move on to discuss the specificity of postsocialist cities and the applicability of the RTC framework to urban struggles there. Can we agree with Harvey that — in this region not unlike his Western and Third-World examples — cities and urban movements
should be crucial sites for leftist struggles? Who are the agents of postsocialist urban movements (middle-class hipsters? vulnerable groups?) and what are the issues that they problematize (homelessness, the urban environment)? What are the main topics and
dynamics of critical urban research in the various countries? How can we urban research and urban struggles?


15.00 – 19.00
Crisis, austerity, and countermovements, Part I. Movements on the right
Coordinators: Marek Mikus, Piotr Wcislik
In this panel we want to question the entanglements between neoliberal crisis, the postsocialist condition and the countermovements on the right. The goal is to see the real thing behind the various caricatures which proliferate in the academic descriptions,
including on the Left. Most interpretations of nationalist protest movements classify them according to their sources or their political functions in the dynamics of postsocialist capitalism. As far as the sources are concerned, the interpretations range between
the extemporaneous and contemporaneous arguments. The privileged trope of the former (traditional liberal) approach has been the "homo sovieticus," designating a type of mentality unable to adapt to the postsocialist realities both in the marketplace (outdated
welfare demands) and in the sphere of values (unprocessed xenophobia, traditional values, nationalism). The latter (more critical) argument assimilates the protest movements on the right under the umbrella term of "populism," which is considered to be the
product of the postpolitical condition of both Western and Eastern societies after 1989. As far as the political functions of those countermovements are concerned, the interpretations range between a "Troyan horse of capitalism" and a "surrogate Left" perspectives.
In the first case, the focus is on how the objective economic sources of popular indignation are steered towards an (ethnic or ex-Communist) Other while redeeming the image of capitalism as a nice thing if run by decent people. In the second case, the ideological
fundamentals of the nationalist right - such as the defense of popular sovereignty, critique of — hegemony and anti-elitism — are taken seriously to the extent that they overlap with left's own agenda.

All these conceptual problems should include a comparative dimension in both time and space. Are the CEE nationalist protest movements from the 1990s the same as today’s? How do they compare with the far-right movements in Western and non-Western worlds?

The objective of the panel is to rethink these interpretations with the view of the Left's own strategy. Where is the place of the Left? With the liberals in a "popular front of modernization" or with the "people,” that is, the current constituency of right-wing
protest?


Thursday, 26 July
10.00 – 14.00
Crisis, austerity, and countermovements, Part II. Movements on the left
Coordinators: Natalia Buier, Agnes Gagyi, Mariya Ivancheva, Piotr Wcislik
In the second session on countermovements to neoliberal regimes we discuss the contemporary movements associated with the left or considered as progressive both inside and outside the academia. We invite participants to introduce countermovements they know
well so that we could reach a larger, international perspective of their workings as well as a sense of „what is to be done.”

Beyond serving to introduce relevant regional developments, the panel will problematize the study of social movements through a dual epistemological concern: on the one hand, it will ask how the array of recent social movements challenges our analytical tools
as sociologists, anthropologists, students of history and culture; on the other hand, it also asks seeks to understand the inscription of dominant ideologies in the act of studying these movements and the complicity of academics in obscuring histories of militance.
Our own relationship to those movements as both researchers and participants will be further discussed in the next panel: Academic struggles.


15.00 – 19.00
Academic struggles: the position and task of the CEE academic left
Coordinators: Jana Bacevic, Natalia Buier, Rossen Djagalov, Agnes Gagyi, Mariya Ivancheva
The panel aims to be a theoretical reflection on our own work, as well as a strategic discussion about what we could do together, internationally. We will begin with a discussion of the role of universities (as institutions) and higher education (as a field
of knowledge production) in reproducing neoliberal ideology as well as its political and economic elites deploying that ideology. What are the implications of the changing conditions of knowledge production for the possibilities, stratagems, and spaces of
resistance within the academe? Could critical pedagogy and activism be aligned within the university we know? What kind of epistemological challenge do practices such as militant ethnography pose? What do we make of the differences in position, history and
vocabulary from similar questions asked in Western academia? From the institutional context, we will then move to the disciplinary one. Each of the disciplines represented at this workshop — anthropology, sociology, history, and so on — has a specific capacity
for legitimating and critiquing neoliberalism. What would a leftist academic project look like in each of them? Finally, many of us also inhabit non-academic spaces, be they NGOs, journals of social critique, political parties. What is the relationship between
our academic and non-academic engagements?

We invite participants to introduce the academic context of their work, join the debate about our common task, and think of possibilities of collaboration.


Friday, 27 July
10.00 – 14.00
Interview Day
As many workshop participants happen to be editors or contributors to leftist magazines and web sites and as other, local publications might also join us, the last morning is left open for group/personal interviews and inter-publication networking. Those of
us who are not giving interviews might just sit on the nearby terrace and continue our discussion over a few beers.

Scholarship: Robert Bosch Fellowships 2013, The Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna‏

Robert Bosch Fellowships on South-Eastern Europe 2013


The Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) currently accepts applications for the Robert Bosch Fellowships 2013 from countries of ex-communist South-Eastern Europe: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, FYR Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, and Slovenia.
The IWM will provide fellows with an office, access to internet, research and administrative facilities. Visiting Fellows will receive a stipend in the amount of Eur 4,000 per month. Junior Visiting Fellows will receive a stipend of Eur 1,500 per month. The 6-month research term must be completed between January and December 2013.

All details of the application procedure are available on www.iwm.at/fellowships.htm