International Congress of Belarusian Studies, 2011

International Congress of Belarussian Studies Call for Papers. Deadline: July 15, 2011


The work will be organized in the following panels:
1. Belarus and the system of regional cooperation;
2. “Belarusian model”, 1991-2011: summary of two decades of development;
3. Soviet past in the regional perspective: (de-)(neo-)(post-)Sovietization;
4. Grand Duchy of Lithuania: the fact and the idea;
5. A nation in Central and Eastern Europe: community and identity;
6. Belarusian society and culture: strategies in the globalized world.




Suggested topics for public discussions:
1. Belarus and the Eastern Partnership initiative;
2. Elections in Belarus, 2008-2010: consequences and perspectives;
3. Belarus-Lithuania relations: state, perspectives and obstacles.




More information about the concept of the event, organizers and partners can be found on the Congress’ web-site: www.icbs.lt.



The organizers will cover accommodation costs and provide visa support as well. It is also planned that the organizers will be able to cover travel expenses for the participants from Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia and Ukraine.




The main working languages of the Congress are Belarusian, English and Lithuanian (The organizers will provide simultaneous translation for these languages during plenary sessions and joint meetings). Addition languages of communication are Russian and Polish. The speakers are invited to submit their thesis and make their panel presentations in Belarusian, English, Lithuanian, Polish or Russian language.



Speakers will have opportunity to publish their presentations in a compendium of abstracts or as individual articles.
To participate in the Congress, please, send the following documents:
1) CV in Belarusian, English, Lithuanian or other working language;
2) Thesis of your presentation – no more than 400 words in any working language.
Please indicate in your letter if you need visa support.
Please, submit your applications to the following address: icbs@palityka.org.
The deadline for applications is July 15, 2011.

2011 Heldt Prize Competition Announced by the Association for Women in Slavic Studies

The Association for Women in Slavic Studies invites nominations for the 2011 Competition for the Heldt Prizes, awarded for works of scholarship.
To be eligible for nomination, all books and articles for the first three prize categories must be published between 15 April 2010 and 15 April 2011.  The publication dates for the translation prize, which is offered every other year, are 15 April 2009 to 15 April 2011.
Nominations for the 2011 prizes will be accepted for the following categories:
1.     Best book in Slavic/Eastern European/Eurasian women's studies;
2.     Best article in Slavic/Eastern European/Eurasian women's studies;
3.     Best book by a woman in any area of Slavic/East European/Eurasian
studies.
4.     Best translation in Slavic/Eastern European/Eurasian women's studies.
One may nominate individual books for more than one category, and more than one item for each category.  Articles included in collections as well as journals are eligible for the "best article" prize, but they must be nominated individually.  The prizes will be awarded at the AWSS meeting at the ASEEES National Convention in Washington, D.C. in November, 2011.
To nominate any work, please send or request that the publisher send one copy to each of the four members of the Prize committee by 15 May 2011:

Karen Petrone, Heldt Prize Committee chairperson
Associate Professor of History
Department of History
University of Kentucky
Lexington, KY  40506-0027

Eliot Borenstein
Professor of Russian & Slavic Studies
New York University
1 Washington Square Village, Apt. 15-U
New York, NY 10012

Sibelan Forrester
Professor of Russian
Department of Modern Languages and Literatures
Swarthmore College
500 College Ave.
Swarthmore, PA  19081-1390

Martha Lampland
Associate Professor
Sociology and Science Studies
University of California, San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla, CA 92093-0533

In Memoriam: Professor Michael Marra (1956-2011)-UCLA

On Friday, I was stunned to hear about passing of one of great scholars at UCLA, Professor Michael Marra. His inspirational lectures will be missed by all. May his soul rest in peace! My condolences to his family!

Full Text of Boris Akunin's Novels Online

I wanted to bring to the attention of my reader an official web-site of Boris Akunin. According to Wikipedia, "Boris Akunin (Russian: Борис Акунин) is the pen name of Grigory Shalvovich Chkhartishvili (Russian: Григорий Шалвович Чхартишвили; Georgian: გრიგოლ ჩხარტიშვილი) (born May 20, 1956), a Russian writer. He is an essayist, literary translator and writer of detective fiction".


The author's books have been translated in more than 15 languages.


I have acquired various books by Boris Akunin for our faculty, students and library card holders. You can search them in the UCLA Library Catalog.



The review of the novel is published by the Guardian and it can be accessed here.



Complete Text of Author's writings can be found here.

