CFP/PANELS- Central Eurasian Studies Society Annual Conference, Panel CFPs

Source: John Schoeberlein <centasia@fas.harvard.edu>

Please find below several calls for papers for specific panels, to be proposed for the Central Eurasian Studies Society annual conference, which will be held October 28-31, 2010 at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan, and/or the Second CESS Regional Conference at Center for Black Sea and Central Asia (KORA), Middle East Technical
University (METU), Ankara, Turkey, July 29-30, 2010.  For complete information about the
conferences, including guidelines for writing abstracts, see:
https://www.units.muohio.edu/cess/CFP_2010.html
(Michigan) and https://www.cess.muohio.edu/regional_conf_10.html (Turkey).

The deadlines are coming very soon, so please contact the organizers immediately.

Please note that the Conference accepts presentations only in English.  Also note that
you must be/become a member of CESS in order to make a presentation at this conference.  For full information about CESS, see: http://www.cess.muohio.edu/

If you are interested in proposing a paper that would fit one of the proposed panel themes, send your reply to the person listed as organizing that panel.

The following panel themes are proposed (see details below):
 - "Visions of Future and Belonging in Central Asia" (Michigan)
 - "Colonial Central Asia" (Michigan)
 - "Colonial Efforts in Central Asia" (Michigan)
 - "Islam and Modernity: Russian Muslim Encounters with Europe" or
   "Volga-Ural Muslims in Late Imperial Russia" (Michigan)
 - "Academic Information Sharing Networks and Mailing Lists in Eurasia
   and Beyond" (Michigan + Ankara)
 - "Revival and Promotion of Traditional Music in Post-Soviet Central
   Asia" (Ankara)

All panel proposals require the following information for each panel participant, so you should send the panel organizer this information (If you are unsure of whether your paper proposal fits the proposed panel, you may want to contact the organizer before sending the
complete information):
1) Name
2) Current institutional affiliation
3) Title/position
4) E-mail address
5) Postal address
6) Telephone
7) Fax
8) Title of Paper
9) Abstract of Paper (a summary of the paper of 200-300 words;
   abstracts longer than 300 words may be rejected)
10) A brief (100 word) biographical statement that contains the
   information which the panel chair may require for introductions, and
   includes the presenter's educational background (highest degree, year
   awarded, awarding institution, and field of study).


Panel on "Visions of Future and Belonging in Central Asia"

Source" Jeanne F?aux de la Croix <jeannefeaux@yahoo.co.uk>

A sense of belonging is commonly conceived as an identity forged from common historical experiences and enduring links in the present. But claims and feelings of belonging are also oriented towards a future. If the future seems blurred, a sense of belonging and personal agency may be equally blurred. Since the collapse of the Soviet vision of utopia, how have the citizens and institutions of Central Asia recast their future?  What are the practical and conceptual resources through which a liveable future is articulated?  How do imaginations of the future shape boundaries of belonging and inform everyday practice?

This panel invites papers on these questions in a wide variety of contexts such as family and patronage strategies, religious or language choices. We welcome papers from a broad range of perspectives: from calculating the benefits of education, to ways of divining the future through dreams, to state-led utopias such as the new city of Astana.

Please send your proposal to Jeanne F?aux de la Croix: jeannefeaux@yahoo.co.uk


Panel on "Colonial Central Asia"

Source: Kimberly Ann Powers <powerska@umich.edu>

I propose to organize a panel on "Institutions of Knowledge and Power in Colonial Central Asia" for the annual CESS conference to be held in East Lansing, Michigan. "Colonial Central Asia" is conceptualized broadly to include the former Soviet republics in the Russian/Soviet periods, Afghanistan after the Durrani period, and Qing/PRC Xinjiang. The aim of this panel will be to assess the relationship between imperial institutions, forms of knowledge, and manifestations of power and how they shaped expectations for colonized and colonizer alike.
My presentation will compare ethnographies of Kazakh and Uzbek/Sart marriage practices published in the regional journals of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society to analyze the ways in which Kazakhs were constructed as non-Muslim colonial subjects following the promulgation of the Provisional Statute in 1868.
If you would like to present or participate in this panel as a chair or discussant, please contact me by March 1 at powerska@umich.edu
PhD Student
Doctoral Program in Anthropology and History University of Michigan, Ann Arbor