CFA - postdoc on contemporary Russia @ University of Michigan

The Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia (WCEE) at the University of Michigan seeks to hire a scholar of contemporary Russia for a two-year WCEE Postdoctoral Fellowship, from August 2026 to July 2028. 

We encourage applications from specialists on Russia proper as well as those who focus on Russia’s interactions with its neighbors (the Baltic states, Moldova, Belarus, Ukraine, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Mongolia, China, Japan). Candidates should have a PhD completed, or nearly completed, in the social sciences and/or cultural studies, broadly construed. We are especially interested in scholars who will complement and add to the coverage offered by our existing faculty.

WCEE Postdoctoral Fellows are expected to focus on their own research, participate in the center’s events, present at least one public lecture during their two-year fellowship, and teach one course per year at the University of Michigan while in full-time residency. 

Eligibility

Eligibility is restricted to applicants who have obtained their PhD no earlier than January 1, 2024. Current doctoral candidates are eligible to apply but must have defended and filed their dissertations by July 31, 2026.

Benefits

Fellowships carry an annual salary of $60,000 and up to $10,000 in research funds during the postdoctoral appointment. Fellowship recipients will be eligible for U-M health, dental, and life insurance options (beginning August 1, 2026 through July 31, 2028). Fellows have full access to U-M library resources.  

Application Materials

Candidates should submit the following via Interfolio:

• A research proposal (2000 words maximum) that describes your intellectual objectives and concrete plan for the fellowship duration
• Curriculum Vitae
• A scholarly writing sample, such as a dissertation chapter or peer-reviewed journal article (50 pages maximum)
• Teaching statement with potential course topics
• Two letters of recommendation

To be assured full consideration, fellowship applications should be received by October 15, 2025, 11:59 PM EST. Successful applicants will be notified by December 2025. 

Please contact the Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia for additional information at weiseraward@umich.edu.

CFP: Post-Socialist and Comparative Memory Studies Conference

Deadline: January 15, 2020

The Post-Socialist and Comparative Memory Studies (PoSoCoMeS) working group is part of the Memory Studies Association. Our goal is to bring together researchers, activists, and practitioners working in and on post-socialist countries. We call for trans-regional comparative studies that connect Eastern Europe and Africa, Southern America and Asia, and result in broad conceptualizations of post-socialist memories.

The PoSoCoMeS group was constituted in 2018 in order to establish a platform for the exchange of ideas between scholars from different disciplines working on post-socialist memory studies. During the third annual MSA conference in Madrid, we organized 14 panels, which attracted a broad audience. We have already published two newsletters informing about our activities, and now we are organizing the first PoSoCoMes conference. It will take place on September 24-26, 2020, in Chisinau, Moldova. One of the purposes of this conference is to allow scholars and practitioners from the post-socialist countries of Europe and Eurasia to discuss common issues. Travel to Moldova is visa-free for citizens of over 100 countries. All participants in the conference need to be members of the MSA, however, sponsored memberships are available. There will be no registration fee for the conference, and we are hoping to raise funds to offer scholarships to a small number of participants from low-income countries. Applications from those living outside the former socialist world and working in comparative memory studies involving questions of (post)socialism are also very welcome.

We invite submissions of panels, sessions, round tables, workshops, and individual papers covering different aspects of post-socialist memories. We are especially interested in papers using comparative approaches and studying cases from different regions.

We are inviting proposals for panel and poster sessions for early-career researchers (Ph.D. and advanced MA students), including discussions of thesis proposals. Alternative formats are also welcome. 

• Possible topics of submissions include:
• Post-socialist writing/ writing memories of (post)socialism
• (Post)socialism in art, film and visual culture
• Museums and memories of socialism
• Nostalgia and Ostalgie
• Difficult memories of post-socialist pasts
• Transitional justice in post-socialist countries
• Memory activism connecting post-socialist countries
• Post-socialist and postcolonial entanglements of memory 
• Politics of memory and memory wars in post-socialist countries
• Media and Internet shaping memories in and across post-socialist regions
• Theorizing comparative memory studies
• Post-socialist memory in Global South
• Non-alignment and memory
• Ideology and everyday life of (post)socialism
• Memory and oral history
• Transitional justice in post-socialist contexts
• Memories of transitional periods 

We are organizing a stream on the adaptation of cosmopolitan Holocaust memory culture in Eastern Europe. Please note if you are applying to this stream.

Paper proposals should include abstracts no longer than 250 words and information about the presenter (affiliation and short biographies). Panel and roundtable proposals should include an abstract no longer than 250 words and a complete list of participants, titles of their papers, and names of discussants and/or moderators.

Please, send your submission through the google form or to posocomes@gmail.com. Submissions are due January 15, 2020.


Program committee:

• Zuzanna Bogumił, The Maria Grzegorzewska University, Warsaw, anthropology
• Diana Dumitru, Ion Creangă State University, history
• Oksana Dovgopolova, Odessa National University, history/philosophy 
• Aleksei Kamenskikh, Higher School of Economics in Perm, history/ philosophy
• Wulf Kansteiner, Aarhus University, history/memory studies
• Daria Khlevnyuk, Higher School of Economics, Moscow, sociology
• Lana Lovrencic, Zagreb, heritage studies/history of art
• Olga Malinova, Higher School of Economics in Moscow, political science
• Ksenia Robbe, University of Groningen, literary & cultural studies
• Bin Xu, Emory College of Arts and Sciences, sociology