Conference: Co-constructing professional learning, Opatija, Croatia, 15-17 October 2012 [DL: 30 May]‏

We are pleased to inform you that the deadline for proposal submissions for the international conference organized jointly by the International Step by Step Association (ISSA) and the Diversity in Early Childhood Education and Training (DECET) has been extended until the 30th of May. We encourage you to submit your proposal by completing the form from the link above and returning it to Eva Izsak eizsak@issa.hu<mailto:eizsak@issa.hu>. We encourage various format options for your contribution: Presentations, Interactive Workshops, Mind Mapping Sessions, Debates, Discussion Forum and Open Space Sessions.

For details about the conference and submission of proposals, please refer to the Conference website: http://issa-decet2012.com.hr/

Conference Enquiries
Contact Persons for logistical issues: Ms. Ivana Vahcic and Ms. Sanja Koscak, Globtour Event issadecet2012@event.hr<mailto:issadecet2012@event.hr>
Contact Person for other questions: Ms. Eva Izsak, ISSA: eizsak@issa.hu

Deadline for proposal submission extended until May 30, 2012

To submit a proposal, complete the submission form available here:

http://issa-decet2012.com.hr/

Conference: Relocating Borders: a comparative approach, Berlin, 11-13 January 2013‏

2013 Conference: Berlin, Germany
Relocating Borders: a comparative approach
11-13 January 2013
Call for Papers

http://www.eastbordnet.org/conferences/2013

The second EastBordNet Conference Relocating Borders: a comparative approach will be held at Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany from 11-13 January 2013.

berlinBorders are taking on greater significance these days, even while their meaning is changing and multiplying. This conference brings together research on the way borders are currently being relocated, in every sense, both material and conceptual. While the conference focuses particularly on the eastern peripheries of Europe (whose precise location, either in terms of ‘eastern’ or ‘peripheries’ is also currently being debated), it invites researchers working on any regions of the world to participate. That will provide both a rich comparative perspective, but also allow an exploration of the shifting interrelations between locations.

It is not surprising that borders are currently a key focus of attention: there are more people, things, money, debt and ideas moving across them, and they are moving at a faster pace; state power is increasingly challenged, as well as reinforced, by globalisation, while more walls, security and surveillance are constructed; intense debates are raging about environment and climate change and the apparent need to straddle borders to solve the problems they generate; information, digital and medical technologies have reshaped the relations and separations across borders, and made differences and similarities more visible; the European Union and other trans-state entities have made borders ever more complex; the balance of power across the world is changing. In short, borders appear to be relocating just now, both conceptually and materially, and this conference invites researchers from all disciplines to come together to compare notes on this major shift. On the assumption that the change is epistemological as well as ontological, the best way to explore that process is through comparison.

Berlin is the right place to hold such a gathering: traces of the city’s past remain despite the removal of the Wall, that icon of Cold War border in Europe. Those traces are most obvious in what used to be the gap beyond the wall: no-man’s land has been filled by a jumble of contemporary buildings, creating what some say is a strip of neoliberal landscape flowing across the city where once there had been emptiness. The gentrification of many neighborhoods in East Berlin (and elsewhere) has generated internal inequalities, while the previously migrant neighborhoods have become vibrant alternative districts both socially and politically. Humboldt University, where the conference will be held, is in the immediate proximity of the Wall’s trace. The conference will include a round table devoted to Berlin’s special status in Europe as a city that traces and marks both past and contemporary significance of borders in Europe.
The deadline for applications is 31 May 2012.
For more information please see the Relocating Borders Guidelines.

Keynote speakers:

Thomas Hylland Eriksen (Oslo)
Caren Kaplan (UC Davis)
Saskia Sassen (Columbia)

and for a special session on Berlin, Daniel Libeskind, designer of the Berlin Jewish Museum and master planner for the design of the post-9/11 World Trade Center.


Conference Topics:

Applicants are welcome to submit either individual papers or panel proposals on any topic of their choice relevant to the conference theme. Alternatively, you may choose to submit under one of the following headings:

1. European Tidemarks

2. Money, Trade and Finance

3. Genders and Sexualities

4. Techniques and Technologies

5. Laws, Documents, Bureaucracies

6. Beliefs, Faiths and Religions

7. Architectures, Things and Objects

8. Places, Spaces and Locations

9. Histories and Futures

10. Travels and Crossings


How to Apply:

Please download and fill in the Relocating Borders application form: http://www.eastbordnet.org/conferences/2013

PDF Versions (do not need to be printed to fill in)

Download the INDIVIDUAL paper proposals form (PDF)

Download the PANEL proposals form(PDF)

WORD Versions

Download the INDIVIDUAL PAPER proposals form(Word)
Download the PANEL proposals form(Word)

Important: You cannot fill the form in online: please download the application first and then fill it in, or your text will be lost.

