*CFP* “RE-INVENTING EASTERN EUROPE. 30 YEARS FROM THE REVOLUTIONS IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE”, THE 7TH EUROACADEMIA INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

The 7th Euroacademia International Conference 

Re-Inventing Eastern Europe. 30 Years From The Revolutions In Central And Eastern Europe

13-14 de Diciembre 2019

Anglo American University, Praga, República Checa

Not a very long time ago, a British lady was considered bigoted by Gordon Brown upon asking ‘all these Eastern Europeans what are coming in, where are they flocking from?’ (1). The zoological word is not a novelty in the cultural invention of Eastern Europe. Maybe, despite her concern with the dangers of immigration for Britain, the lady was right in showing that such a question still awaits for answers in Europe. The ironic aspect however is that a first answer to such a question would point to the fact that the Eastern Europeans come from the Western European imaginary. As Iver Neumann puts it, ‘regions are invented by political actors as a political program, they are not simply waiting to be discovered’ (2). And, as Larry Wolff skillfully showed, Eastern Europe is an invention emanated initially from the intellectual agendas of the elites of Enlightenment that later found its peak of imaginary separation during the Cold War (3).

The Economist, explicitly considered Eastern Europe to be wrongly labelled and elaborated that ‘it was never a very coherent idea and it is becoming a damaging one’ (4). The EU enlargement however was expected to make the East/West division obsolete under the veil of a prophesied convergence. That would have finally proven the non-ontological, historically contingent and unhappy nature of the division of Europe and remind Europeans of the wider size of their continent and the inclusive and empowering nature of their values. Yet, more than 20 years after the revolutions in the Central and Eastern European countries, Leon Mark, while arguing that the category of Eastern Europe is outdated and misleading, bitterly asked a still relevant question today: ‘will Europe ever give up the need to have an East?’ (5)

Eastern Europe was invented as a region and continues to be re-invented from outside and inside. From outside its invention was connected with alterity making processes, and, from inside the region, the Central and Eastern European countries got into a civilizational beauty contest themselves in search of drawing the most western profile: what’s Central Europe, what’s more Eastern, what’s more Ottoman, Balkan, Byzantine, who is the actual kidnapped kid of the West, who can build better credentials by pushing the Easterness to the next border. A wide variety of scholars addressed the western narratives of making the Eastern European ‘other’ as an outcome of cultural politics of enlightenment, as an effect of EU’s need to delineate its borders, as an outcome of its views on security, or as a type of ‘orientalism’ or post-colonialism. Most of these types of approaches are still useful in analyzing the persistence of a East-West slope 30 years after the revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe. The region is understood now under a process of convergence, socialization and Europeanization that will have as outcomes an ‘ever closer union’ where the East and the West will fade away as categories. Yet the reality is far from such an outcome while the persistence of categories of alterity making towards the ‘East’ is not always dismantled simultaneously with the increased diversity of political patterns emerging in the region. The discourses on core/non-core, new Europe/old Europe, pioneers/followers, teachers/pupils, center/periphery, cosmos/chaos are often maintaining significant ground within the arena of European identity narratives often yet not exclusively voiced by the EU.

The The 7th Euroacademia International Conference Re-Inventing Eastern Europe aims rather than asserting to make a case and to provide alternative views on the dynamics, persistence and manifestations of the practices of alterity making that take place in Europe and broadly in the mental mappings of the world. It offers an opportunity for scholars, activists and practitioners to locate, discuss and debate the multiple dimensions in which specific narratives of alterity making towards Eastern Europe preserve their salience today in re-furbished and re-fashioned manners. The conference aims to look at the processes of alterity making as puzzles and to address the persistence of the East-West dichotomies simultaneously to assessing the diversity and change within the CEE region 30 years after the fall of the Iron Curtain.