New Books in Russian Studies at NIU

A new podcast endeavor New Books in Russian and Eurasian Studies (http://newbooksinrussianstudies.com/)part of the New Books Network (http://newbooksnetwork.com/). Every week
NBRES interviews an author of a book on Russian and Eurasian history, politics, culture, and society. The inaugural interview is with J. Arch Getty of UCLA on his book Ezhov: The Rise of Stalin's Iron Fist.

If you are an author or a publisher and you are interested to have your book featured, please contact Sean Guillory at sguillory1@niu.edu or mail a copy for consideration to:
Source:
Sean Guillory
Department of History
Northern Illinois University
Zulauf Hall 715
DeKalb, IL 60115-2854

Letopis' Zhurnal'nykh Statei

The Indiana University Digital Library Program presents Letopis' Zhurnal'nykh Statei, a digitized serial publication that indexes Soviet-era periodicals from 1956 to 1975.
The paper version, in publication since 1926, covers more than 1,700 journals, series, and continuing publications of academies, universities, and research institutes in the fields of humanities, natural sciences, and the social sciences, and it also covers the popular periodical literature.
Letopis' Zhurnal'nykh Statei provides access to the periodical literature of an essential time in modern Russian history, beginning with the period of the Khrushchev "Thaw" following the 20th CPSU Congress and continuing through the first half of the so-called Brezhnev "Period of Stagnation". Virtually any student or scholar studying Russian political science, literature, or history between an eleven year period from 1956 until 1975 will find Letopis' Zhurnal'nykh Statei to be an invaluable resource.

The Letopis Zhurnal'nykh Statei online project was funded by the U.S. Department of Education Technological Innovation and Cooperation for Foreign Information Access (TICFIA) Program. Along with grant information, you will also find here other project information such as special announcements, paper and presentations, and staff contributions.

National Broadband Map Released in the United States

http://broadbandmap.gov/Although I recommend starting on the Analyze page to get to maps, reports, etc.: http://www.broadbandmap.gov/analyze
Related Story: http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20110218_7694.php?oref=rss?zone=NGtoday

Source: Kris Kasianovitz

Librarian for Public Policy, Urban Planning, NGOs, State and Local Government Information, Maps and GIS |

UCLA

Belarusian Site on Yanka Luchin(Иван Люцианович Неслуховский) Launched!

I wanted to bring to the attention of my readers that an interesting site about Belarusian author Yanka Luchin has been launched. This bi-lingual web-site will acquaint its readers with the Luchin's works, biography and other relevant materials. The site is located here.

The Bol'shaia Sovetskaia Entsiklopediia provides information on this author as follows, "Лучина Янка (псевдоним; настоящее имя и фамилия Иван Люцианович Неслуховский) [6(18).7.1851, Минск, ‒ 16(28).7.1897, там же], белорусский поэт. Родился в семье адвоката. Окончил в 1877 Петербургский технологический институт. Работал начальником главных железнодорожных мастерских на Кавказе, где познакомился с М. Горьким. Выступил в печати в 80-х годах, писал на белорусском, русском и польском языках. Его белорусские произведения на темы из крестьянской жизни представлены сборником лирики «Вязанка» (1891, опубликован 1903), в котором звучит протест против социального и национального гнёта, горячее сочувствие народу. Стихи Л. на польском языке опубликованы в сборнике «Стихотворения» (1898). На русском языке написал несколько стихотворений и повесть «Верочка» (опубликованы 1900)"(BSE).

The Sheridan Libraries Develop Data Management Plans

"Through its leadership of Data Conservancy, the Sheridan Libraries have developed a template that addresses the elements of the National Science Foundation's (NSF) guidelines for data management plans.  The template focuses on cross-cutting or common elements across NSF directorates.  It is not intended to address the elements or requirements of a particular directorate which may identify additional conditions.    This template is also based on review of several sources including the UK Digital Curation Centre, DataONE and the Association of Research Libraries' guide:

• http://dmponline.hatii.arts.gla.ac.uk/
  
• 
  http://www.dataone.org/plans
  
• http://www.arl.org/rtl/eresearch/escien/nsf/index.shtml
  
• Information about NSF's data management plan requirements is available at http://www.nsf.gov/bfa/dias/policy/dmp.jsp."
  

  
   

  Source: mike DOT rippin AT jhu DOT edu.

Pol'noe Sobranie Zakonov Rossiiskoi Imperii -First Part-Digitized by ImWerden

I am glad to report that a complete collection of the laws of Russian Empire aka Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiĭskoĭ Imperii appears now in the process of digitization in ImWerden-non-commercial digital library's holdings. One can access it online without any authentication and download these files in PDF format.


