The National Research University Higher School of Economics; the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies; the Blavatnik Family Foundation; the Centre for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at the Munk School of Global Affairs and the Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto; the German Historical Institute Moscow; the Centre franco-russe de recherche en sciences humaines et sociales de Moscou; Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History; and Georgetown University's Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies and Georgetown Institute for Global History, with the support of the Centre d’études des mondes russe, caucasien, et centre-européen at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales, invite applications for a conference on World War II and the Holocaust in the Soviet Union. The conference will be held December 7-9, 2012, in Moscow, Russia, at the Higher School of Economics.
In the past decade, three related fields, each interdisciplinary in its own right, have developed exponentially but sometimes in isolation: the study of wartime Stalinism, the study of the Nazi occupation of Soviet territories, and the study of the Holocaust in the East. This conference will bring together the latest research conducted in all humanities and social science disciplines in order to foster new analytical perspectives and cross-fertilization in these and other key areas. The conference seeks to highlight new research in such areas as evacuation, refugees, and displaced persons; atrocities, mass killing, and mass graves; forced and slave labor; the dynamics of complicity, collaboration, and various forms of resistance; everyday life on the front and under occupation; understudied victims; occupier perspectives on the War and the Holocaust, including such acts as the starvation of Soviet POWs, and their contributions to the history of National Socialism; new perspectives on the Soviet wartime experience and the impact of war on the Soviet system; the study of the Soviet home front; Soviet-German interactions and entanglements, both in specific locales and in systemic terms; the cultural politics of representation and commemoration in the aftermath; gender; and communities and identities forged around the unprecedented experiences of war on the Eastern Front in World War II.
The conference is intended to be interdisciplinary. Proposals for new, original, and previously unpublished papers are welcome from scholars in all relevant academic disciplines, including from doctoral students who have advanced to candidacy. Applicants interested in presenting a paper should be currently researching or completing projects exploring the topics and issues listed above, broadly understood. Successful applicants will be required to submit a copy of their presentation in advance of the conference for circulation among commentators, other panelists, and conference participants.
The conference will be conducted in English and Russian. Simultaneous translation will be provided.
The deadline for receipt of proposals is May 15, 2012. Participants will be selected and notified no later than June 1, 2012.
To propose a paper for this conference, please send: (1) a cover letter addressing your specific interests in the study of World War II and the Holocaust in the Soviet Union; (2) your curriculum vitae; and (3) an abstract of no more than 500 words of your proposed paper to Krista Hegburg, Program Officer, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, at khegburg@ushmm.org, and to Dr. Galina Zelenina, Senior Research Fellow, Center for the History and Sociology of World War II, the Higher School of Economics, Moscow, at gzelenina@hse.ru.
Submissions must include the speaker’s name, institutional affiliation, current position, contact address and email. Proposals may be in either Russian or English, but Russian-language proposals should include an English abstract or summary. Applicants may apply individually or suggest a panel. Applicants who are accepted may submit their full-length papers in either English or Russian. For applicants whose papers are accepted and indicate that they need financial support, the conference organizers will provide lodging for the duration of the conference and a stipend to help defray transportation costs.
A limited number of junior scholar travel stipends will be available to partially defray costs for graduate students and junior scholars from post-Soviet states to attend the conference. Applicants must be advanced graduate students or recent Ph.D. recipients no more than three years beyond conferral of their degree, and must reside in one of the countries that formerly comprised the Soviet Union. Scholars enrolled in graduate programs or teaching at universities outside of these countries are not eligible for junior scholar travel stipends.
To apply for a post-Soviet junior scholar travel stipend, please submit: (1) a curriculum vitae that indicates your current academic affiliation; (2) a statement of interest of not more than 750 words addressing your specific interest in attending the conference, background in the area of study, and how attendance will benefit the candidate’s research, teaching, or future publications; and (3) a supporting letter from an academic advisor, department chair, or dean that addresses the candidate’s qualifications and research as well as his/her potential as a scholar to Krista Hegburg, Program Officer, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, at khegburg@ushmm.org. Statements of interest and CVs must be submitted in English; the supporting letter may be submitted in either English or Russian. The deadline for receipt of application for the junior scholar travel stipends is June 1, 2012. Participants will be selected and notified no later than July 1, 2012.