Deadline: 31 May 2012


What happens next:

Your proposal will be assessed by the conference committee, and you will be informed of the result by 25 June 2012. If you are selected, you must confirm your acceptance of the offer by Monday 9 July.

Conference: Nomadic concepts - Biological concepts and their careers beyond biology, Herder Institute, Marburg, 18-19 October 2012‏

Nomadic concepts: Biological concepts and their careers beyond biology


Second Annual Conference of the Leibniz Graduate School for Cultures of Knowledge in Central European Transnational Contexts in cooperation with the Department of History, Central European University in Budapest


Dates: 18-19. October 2012

Venue: Herder Institute for the History of East-Central Europe


Organizers:

Peter Haslinger (Herder Institute, Marburg)

Katalin Straner (CEU Budapest)

Jan Surman (Warsaw)


Renewed interest in the role of language in the history of natural sciences has, in the last years, brought fresh insight into the mechanisms of cultural and conceptual transfer both be­tween science and non-scientific knowledge and across disciplines. While this research has pre­dominantly concentrated on transgressions between literature and science, the textual and terminological side of these exchanges has been given less attention. Following the ideas of “nomadic” and “traveling” concepts (Isabelle Stengers, Mieke Bal) our aim is to follow concepts in the divergent (disciplinary, “national,” knowledge) cultures, observing and en­gaging with interactions between term, content and the linguistic environment. Using examples of biological terms/concepts, we seek to inquire how the exchanges with various, at first sight disconnected, fields and disciplines like religion, vernacular language, arts and literature have affected the form and content of these formations, and led to their modification, renaming, or differentiation from the original idea.


Studies in the language of science have demonstrated how the professionalization and solidification of scientific reasoning in the nineteenth century resulted in what is often viewed as a disciplinary closure: the formation of disciplinary-specific vocabularies as well as the “ob­jectivising” metaphors concerned with the changes of philosophical presuppositions (Daston/Galison 2008). The increasingly universalist view of scientific thought, and the parti­cularist notions often embodied in the processes of the creation of national and/or dis­ci­plin­ary sets of terminologies and vocabularies have together created new narratives heavily im­bued with various interdisciplinary references. In the biological sciences Charles Darwin or Jacques Monod, in chemistry Lavoisier, in physics Heinrich Kayser and Werner Heisenberg engaged in an intensive dialogue with non-scientific fields in order to literalize their scientific findings. Notwithstanding the trends to present “objective” knowledge through specialized and aloof language, scientists use concepts from literature or religion to support and subs­tantiate their claims, and often also to visualize them and make them fit in the theoretical frameworks they work in. (Dörries 2002, Latour 2002, Gross 2002, 2006, Steinle 2006, Eggers/Rothe 2009).


At the same time, however, conceptual instruments of biology have entered the public dis­course, arts and neighboring disciplines. Darwin's language, for instance, influenced through Spencer, the political imagination of the late nineteenth-early twentieth centuries; the con­cepts of organism or tissue were employed in fields like sociology or architecture. Through their linguistic restrains, some concepts have been retained in some languages but not in others: the concept of milieu, for instance, is widely employed in French and German, but the use of this term remains limited in other languages – having different terms denoting the same concept alters its connotations and thus the concept itself. The conceptual and termi­nological trajectories of the language of bacteriology and the language of politics were dia­metrically different between, for example, German and French, despite parallel scientific backgrounds – while the first was militant, the second remained pacifistic. The borrowings of biological concepts and vocabulary thus remain largely language-based, developing distinct, partially divergent trajectories.


In our conference we plan to look more closely at the development of biological vocabulary and concepts and their implementation in different linguistic environments. Our particular in­terest is to observe the sharpening and distinctions they experienced during the transition from one language to another, with respect to disciplinary, social and vernacular languages.


Research questions:

* What trajectories did the terms oscillating between biology and non-biological fields of knowledge follow? Was this a one-way movement, or did it remain reciprocal, with terms/
concepts remaining interdependent in different languages?

* How did the process of translation change the original terms/concepts, e.g. by making their shortcomings, constraints or one-language-dependence visible?

* In which ways did the authors and translators justify their choices when retaining or altering the terms? How conscious was the process of terminological alteration or reten­tion by conceptual borrowing? How was its role and possible consequences perceived?