The only limitation that I can think of is that of the lack of enhanced search capabilities of these PDF files, however I still believe that these are useful to a lot of students. These can be located at ImWerden's web-site.


I am thankful to my colleague Dr.Erick Zitser, from Duke University Library, who had brought this important resource to my attention.

In UCLA Library's Special Collections, we do have a complete set of originals. The record for this title is as follows:
Author/Name: Russia.


Uniform title: [Laws, etc. (Polnoe sobranie zakonov RossiĭskoĭImperii)]


Title: Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiĭskoĭ Imperii.



Published/distributed: T. 1-45 (1649-dek. 11, 1825); Sobranie vtoroe, t. 1-55
(dek. 12, 1825-fevr. 28, 1881); Sobranie tretie, t.1-31, mart 1 (1881-1913).


Sanktpeterburg : Pechatano v Tipografiĭ II
Otdi︠e︡lenii︠a︡ Sobstvennoĭ Ego Imperatorskago
Velichestva Kant︠s︡eli︠a︡rii, 1830-1916.



Physical description: v. : ill. ; 30 cm.



Subject(s): Law--Soviet Union--Sources.
Soviet Union--Politics and government--Periodicals.



Location: SRLF Non-Circ Request at UCLA YRL Special Collections



Library has: v.2-41(1676/88-1826)v.42PT1-2,v.43PT1,v.44PT1-2,v.45(188)̲
,SER2,v.1-5(1825/7-30),v.7(1832)



Indexes: ALPHEBETIC INDEX:v.42PT1-2 : CHRONOLOGICAL INDEX :1649-1825

Archival Bulletin of the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs-Latest Issue Released

The Archive Administration of the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs has just released Edition Number 10 the Archival Bulletin, devoted to Georgian writers and literature in Soviet Georgia, which is available for download in PDF format:

http://archive.security.gov.ge/saarqivo_moambe_10.pdf

The Archive Department has also recently translated its main web portal into English, where one can find many interesting documents and videos:

http://archive.security.gov.ge/en/

Any institution interested in receiving hard copies of the Archival Bulletin, or individuals interested in working in the Georgian KGB and Central Committee archives should contact:

Colonel Omar Tushurashvili

Head of the Archives Administration

Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia

Vazha-Pshavela Avenue, #72

Tbilisi, Georgia

Tel./Fax: (995 32) 323898

E-mail: Tushurashvili(at)pol.ge or Moambe(at)pol.ge

Source:

Timothy Blauvelt

Tbilisi, Georgia

OAPEN (Open Access Publishing in European Networks)

OAPEN (Open Access Publishing in European Networks) is a collaborative initiative to develop and implement a sustainable Open Access publication model for academic books in the Humanities and Social Sciences. The OAPEN Library aims to improve the visibility and usability of high quality academic research by aggregating peer reviewed Open Access publications from across Europe.

When I conducted keyword search for Eurasia, I found 29 open-access books for downloads or reading online.

New Publication on Eurasian Studies: Shattering Empires: The Clash and Collapse of the Ottoman and Russian Empires 1908 1918

Shattering Empires: The Clash and Collapse of the Ottoman and Russian Empires 1908 1918

 

By Michael A. Reynolds, Princeton University, New Jersey

 

Cambridge University Press 2011

Paperback

ISBN: 9780521149167

Publication date: January 2011

324 pages

The break-up of the Ottoman Empire and the disintegration of the Russian empire were watershed events in modern history. The unraveling of these empires was both cause and consequence of World War I and resulted in the deaths of millions. It irrevocably changed the landscape of the Middle East and Eurasia and reverberates to this day in conflicts throughout the Caucasus and Middle East. Shattering Empires draws on extensive research in the Ottoman and Russian archives to tell the story of the rivalry and collapse of two great empires. Overturning accounts that portray their clash as one of conflicting nationalisms, this pioneering study argues that geopolitical competition and the emergence of a new global interstate order provide the key to understanding the course of history in the Ottoman-Russian borderlands in the twentieth century. It will appeal to those interested in Middle Eastern, Russian, and Eurasian history, international relations, ethnic conflict, and World War I.

