CfP Conference Jewish Languages and Politics. Ideological Choices of Jews in the Modern Era at the POLIN Museum

Aleksandra Jakubczak

Poland

International Conference: Jewish Languages and Politics. Ideological Choices of Jews in the Modern Era

1-3 June 2026 Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews (Warsaw, Poland)

In the modern period, political, social, and religious tensions arose in Jewish communities, for example, between different religious currents and between Zionists and proponents of Jewish life in the Diaspora. At the heart of these different attitudes and identity decisions among Jews have always been languages. Linguistic choices influenced how traditions were preserved or developed, how liberal and conservative currents of Judaism emerged, as well as how the Jewish state took its form. Finally, language ideologies played an important role in Jewish self-expression and self-understanding. 

The question of language – its significance, influence across various spheres of Jewish life – is crucial for understanding modern Jewish history, particularly with regard to socio-political processes in the diaspora. The conference aims to showcase and interrogate the latest research findings and promote a broader, international discussion on Jewish languages and languages used by Jews globally from the 18th to the end of the 20th century, especially in the context of:

• Language and the formation of Jewish identity.
• The language of politics, especially in the context of the formation of new Jewish political and ideological movements.
• The importance of the Hebrew language for the development of Zionist thought.
• The place of Yiddish in diasporic life and in the development of Zionist ideology.
• Esperanto as a product of Jewish linguistic polyphony.
• The mutual influence between Jewish languages and the non-Jewish environment.
• Jewish linguistic ideologies and the Jewish-language press as a medium of communication.
• The interrelation between Jewish religious history and the shifting role of Hebrew as a sacred language.
• The rise and decline of traditional Jewish languages, such as Ladino, Judeo-Italian, Jewish Malayalam, and Judeo-Arabic.
• The emergence of new Jewish sociolects, for example, Jewish English and Jewish Swedish.

We invite submissions for this conference from researchers in the field of Jewish studies, working across diverse disciplines including history, sociology, anthropology, literature, linguistics, and related fields, ranging from PhD students to advanced scholars.

More details and the application form can be found here: International conference "Jewish Languages and Politics. Ideological Choices of Jews in the Modern Era" | Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich POLIN w Warszawie

The conference accompanies POLIN Museum's temporary exhibition: "The Power of Words. On Jewish Languages."

The organizers will provide meals and accommodation during the conference. Speakers may apply for partial reimbursement of travel expenses if no other funding is available. Preference for funding will be given to early-career and independent researchers. The organizers reserve the right to record and publish conference proceedings.

Contact Email

geopconference@polin.pl

URL

https://polin.pl/en/event/international-conference-jewish-languages-and-politic…

Call for applications - Translating Ukraine Summer Institute 2026

Translating Ukraine Summer Institute, co-organized by the University of Alberta’s Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (CIUS), DUSS UAlberta—Disrupted Ukrainian Scholars and Students Initiative, the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University, the Harriman Institute of Columbia University, the Yale Ukrainian Program at Yale University, Ukrainian Studies Program at Cambridge University, Kolegium Europy Wschodniej, National Ossolinski Institute, New Eastern Europe, NGO Translatorium, and the Shevchenko Scientific Society in the US, is currently accepting applications for its Summer 2026 program. The organizers are inviting all eligible candidates to apply by 1 February 2026.

The full call for applications can be found here: https://www.translatingukraine.org/apply

Program:

Supported by academic partners in Canada, the US, the UK, and Poland, this summer institute will focus on training emerging and mid-career translators in the field of literary and academic translation. In the course of intensive twelve-day training, invited summer institute faculty and experienced professionals will lead workshops and professional development sessions, aimed at building key skills in Ukrainian-English translation. The three offered training modules will center on translation of literary prose, poetry, and nonfiction/academic texts. Please note that each participant will be required to complete all three modules. The program will also offer space for working on and presenting the participants’ individual projects and for fostering mentoring relationships.

Location: Wroclaw, Poland

Dates: 6-17 July 2026

Eligibility:

Eligible candidates shall include: 

• a) practitioners with experience in the field of Ukrainian to English translation, be it beginners or mid-career professionals; 

• b) students enrolled in Ukrainian language courses and translation programs at accredited universities and participating institutions.

To apply:

Fill out the Stage 1 Application Form attaching your CV, statement of interest (max. 2 pages), and indicating the names and email addresses of two referees by 1 February 2026. Please note that only successful Stage 1 applicants will be invited to proceed to the Stage 2 applications where they will be required to submit their translation samples.     

Please direct any questions to info@translatingukraine.org.  

Critical Languages Institute Programs Open

Applications for the Critical Languages Institute's (CLI) summer language programs are open!

 

For the Summer 2026 Cycle, CLI is offering its first year and some second-year programs online (Persian, Turkish, and Russian). Online programs with a 4-week study abroad add-on are available for Albanian, Armenian, BCSM, Polish, Ukrainian, Uzbek, and Russian. For applicants to Macedonian, the Melikian Center has additional funds to support travel and participation in the International Seminar on Macedonian Language, Literature, and Culture in Ohrid.

