Call for Papers: ‘Sots-Speak: Regimes of Language under Socialism' May 13-15, 2011

Inquiries regarding the conference's topic, organization, or submission process should be directed to Petre Petrov: ppetrov@princeton.edu

Princeton University

Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures

The attempt to build communism in Eastern Europe was accompanied by the development of a distinctive language paradigm, first in the Soviet Union, then - by a process of cultural translation and local adaptation- in the satellite states of the Socialist Bloc. The official discourse possessed its own 'speech genres' (tied to specific communicative contexts, social roles, and political tasks), easily recognizable rhetorical patterns and lexical peculiarities. It is intuitively obvious that this discourse, which we provisionally label sots-speak, was instrumental in legitimizing and perpetuating the political system, in shaping individual psychologies and cultural expressions. However, our knowledge of its exact nature and practical existence remains sketchy, as the topic still awaits systematic research. The aim of this conference is to bring together scholars whose work helps shed light on the politico-ideological idiom(s) of state socialism, so that we can begin to develop a sophisticated, multi-layered picture of this special universe of discourse. A deeper understanding of its constitutive linguistic features and the tendencies that define its evolution represents a major desideratum on its own; yet we see this understanding as prerequisite for engaging in questions of broader cultural significance and soliciting a range of (inter)disciplinary inquiries (sociolinguistics, social psychology, anthropology, philosophy, cultural and literary studies, political science, etc.). The following questions merely suggest a few general ways in which to frame our investigation; each of the areas can be illuminated through analysis of specific topics:

* What is the relation between the linguistic theories and utopias of the cultural avant-garde and the linguistic regimes of state socialism?

* Can we isolate and analyze expressive features uniquely native to these regimes? What are the stable rhetorical patterns and lexical inventories of sots-speak? What communicative functions do they serve?

* What was the social reception of the ideological? tongues of socialism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe? How can we study the dynamic between inherited mentalities and the novel linguistic paradigms?

* What is the relationship between language and political power?

What powers are invested or (assumed to reside) in language? How effective was official language in fulfilling the functions with which it was charged? How do we know? What determines this efficacy?

* What is the relationship between signified and signifier in

Sots-speak, between ideological meaning and its material carrier? How does it change over time (the fading of meaning, the public's de-sensitization toward the appeal of ideologically charged language, etc.)?

* How are social roles and identities concretely played and claimed in the use of official idiom (the performance Stephen Kotkin has called? speaking Bolshevik?)?

* Does sots-speak presuppose a distinctive kind of relay between speaker/author and recipient/audience? What the dynamic is of stated and implied meaning in this discourse? How are unstated meanings coded and deciphered in specific discursive genres and situations?

* What values (representational, stylistic, and semantic) does sots-speak assume when it is taken up into artistic discourse?

* What constitutes linguistic dissidence under state socialism?

What are the subversive appropriations of the official idiom in everyday life, unofficial folklore, and artistic texts?

* What has been the 'posthumous' fate of sots-speak? With what new value(s) has it been invested after the end of state socialism in Russia and Eastern Europe?

We invite abstracts of no more than 300 words, accompanied by a short CV, to be submitted by February 10, 2011 to fried@ujc.cas.cz<mailto:fried@ujc.cas.cz>

Inquiries regarding the conference?s topic, organization, or submission process should be directed to ppetrov@princeton.edu<mailto:ppetrov@princeton.edu>

Those selected to give presentations will be contacted at the beginning of March, 2011.

All participants must submit a full version of their paper by April 15, 2011; the papers will be posted on the conference's website and remain available for the duration of the event.

We expect to be able to offer a limited number of travel subsidies to participants from abroad.

Program committee:

Petre Petrov (Princeton)

Mirjam Fried (Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague)

Eliot Borenstein (NYU)

Serguei Oushakine (Princeton)

evin Platt (University of Pennsylvania)

 

CFP: Jews of Russia and Eastern Europe: Reconsideration

May 10, 11 2011,
University of California, Los Angeles

Sponsored by the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures,

Center for Eastern European Studies, Center for Jewish Studies.

Conference Description:

In recent years, scholarship on the Russian-Jewish nexus both in the 19^th and 20^th centuries has produced some groundbreaking research that both hypothesizes and furthers new models of Jewish literature or culture across Slavic lands. In a word, a wave of diversity has emerged from beneath old, conservative assumptions, many of which arose as a contrary response to anti-Semitic practice. The age-old issues surrounding the "Jewish Question" have been dramatically problematized - and therefore vivified - by the last few years of scholarship in areas linked to imperial culture(s). The very essence of an "imperial figure" has been complicated – and no more so than with regard to the Jewish persona, one might argue.

With the fall of the Soviet Union, and especially since 2000, the standard dichotomy of "Soviet and/or Jewish" has been called into dramatic question by figures in the field such as Harriet Murav. "Soviet Yiddish institutions and writers shows that a model of cultural production in which categories such as 'Jewish' and 'Soviet' could coexist, arguing for a rich cross-fertilization of Yiddish and Russian literature." By doing away with this Manichaean division, we can re-examine the literature from radically different perspectives. Our conference proposes to take this challenge, reconsider the nature of Soviet Jewry and – by extension – rethink Jewish culture in Russia today.

Given that the conference will involve these two generations of scholars – both established and junior – we believe the most productive outcome or effective dissemination of results will be a collective series of publications, thus boosting some young CVs. Papers from the conference will either be presented in small, thematically connected groups to established journals or collected in a series of peer-reviewed, online proceedings. The work of graduate students will be showcased side-by-side with the leadings scholars in America Jewish Studies.

We welcome papers from graduate students in their advanced stages of research on issues dealing with politics, history, historiography, literature, translation studies, and film.

Call for Papers!

Please send a 200 word abstract to nlekht@gmail.com by February 1, 2011.