* To what extent did the vernacular language influence the textuality of biology? Were ver­na­cular and popularizing concepts filtered out or were they retained in the course of dis­ci­plinary development? How did this process change with the ongoing process of the in­ter­nalization of sciences?

* To what extent did the textual/conceptual borrowings and consequently changed mean­ings and redefinitions play a role as auxiliary tools in re/conceptualizing scientific dis­co­ver­ies and theories?


The organizers are particularly interested in comparative and trans-lingual approaches.


Post­graduates are particularly encouraged to submit proposals for twenty-minute papers. The languages of the conference are English and German. Travel and accommodation costs will be covered by the organizers. The organizers plan to publish a selection of papers from this conference.


Please e-mail a short abstracts or proposals with a brief CV to:

Jan Surman (jan.surman@univie.ac.at</mc/compose?to=jan.surman@univie.ac.at>) by 30. June 2012.

Successful applicants will be notified by 15. July.

Conference: Europe, As an Idea - 4: Nilüfer Göle: Decentring Europe, Recentring Islam, Istanbul Sehir University, 22 May 2012‏

Fourth meeting of the “Europe as an Idea” Talk Series co-organized by Turkish Prime Ministry Public Diplomacy Office and İstanbul Şehir University Department of Political Science and International Relations will be held at Conference Hall of İstanbul Şehir University Altunizade Campus on May 22, 2012 Tuesday at 16:00 with the participation of Professor Nilüfer Göle

Göle is one of the most influential intellectuals of Turkey who rose to prominence as a political researcher in the last twenty years by specializing on the emergence of new practices, figures, symbols and signs of Muslim religiosity in public space. In her speech, Göle will focus on the place and position of Islam in Europe and how the Europeans have perceived Europublicislam. Göle will share her opinions on issues such as the idea of Europe and its relations with Islam and the representations of public Islam in different European national contexts in a comparative manner.

In previous talk series of the “Europe as an Idea”, Gil Anidjar Susan Bucks-Moors, and Ian Almond made social, political, economic and philosophical discussions on the “European Idea”.

Address: İstanbul Şehir Üniversitesi Altunizade Yerleşkesi (İstanbul Şehir
University Altunizade Campus)
Kuşbakışı Caddesi No: 27 Üsküdar, Istanbul
Date: May 22, 2012, Tuesday at 16:00

Junior Faculty Development Program in USA [DL: June 18, 2012]‏

The Junior Faculty Development Program provides university instructors with a semester-long opportunity to expand their knowledge and expertise in their academic field by attending classes and working with faculty members at universities in the United States. The program is fully-funded by the US Department of State. Individuals may apply for fields in the humanities and social sciences.

The competition is open to citizens from Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan.

To qualify for a JFDP Fellowship, an applicant must:

* hold a university degree;
* be currently teaching at an institution of higher education;
* have at least two years of teaching experience at an institution of higher education; and,
* have a mastery of the English language.

The primary and distinct goal of the JFDP is to provide university instructors with opportunities to engage in curriculum development and explore alternative teaching methodologies, expand their knowledge in their fields of study and gather new teaching materials and resources.

Each JFDP Fellow will spend a total of five (5) months (January-May 2013) in the United States.

The deadline for submitting applications: 18 June 2012.

More information about the program may be found on these websites: www.jfdp.org<http://www.jfdp.org/> and www.ac-see.org<http://www.ac-see.org/>

Conference: Re-Visions of the Romanian Revolution in Arts and Media Theory, Berlin, 2 June 2012‏

DFG-Graduiertenkolleg "Mediale Historiographien" at the Universities of
Weimar, Erfurt and Jena; with support by Galeria Plan B.
01.06.2012-02.06.2012, Berlin, Arsenal & Galeria Plan B

The Romanian Revolution of December 1989, which culminated in the
execution of the dictatorial Ceaucescu couple, still represents a
challenge for historiography, cultural studies, social policy debates and
artistic interventions.

The gradual accessibility of the film, sound and image documentation of
the Ceaucescu era and its eruptive end, give us a particularly clear
reminder of the precarious nature of media documentation. The inherent
potential of the medial document to break up every semantic
determination - which plays out in the historical memory, in individual
experience and in the official culture of remembrance - has not only been
emphasized by prominent media theorist immediately following the events,
but has also been utilized in various forms of artistic
practice. Contrary to various standardizing or normalizing claims that
impose already available orders upon the medial transmission of
Socialism and its end these interventions bring out possibilities that
enrich the discussion by productively valuing the disruptive power of
images and breaking up the extant semantic overlays of historical events
and processes.