They have added a 2nd-Year Romanian program in Bucharest, Romanian this year! 2nd-year and advanced programs are offered in Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Kyrgy Republic, Latvia, Macedonia, Poland, Romania and Uzbekistan!

CLI has funding for all of its language programs supported by endowed funds. This year, CLI will be able to award up to $8,500 for participants traveling abroad on one of our programs from these endowed funds, and CLI's first-year language programs are still $2,000 for 8-10 university credits.  

For more information, please visit their website or email cli@asu.edu. 

SRAS Summer Study Abroad - Application Deadlines

Application deadlines for the following early summer programs (end of May start) have been extended to March 15:

Batumi: Russian as a Second Language

Bishkek: Russian as a Second Language

Yerevan: Russian as a Second Language

Warsaw: Security and Society in the Information Age

The application deadline for all sessions starting after June 15 remain March 15. This includes the 6-week sessions for Batumi, Bishkek and Riga - in addition to the Ukrainian Language Workshop and Polish Language & Culture – both in Warsaw.

CFP: International Workshop, 23-25 February, Warsaw

Deadline: November 13, 2022

We are now inviting paper proposals for the international workshop "Witnessing the Now: Challenges of Emergency Documenting and Archiving in a Comparative Perspective", that will take place in Warsaw, 23-25 February, 2023.

https://swiadectwawojny2022.org/en/#news

The escalation of Russian aggression against Ukraine - an attack launched almost all over its territory in February 2022 - has triggered numerous initiatives documenting the atrocities of the Russian aggressors and the experiences of refugees in and out of that country. The project “24.02.2022, 5 am: Testimonies from the War” was initiated by the Center for Urban History in Lviv and, apart from Ukraine, is now being implemented in Poland, Luxembourg and Scotland. Reaching the mid-term point in the process of testimony gathering, we would like to share our experience with colleagues carrying out similar projects, encourage the exchange of knowledge and know-how and initiate discussion about methodological and ethical problems of emergency documenting and archiving.

The war and refugee crisis in Central and Eastern Europe brings us closer to similar situations in different regions of the world, which are also being (or have been) documented and researched. Therefore, while the Russian invasion of Ukraine will be our primary focus, we want to approach the topic from a comparative perspective. This might include (but is not limited to) protests in Belarus in 2020, the Russo-Georgian war of 2008, wars and humanitarian crises in the Middle East and North Africa, or doing research in temporary accommodation for refugees.

Participants are encouraged to address one or more of the following topics in their proposals:

- When is the right time to start documentation? Who should decide on the project timing?
- Which methodology is best for emergency documenting and archiving? What are the consequences of choosing particular methods?
- What should the ethical standards of interviewing and archiving look like? Where to look for inspiration? Who can and should control the standards?
- What are the limits of the researcher’s position? Can a researcher or documentalist be also a community activist or person involved in humanitarian aid?
- What is the role of the interviewee/witness in the process of documenting? How should the relation between the researcher and the witness look like? What are the possible problems?
- What is the agency of local initiatives and the role of international actors? How do the need for fundraising and the current political context influence the project’s timing and dynamics?
- How and when (or whether at all) to make the archived material open to the wider public? What is the researchers’ responsibility towards collected data?
- What are the possibilities of analytical work with collected material? How to conceptualize the interviewees’ experiences (“trauma” and beyond)? What are the necessities and constraints of using the concept of trauma in emergency research?

The workshop will be held in English. We invite both academic researchers and non-academic professionals involved in documentation initiatives to submit their applications. A paper abstract (up to 300 words) and a short bio should be sent by 13 November, 2022 to: swiadectwa.wojny@gmail.com.

Successful applicants will be notified by the end of November 2022. There is no conference fee. We will also offer travel grants to participants from Ukraine and Belarus. Accommodation for other participants might be offered depending on the funding obtained.

We are pleased to announce that the confirmed keynote speaker at the workshop will be Elisabeth Dunn, a distinguished scholar from Indiana University and anthropologist working on post-socialist Eastern Europe (author of the books “Privatizing Poland” and “No Path Home”).
 
Workshop’s organizers:
Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences
Mieroszewski Centre
Polish Oral History Association

 
Organizing committee:
Anna Wylegała, Institute of the Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences
Marcin Jarząbek, Jagiellonian University, Polish Oral History Association
Róża Kochanowska, Institute of the Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences
Wiktoria Kudela-Świątek, Pedagogical University in Cracow
Małgorzata Łukianow, Center for Research on Social Memory, University of Warsaw

CFA: Post-Doc for ethnographic research with Ukrainian Pentecostals in Poland

Deadline: November 15, 2022

Missionaries, Migrants and Hosts. Pentecostalism, the 'Other', and Activism in Contemporary Poland

A Post-Doc for ethnographic research with Ukrainian Pentecostals in Poland. The post-doc will be contracted as a full-time assistant professor at the Institute for the Study of Religion, Jagiellonian University in Kraków, for 30 months. Advanced knowledge of Ukrainian and Russian, and excellent command of English is required. More details here: https://sway.office.com/4EO3FMJ2ivnfqlsn?ref=Link

Application submission deadline: Nov 15, 2022
Candidate selection by Dec 19, 2022
The start of employment is scheduled between 1 January 2023 and 31 March 2023.