Features

* Explores a fundamental moment in history, which sparked controversies and conflicts still in progress today, such as controversial Turkish-Armenian relations, the Kurdish question, the origins of the Turkish Republic, and conflicts in the Caucasus and between Russia and its Muslims

* Integrates theories and concepts from international relations an political science, addressing the political behaviour of empires, ethnic conflict, and borderland populations

* Original archival research adds knowledge to the poorly understood collapse of the Ottoman and Russian empires

* Explores a fundamental moment in history, which sparked controversies and conflicts still in progress today, such as controversial Turkish-Armenian relations, the Kurdish question, the origins of the Turkish Republic, and conflicts in the Caucasus and between Russia and its Muslims

* Integrates theories and concepts from international relations and political science, addressing the political behaviour of empires, ethnic conflict, and borderland populations

* Original archival research adds knowledge to the poorly understood collapse of the Ottoman and Russian empires

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. The high politics of anarchy and competition

2. Troubles in Anatolia: imperial insecurities and the transformation of borderland politics

3. Visions of vulnerability: the politics of Muslims, revolutionaries, and defectors

4. Out of the pan, into the fire: empires at war 5. Remastering Anatolia: rending nations, rending empires 6. Brest-Litovsk and the opening of the Caucasus 7. Forced to be free: the geopolitics of independence in the Transcaucasus 8. Racing against time Epilogue

Links:

http://www.cambridge.org/gb/knowledge/isbn/item5692816/?site_locale=en_GB

http://www.amazon.com/Shattering-Empires-Collapse-Ottoman-1908-1918/dp

/0521149169

Google Book Preview: http://tiny.cc/43vh7

 

Source: Farid Guliyev

 

 

SOAS Symposium on Central Asia, the Caucasus and Eurasia, London, February 26, 2011

Source: Sevket Chevy Akyildiz <108857@soas.ac.uk>

2011 SOAS Postgraduate Symposium on Central Asia, the Caucasus and Eurasia

8.50am-6pm: Saturday 26th February. Room B104, Brunei Gallery, (School of Oriental and African Studies, Russell Square, London).

Convener: Sevket Akyildiz (SOAS) 108857@soas.ac.uk

8.30 - 8.50 - Speakers Registration.

Identity Issues

Group A (Moderator Dr. Otambek Mastibekov, Agha Khan University)

8.50-9.05 - Katherine Hughes (SOAS) Samanid material culture & identities in post-Soviet Tajikistan.

9.05-9.20 - Diana Ibanez-Tirado (SOAS) "Tajikistan is a water country."

9.20-9.40 - Anya Munster (SOAS) The experience of practicing Muslims in Crimea: identity and cultural change.

9.40-9.55 - Questions & Answers.

Group B (Moderator Diana Ibanez-Tirado, SOAS)

10.00-10.15 - Oleksandr Svyetlov (Heinrich Heine) History rewriting policy in post-1991 Ukraine.

10.20-10.35 - Gokhan Alper Ataser & Leyla Sayfutdinova (Middle East Technical) Divided over language: Russian language and Azerbaijan national identity.

10.35-10.45 - Dr. Rauf Garagozov (Strategic Studies, Azerbaijan) National identity, nation-building, and nationalism

10.45-11.00 - Questions & Answers.

11.00-11.25 - Coffee & Tea Break.

Group C (Moderator Gaigysyz Jorayev, UCL)

11.30-11.45 - Nasrin Suleymanova (Centre of Strategic Studies, Azerbaijan) Southern Tirol practice towards the problem solution of the Nagorno-Karabakh problem.

11.45-12.00 - Harun Yilmaz (Oxford) Why write a national history for Kazakhs in 1943?

12.00-12.15 - Questions and Answers.

Group D (Moderator Gaigysyz Jorayev, UCL)

12.15-12.30 - Diana Kudaibergenova (Cambridge) The 'Self' and the 'Other' in Astana's symbolic architecture.

12.30-12.45 - Timothy Alexander Nunan (Oxford) From Pashtuwali to Communism: Komsomol and the Democratic Organization of Youth of Afghanistan in Eastern Afghanistan, c. 1980-1988.

12.45-1.00 - Questions & Answers.

1.05-1.55 - Lunch.

Natural Resources, Energy & Business

Group E (Moderator Kenan Aksu, Goldsmiths)

2.00-2.25 - Dr. Bolormaa Shagdar (Cambridge) Natural resources and energy issues in Central Asia: Mongolia as Central Asia's El-Dorado.

2.25-2.45 - Giulia Prelz Oltramonti (Brussels University) Business through de facto states: past and present relevance of cross-borde trade links & economic cooperation.

2.45-3.05 - Nafsin Hasanova (Brussels University) Perceptions of poverty in Tajikistan.

3.10-3.30 - Questions & Answers.

3.30-3.55 - Coffee & Tea Break.

 

Group F (Moderator Richard Carlson, SOAS)

3.55-4.20 - Nicholas Gosset (Brussels University) "The art of making do with": A view from rural Uzbekistan.

4.15-4.40 - Kenan Aksu (Goldsmiths) Nabucco pipeline and its importance for the Caspian Region, Turkey and EU.