The productive dimension of the medial archive, which takes us beyond
questions of interpretation and reception, is in the focus of interest in
this conference. Thus the symposium takes the Romanian Revolution and the
mediatheoretical discourse and artistic practices that developed in
immediate response as the paradigmatic occasion to discuss the
connection of pictorial media and historiography.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
June 1, 2012 - 7.30 pm
Kino Arsenal, Potsdamer Str. 2, Berlin

AUTOBIOGRAFIA LUI NICOLAE CEAUCESCU (THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF NICOLAE
CEAUCESCU, Romania 2010, 180 min., Romanian with English subtitles); in
presence of director Andrei Ujica

»From a formal point of view, THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF NICOLAE CEAUCESCU
proves that it is possible to only use existing images to yield films
focused on recent history, yet with an epic vein similar to that of the
historical fiction cinema. This is an eminently syntactic endeavor, where
montage plays a twofold part: mise-en-scene, as it builds scenes that do
not exist as such in the rushes, and classical editing,
connecting scenes together.« (Andrei Ujica)


June 2, 2012 - 10 am
Galeria Plan B, Potsdamer Str. 77-87, Berlin

10 am
Introductory Note
Konrad Petrovszky (Berlin) & Tobias Ebbrecht (Weimar)

Two Regimes of Visibility after the Televised Revolution
Ovidiu Tichindeleanu (Cluj/Chisinau)

11.30 am
Coffee Break

12 am
Engendered Histories. A Comment on VIDEOGRAMS OF A REVOLUTION and THE
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF NICOLAE CEAUCESCU.
Susanne Wagner (Weimar)

The Revolutions of '89 in Romania and Poland. Comparing Intersections of
Media and History
Przemyslaw Suwart (Weimar-Jena-Erfurt)

1.30 pm
Lunch Break

2.30 pm
Piata Universitatii - The Site of Perpetual Re-enactment. Self-mirroring
and Difference
Raluca Voinea (Bucharest) & Bogdan Ghiu (Bucharest)

To Enact and Re-enact. Some Critical Remarks on a Current Artistic Practice
Maria Muhle (Stuttgart/ Berlin)

4 pm
Coffee Break

4.30 pm
Excerpts from: The Last Hour of Elena and Nicolae Ceaucescu (Die letzten
Tage der Ceaucescus) by Milo Rau

Panel Discussion: Re-Visions and Recreations of Romanian History in Film,
Theatre, Video & Per-formance Art
Andrei Ujica; (Karlsruhe), Milo Rau (Cologne), Raluca Voinea
(Bucharest)
Chair: Bert Rebhandl (Berlin)

Conference: Seeds of Democracy: Europe and the Balkans, Goldsmiths University, 18 May 2012‏

Seeds of Democracy: Europe and the Balkans
Friday, May 18th, 2012
Richard Hoggart Building, Cinema,
6-8pm Panel Discussion
8pm Reception

The event is co-organised by Transeuropa Festival, the Centre for the Study of the Balkans and Unit on Global Justice, Goldsmiths.

Since the end of the violent conflicts which dominated the recent history of the Western Balkans, the promotion of peace and stability, and the consolidation of democratic institutions and the rule of law have been a priority for the EU in the region, as a precondition for accession. Disparities in the progress made by individual countries in this regard are evident – while Croatia is set to join the EU in 2013; Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia enjoy candidate status; and Bosnia and Herzegovina still faces numerous hurdles as it struggles to satisfy EU criteria. The event, ‘Seeds Of Democracy: Europe and the Balkans’ will bring together academics, politicians, and representatives of civil society from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia to discuss the path of each of these countries towards the EU, including the obstacles they face as they aim to strengthen the role of civil society, ensure the full implementation of the rule of law and consolidate their fledgling democracies.

Two panel discussions will looking at the processes needed to realize these objectives, using both a top-down and bottom-up approach. The first panel will outline the key difficulties faced by institutions in the region in their journey towards ensuring good governance, strengthening accountability, transparency, and rule of law.

The second panel will look at the role of civil society organizations in empowering and informing citizens, and strengthening democratic institutions in the region.

Panellists:

Daliborka Uljarevic – Centre for Civic Education, Montenegro

Ian Bancroft- OSCE, BiH, Transconflict Serbia

Zdravko Cimbaljevic- LGBT Forum Progress, Montenegro

Andrej Nosov- Hartefakt Foundation, Serbia

Moderator:

Dr. Dejan Djokic –Centre for the Study of the Balkans Director