The Conference is organized around but not limited to the following tentative panels or topics:

• The Agenda of the Enlightenment: Inventing Eastern Europe
• Thinking Eastern Europe: Contributions to Understanding an Invented Region
• Europe East and West: On the Persistence of the Division
• Reviewing Alternative Modernities: East and West
• Europe and the Inclusive/Exclusive Nexus
• Mental Mappings on Eastern Europe
• People-ing the Eastern Europeans
• Geopolitical Views on the East-West Division
• Post-colonial readings of Eastern Europe
• Making Borders to the East: Genealogies of Othering
• Europe as Seen from its East
• Myths and Misconceptions on Eastern Europe
• Social Causes and the Pursuit of Social Beliefs in Central and Eastern Europe
• Protest and Social Change in Central and Eastern Europe
• Central Europe vs. Eastern Europe
• Reading the Past: On Memory and Memorialization
• The Eastern European ‘Other’ Inside the European Union
• Core Europe/Non-Core Europe
• European Values and the Process of Europeanization of Eastern Europe as Pedagogy
• Assessing Convergence in Eastern Europe
• Explaining Divergence and Diversity in Eastern Europe
• Central and Eastern Europe and the EU
• Scenarios for the Future of Eastern Europe
• Debating the End of European Solidarity
• Eastern Europe and Asymmetries of Europeanization
• Re-making Eastern Europe: Pushing the Easterness to the Next Border
• From the Ottoman Empire to Russia: Cultural Categories in the Making of Eastern Europe
• Go West! Migration from Eastern Europe and Experiences of ‘Othering’
• Explaining the Growth of Far Right Movements and Populist Parties in Eastern Europe
• Lifestyles and the Quotidian Peculiarities of the Invented East
• Europe and the Logic of Growth through Austerity: The Impact on Eastern Europe of the Crises
• Visual Representation of Eastern Europe in Film: From Dracula to Barbarian Kings
• Guidebooks for the Savage Lands: Representations of Eastern Europe in Travel Guides
• Urban Landscapes in Eastern Europe
• Religion and Politics in Eastern Europe
• European Narratives of the Past: The Mnemonic/Amnesic Nexuses
• Eastern European Literature and Authors
• Changing Politics and the Transformation of Cities in Eastern Europe
• Eastern Europe and Artistic Movements
• Writing about the East in West
• Writing about the West in East
• The Eastern European ‘Other’ Inside the European Union
• The Formation of European Subaltern Identities
• Europe and Russia
• European Diplomacy and Consensus in Foreign Policy: What Role for Eastern Europe?
• Feminist Readings of Contemporary Eastern Europe
• Gender Politics in CEE
• Illiberal States – From Negative Determinants to a Self-Affirming Ideology and State Positioning
• Anti-Immigration, Nationalism and Far Right Parties in Central And Eastern Europe
• Migration Routes and New Walls In CEE
• Assessing the Quality of Democracy and Convergence in the Region

However, if you are willing to propose and/or chair a particular panel we welcome you to advance your proposal in the Propose a Panel section.

Please use the from to apply on-line on the conference website or submit abstracts of less than 300 words together with the details of affiliation until 1st of November 2019 to application@euroacademia.org 

Important Dates

1st of November 2019 Deadline for Submitting Paper Proposals

4th of November 2019 Latest notification of acceptance

7th of November 2019 Sending the Registration Form

11th of November 2019 Payment of the conference fee

28th of November 2019 Sending the draft paper to be uploaded on the conference website

29th of November 2019 Publication of the conference program and uploading the draft papers on the website

13th of December 2019 The conference commences at 9.00 am

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(1) See the whole dialogue between Gillian Duffy and Gordon Brown on BBC News online at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/election_2010/8649448.stm

(2) Neumann, Iver. 2001. Regionalism and Democratisation. In Jan Zielonka and Alex Pravda (eds.), Democratic Consolidation in Eastern Europe, Vol 2 International Dimensions. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 58 – 75, p. 71.

(3) Wolff, Larry. 1994. Inventing Eastern Europe. The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

(4) The Economist, January 7th 2010, http://www.economist.com/node/15213108

(5) Marc, Leon. 2009. What’s So Eastern about Eastern Europe? Twenty Years After the Fall of The Berlin Wall. Trowbridge: Oldcastle Books, p.161.