4.40-5.00 - Questions and Answers.

5.00-5.20 - Alex Calvo (European University, Barcelona) Japan returns to Central Asia in search for rare earths.

5.20-5.40 - Ali Fathollah-Nejad (SOAS) The effects of Iran sanctions in the field of energy.

5.40-6.00 - Questions & Answers.

 

 

New Postsocialist Ontologies and Politics

The Annual Symposium of Soyuz: The Research Network for Postsocialist Cultural Studies
March 11-12, 2011
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
http://www.reeec.illinois.edu/events/conferences/SOYUZ.html

Source of Information: Professor Serguei A. Oushakine
Program:
March 11, Friday
Levis Faculty Center, Third Floor
4:00 pm - Reception
4:15-4:30pm - Introduction
4:30-6:30pm - Keynote panel: Katherine Verdery, Michael Burawoy

March 12, Saturday
Levis Faculty Center, Music Room
9:00-10:30 - New Geopolitical Imaginaries I: What East-West Directionality?
Neoliberalism, Markets, and Socialism
Johanna Bockman (George Mason University)
Ghosts of '97: Ponzi Finance as a Living Paradigm of Postsocialist Neoliberalism
Smoki Musaraj (The New School)
Provincializing Neoliberalism through Culture(s)
Manduhai Buyandelger (MIT)
Reinstating International Women's Day: Communist Relic, Euro-Conformity, or Radical Feminism?
Karen Kapusta-Pofahl (Washburn University)
Discussant: Maria Todorova (University of Illinois)
10:45-12:00 - What Was the Socialist Subject?
Commodity-As-Comrade: The Politics and Practice of Consumption in Brezhnev's Lithuania
Diana Mincyte (Yale University)
Transnational Epistemic Communities in Socialist Psychology
Tuomas Laine-Frigren (Jyväskylä/Aleksenteri Institute, Helsinki)
From Socialist Internationalism to Contemporary Nomadism
Beth Hinderliter (SUNY, Buffalo)
Discussant: Neringa Klumbyte (Miami University)
1:00-2:15 - New Geopolitical Imaginaries II: The Whiteness of State Socialism and Postsocialism
In the Claws of the Black Crab: Historical Imagination in Postcolonial Europe

Dace Dzenovska (University of Latvia)
Between the Local and the Global: The Case of Socialist Yugoslavia and Postsocialist Slovenia
Nina Vodopivec (Institute for Contemporary History, Ljubljana, Slovenia)
Whitened Histories: Revision, Reaction and Race in the Post-State-Socialist Politics of History in Hungary
Böröcz József (Rutgers University)
Discussant: Bruce Grant (NYU, ASEEES)
2:30-3:45 - Living in Truth: Making Postsocialist Subjects
"The Power of the Powerless": Eastern European Socialist Dissent, Western Theories of Civil Society, and their Brokers
Jonathan Larson (University of Iowa)
Secrets and Lies: "Truth-telling" and transparency in Hungary's informer scandals
Maya Nadkarni (Swarthmore College)
Transparency between West and East
Susanne Cohen (Temple University)
Discussant: Olga Shevchenko (Williams College)
4:00-5:30 - Postsocialism as a Global Political Condition?
A Genealogy of (post-)Soviet Dependency: Civil Rights or Redistribution
Cassandra Hartblay (University of North-Carolina, Chapel Hill)
The Politics of Recognition in Post-Socialist Latvia
Alexandre Beliaev (University of California, Berkeley)
Future as a Predicament: Answerable Politics and the Crisis of Youth in Postwar Bosnia
Larisa Kurtovic (University of California, Berkeley)
Postsocialism and/as the Anthropology of Democracy
Jessica Greenberg (Northwestern University)
Discussant: Zsuzsa Gille (University of Illinois)
5:30-6:30 - Concluding Roundtable
For further information please go to the conference webpage:
http://www.reeec.illinois.edu/events/conferences/SOYUZ.html

ScienceCinema Gives You Searchable Videos from the U.S. Department of Energy

Oak Ridge, TN - Scientific videos highlighting the most exciting research and development sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE<http://www.energy.gov/>) are now available through ScienceCinema<http://www.osti.gov/sciencecinema>. The multimedia search tool was launched today as part of a one-day workshop, "Multimedia and Visualization Innovations for Science," jointly hosted by Microsoft and the International Council for Scientific and Technical Information (ICSTI), held in Redmond, Washington.
Jeffrey Salmon, Deputy Director for Resource Management with the DOE Office of Science, said, "Video, animation, visualization, and other forms of multimedia are now widely used to record, share, and collaborate in science. Because of the U.S. Department of Energy's central role in science, we are also at the center of technology for collecting and disseminating this new media. ScienceCinema's pioneering search and retrieval capability provides the public with a way to quickly access and view our multimedia-based R&D information."
ScienceCinema uses innovative, state-of-the-art audio indexing and speech recognition technology from Microsoft Research to allow users to quickly find video files produced by the DOE National Laboratories and other DOE research facilities. When users search for specific scientific words and phrases of interest to them, precise snippets of the video where the specific search term was spoken will appear along with a timeline. Users can then select a snippet or a segment along the timeline to begin playing the video at the exact point in the video where the words were spoken. The timeline is synced with transcripts of the targeted portion of video.
It is anticipated that scientific videos, animations, interactive visualizations, and other multimedia will become an increasingly prominent form of scientific communications. ScienceCinema was produced, in part, as a proof of concept to demonstrate the value of speech recognition in the complex vocabulary of science. While the launch of the video database will include an initial 1,000 hours of content, it will continue to grow as new DOE R&D-related videos are produced.
ScienceCinema was developed by the DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI<http://www.osti.gov/>) in partnership with Microsoft Research. OSTI, within the Office of
Science<http://www.science.doe.gov is responsible for broadly disseminating and preserving the Energy Department's scientific output. Microsoft Research provides the audio indexing technology for ScienceCinema as part of the Microsoft Research Audio Video Indexing System (MAVIS) project. MAVIS is a set of software components that use speech recognition technology to enable searching of digitized spoken content. More information about MAVIS and the technology can be viewed at the MAVIS project page<http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/mavis/>.

Source:

Cathey Daniels, (865) 576-9539

FELLOWSHIPS- European and Eurasian Studies at George Washington University

Call for Applications: IERES Senior & Postdoctoral Fellowships 2011-12

 

Petrach Senior Fellowship in Eurasian Studies.

The Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies at The George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs announces a competition for one fellowship designed to "top off" the sabbatical/leave salary or another portable fellowship of a senior scholar for the academic year 2011-12. Fellows are expected to be in residence at IERES (http://www.gwu.edu/~ieresgwu/) for the entire period of the fellowship, to conduct research or writing on an academic project related to Eurasia (including in part Ukraine), and to contribute actively to our lively IERES intellectual community through participation in the institute's seminars, talks, and other events. There are no teaching obligations. Preferred candidates will be widely recognized as leaders in their disciplines, with a strong record of peer-reviewed publication. In the US, this would usually mean a tenured academic appointment, and in Eurasian systems a degree of doktor nauk. While the Fellow's research does not have to focus on Ukraine, part of the study should relate directly to it. All disciplines are eligible. Fellows will be awarded a shared office at IERES, university affiliation, library access, limited administrative support, a stipend of $3,300 per month for the period September 2011 - May 2012, and one roundtrip airfare to cover their arrival in and departure from Washington, DC. To apply, candidates should send a cover letter (maximum three pages) describing the proposed research/writing activity to be done at IERES and a CV by email to Caitlin Katsiaficas, caitlin@gwu.edu, with the subject heading "Petrach Senior Fellowship Application." The deadline for receipt of all application materials is February 28, 2011. Questions may be directed to Ms. Katsiaficas at 202-994-6342. This fellowship is funded by IERES's William and Helen Petrach Endowment.

 

Davis and Hoffman Postdoctoral Fellowships in European or Eurasian Studies.

The Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies at The George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs announces a competition for two junior post-doctoral fellowships for the academic year 2011-12. These fellowships are intended to support recent Ph.D. recipients as they bring their dissertation research to publication or embark upon a first post-dissertation research project related to IERES's areas of coverage (Europe and the part of Eurasia corresponding to the postcommunist world) at the outset of an academic career. Fellows have no teaching obligations, though are expected to be in residence at IERES (http://www.gwu.edu/~ieresgwu/) for the entire period of the fellowship and to contribute actively to IERES's lively intellectual community through participation in the institute's seminars, talks, and other events. Preferred candidates will combine strong signs of leadership within their own discipline and area expertise, though comparative social science projects including at least one substantial case from Europe/Eurasia will also be strongly considered. Scholars will be awarded desk space at IERES, university affiliation, library access, limited administrative support, a stipend of $3,300 per month for the period September 2011 - May 2012, and one roundtrip airfare to cover their arrival in and departure from Washington, DC. To be eligible, the applicant's doctoral dissertation must have been defended by the start of the fellowship period, but no earlier than 2007. All disciplines are eligible. To apply, candidates should send a cover letter (maximum two pages) describing the proposed research/writing activity to be done at IERES, two letters of recommendation (sent separately by the recommenders), and a CV by email to Caitlin Katsiaficas, caitlin@gwu.edu, with the subject heading "Davis-Hoffman Postdoctoral Fellowship Competition." The deadline for receipt of all application materials is February 28, 2011. Questions may be directed to Ms. Katsiaficas at 202-994-6342.

These fellowships are funded by the Maria H. Davis European Studies Endowment and a gift from A. Michael Hoffman.

 

 

Online Encyclopedia of Russian National Cinema

Self-Description: "Энциклопедия отечественного кино" —авторский справочник по отечественному кинематографу.

Электронная база данных представляет собой крупнейший российский информационный портал, основанный на материалах семитомного печатного проекта издательства «Сеанс» — «Новейшая история отечественного кино.( 1986-2000).

 

Encyclopedia of Russian national cinema is the author's guide to national cinematography.

An electronic open-access database is the largest Russian information portal based on materials of a seven volume print project "Seance". This database provides access to the recent history of Russian national cinema from 1986-2000.

 

http://russiancinema.ru/

The 2011 Library of Congress Junior Fellowship program Announced

The Library of Congress Junior Fellowship program will take place this summer. Among the approximately forty paid interns, there should be two or three who will work with Russian materials in the European Division (1 intern) and the Rare Book and Special Collections Division (1 or 2 interns). The 10-week program, full-time work each week, will start on May 29, 2011, and run through July 30, 2011. The pay is $300/week with a transit subsidy.

 

Details are given on the Library of Congress site at http://www.loc.gov/hr/jrfellows/about.html#profile

 

Applications for the 2011 summer program are being accepted on USAJobs.gov from February 4, 2011 through March 4, 2011. To repeat, the deadline for applying is March 4.

 

To apply, go to USAjobs at http://www.usajobs.opm.gov/

Search USAjobs with the control number "2171465" as a keyword to find the Junior Fellows listing.

    Junior Fellows/Summer Interns will work full-time with Library specialists to inventory, describe, and explore collection holdings and to assist with digital preservation outreach activities throughout the Library. The focus of the program is on increasing access to collections and awareness of the Library's digital preservation programs by making them better known and accessible to researchers including scholars, students, teachers and the general public.

This past summer one Fellow worked on the Yudin Collection in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division and another worked on the Cyrillic 4 Collection in the European Division.     There is a little overlap between the two projects, and last summer's two Fellows enjoyed (and their supervisors benefited from) the interconnections.

Here are brief descriptions of the internships in the European Division and the Rare Book Division:

Area Studies (European Division)

    The Fellow will assist with "light" cataloging of the European Division's "Cyrillic 4 collection" of about 2,000 mostly slender Russian-language monographs published primarily between 1880 and 1940. The ideal Junior Fellow candidate for the European Division will: 1) have a good reading knowledge of Russian; 2) be enrolled in a graduate program for Library Science studies; and 3) be interested in learning (or already know something about) basic cataloging.

    Rare Books and Special Collections Division The Yudin Collection. Interns will use Siberian collector Gennadii V. Yudin's own handwritten Russian-language catalog to locate Yudin's books in Library of Congress collections, identify books not yet included in the online catalog, and contribute to the virtual catalog of Yudin's extraordinary library of 80,000 volumes dispersed throughout the Library of Congress. Skill(s)/Knowledge desired: Applicants should have advanced Russian language skills and the aptitude to read pre-Revolutionary Cyrillic handwriting. Students should have good computer skills, attention to detail, and the ability to work independently much of the time.

    U.S. citizenship is required. Unfortunately, a green card is not sufficient. The program is open to undergraduate students, graduate students, and law students. Fellows may receive course credit - at the full discretion of the student's university.

    A common question is, "Do I have to be there for the entire 10 weeks, May 29 - July 30, 2011?" In a word, yes. Fellows must certainly be present during the first week when all 40 Fellows will receive group orientations before they disperse to work in various divisions of the Library. It is possible to miss a very few days during the 10 weeks, but not during the first or last weeks.

    Below is a lengthier description of the Russian project in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, compiled by my colleague Barbara Dash.

 

G. V. Yudin Collection

Rare Book and Special Collections Division

The 80,000 volumes of the Yudin Collection, primarily a gift, arrived at the Library of Congress between 1906 and 1908. The largest personal Russian library in the United States, the collection is renowned for its quality and variety, including rare and sometimes unique works not only in Russian but in many other languages. Its hidden treasures include as well many original maps, portraits, architectural drawings, and landscapes.

Because Yudin's books have been dispersed throughout the Library's collections (the general collections, Geography & Map, the Law Library, the Music Division, Prints & Photographs, and Rare Book), and because only a small percentage of online catalog records identify Yudin's books as belonging to his library, we have no available catalog of the collection. We do have in our possession, however, Yudin's original handwritten card file, mostly still tied in bundles with ribbon. The file cards are written in several hands, mostly in Cyrillic script, on fragile paper.

During the summers of 2009 and 2010, a summer intern began to employ Yudin's card file to identify his library in the online LC catalog. In the summer of 2011, intern(s) will continue to use information from the original handwritten cards to search the LC online catalog for books from Yudin's library. Once an exact match is found, interns will enter the Yudin Collection name in the catalog record for the book. In some cases they may discover titles that have been missing from LC's catalog. In many cases they will retrieve and examine the books themselves for important bibliographic information or physical evidence. Because many of the online catalog records for Russian books acquired in earlier times are incomplete or contain errors, the interns have the opportunity, with the guidance of Library staff, to make important additions or correct major errors in the catalog.

Applicants should have the willingness and energy to investigate bibliographic problems or questions that may take them to many corners of the Library. At the end of the summer program, interns will be expected to participate in an exhibition of treasures they have found. In addition to the Yudin project, interns will be exposed to the rich collections of the Rare Book & Special Collections Division and the Library of Congress and offered opportunities to participate in other aspects of library work.

Source:

Grant Harris

Head, European Reading Room

Library of Congress

101 Independence Avenue, SE

Washington, DC 20540-4830

tel. 202-707-5859

fax 202-707-8482

grha@loc.gov

 

2011: Central Asia: Decay and Decline Report Published

International Crisis Group has released a 2011 report on Central Asia. The report deals with the issues surrounding decay and decline in the public infrastructure in Central Asia. The Executive Summary can be found here.


The report concludes the following, "Only a concerted effort from national governments, donors and the international community to modernise Central Asia’s infrastructure can avert the region’s decline into chaos".

Fourth International Workshop on Web Information Retrieval Support Systems (WIRSS 2011)

August 22, 2011
Lyon, France

Held in collaboration with the 2011 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Conference on Web Intelligence (WI 2011), August 22 - 27, 2011 in Lyon, France.

WIRSS 2011: http://uxlab.cs.mun.ca/wirss2011/
WI 2011: http://www.wi-iat-2011.org/WI_2011/

WIRSS 2011 OVERVIEW
The focus of the Fourth International Workshop on Web Information Retrieval Support Systems is on the aspects of Web information retrieval that consider the specific needs of individuals conducting Web searches. Web Information Retrieval Support Systems (WIRSS) moves beyond the traditional focus of automated searching within digital collections, applying intelligent methods and Web-based technologies to assist users in specifying their information needs, evaluating and exploring search results, and managing the information they find.

Fundamentally, WIRSS research supports a change in design philosophy, moving the focus of Web search from the documents being searched to the tasks that people need to perform. We believe this philosophical shift will mark the move towards next-generation Web search systems, and a transition from information retrieval to knowledge retrieval.

The aim of this workshop is to bring together academic and industry researchers to discuss advances in providing intelligent support for the user-centric tasks associated with Web search. Researchers from diverse fields such as information retrieval, artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, information visualization, Web systems, natural language processing, and agent systems are invited to contribute to this workshop.

WORKSHOP TOPICS
- interactive query refinement
- search results representations and visualization
- search results exploration
- re-finding information
- search results storage and organization
- document summarization
- personalization
- multi-level and multi-view representations
- Web search user behaviour
- user studies of WIRSS
- knowledge management systems
- human-centred search

WORKSHOP FORMAT
The WIRSS 2011 Workshop is being offered as a full-day workshop at the 2011 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Conference on Web Intelligence (WI 2011), August 22 - 27, 2011 in Lyon, France. A single registration entitles delegates to attend the workshops and the full conference.

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SUBMISSIONS
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All papers for the WIRSS 2011 Workshop are to be submitted through the WI/IAT 2011 Workshop Paper Submission system. The length of accepted papers should not exceed 4 pages in the IEEE-CS format. Extra payment is only available for one additional page. The details for the submission procedures and the style files for preparing your paper are provided on the WIRSS Web site (http://uxlab.cs.mun.ca/wirss2011/).

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ORGANIZING COMMITTEE/WORKSHOP CO-CHAIRS
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Orland Hoeber, Memorial University, Canada
hoeber@cs.mun.ca

Yiyu Yao, University of Regina, Canada
yyao@cs.uregina.ca