Contact: Dr Natalia Zawiejska: natalia.zawiejska@uj.edu.pl.

Job: Senior Lecturer in Polish (The Ohio State University)

Deadline: rolling, apply ASAP

The Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures at The Ohio State University invites applications for the position of Senior Lecturer beginning August 2021. We are seeking a dynamic and talented instructor of Polish language and culture who can contribute to and further develop the strength of the Polish program. Additional qualifications and experience in department teaching strengths in any of the following areas: film (Russian and East European), popular culture, gender, literature, migration studies, and translation are desired. Qualified applicants must have a PhD (by the time of appointment) in Slavic languages and cultures or a related discipline as well as experience of teaching in North America. Fluency in Polish and English is required, and advanced-high proficiency in Russian preferred. The successful candidate will teach 22-24 credit hours (language courses are 4 credit hours and content courses taught in English 3 credits) per year, in Polish, English, and potentially Russian. The final course load will depend on service assignments which may include curriculum development and undergraduate advising. This is a one-year renewable appointment, pending excellent performance reviews, need, and availability of funds.

To recognize the role of education in shaping a more just and diverse world, we will give priority to candidates whose efforts in teaching, scholarship, and service include experience with NGOs, attention to marginalized populations in the region of study, and work that addresses representations and diverse experiences in terms of race, ethnicity, class, gender and sexual identity, religion, and disability.

Application Link: https://osu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/OSUCareers/job/Columbus-Campus/Senior-Lecturer_R16109-1

The Ohio State University is committed to establishing a culturally and intellectually diverse environment, encouraging all members of our learning community to reach their full potential. The Ohio State University is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation or identity, national origin, disability status, or protected veteran status.

Additional Information for Applicants: Applicants should submit a cover letter, curriculum vitae, and teaching portfolio (sample language and content syllabi, teaching philosophy), and contact information of three referees. Review of applications will begin on May 24 and continue until the position is filled.

CFP: War and Diversity Beyond the Battlefield: Cultural Encounters in the Polish Lands 1914–1923 (Panel for the 4th International Congress of Polish History)

 Deadline: August 1, 2021

Kraków, 19–22 October 2022

Every five years since 2007, Kraków has hosted the International Congress of Polish History. Each of these remarkable events has brought together hundreds of scholars from all over the world to share their interest in Poland’s history, culture, and language. From its beginnings, the main aim of the Congress has been to provide a forum for developing dialogue, exchanging experiences and inspiration, and popularizing research in Polish history. We have now begun planning for the continuation of this project, and we warmly invite you to be part of this, the Fourth International Congress of Polish History. In spite of the uncertainty and unpredictability that the pandemic has brought, we are going ahead with the organization of the Congress, firm in the belief that it will be possible for us all to meet safely in Kraków in October 2022. The theme of the Congress will be ‘Cultural Encounters.’ We set out to look at the history of the Polish lands through the lens of mutual relations and interaction and of the multiple cultural currents and models that have circulated in the country for centuries. Ideas, customs, identities and languages, have come together as if in a crucible, a laboratory, or a transhipment port. Cultural, ethnic, linguistic, religious, economic, demographic, and social diversity has always been a dominant note in Poland’s past, and has left lasting traces in its cultural legacy and collective identity. As we invite our fellow scholars with research interests in Poland to Kraków, we hope to explore the dynamics, scale, and complexity of these interactions, probe the main channels of transmission and retransmission, and consider the outcomes for Poland of these cultural encounters. We have pledged to adopt the broadest possible definition of culture, to take account of both its elevated and popular registers.

                  As a part of the 4th Congress, we propose a panel entitled: “War and Diversity Beyond the Battlefield: Cultural Encounters in the Polish Lands 1914–1923.” Within this framework, we seek to reconsider the Polish territories as a meeting point of cultures and nations during the First World War and the early post-war period. This extended historical moment saw the last gasp of land empires that died on the battlefield and the birth of a multi-cultural, post-imperial Polish state from the remnants of fallen states. The process of imperial collapse and the construction of new nation states was accompanied by multiple cultural clashes in a context of lingering influences from pre-war times. We invite presentations examining various aspects of these cultural encounters including:

• The experience of nonPolish members of imperial armies stationed in Galicia or Congress-Poland (e.g., Austrians, Hungarians, Slovenes, Slovaks, Czechs, Romanians, Germans, Russians) and their interactions with local populations;

• Impressions of noncombatants during World War I and the border conflicts that followed it, including the experiences and observations of war reporters, politicians, diplomatic staff, intellectuals, artists etc.;

• Postwar realities, including the observations of staff and representatives (of non-Polish background) from international foreign missions after 1918 in the newly-created Second Republic of Poland;

• Postwar transitions such as shifts in a sense of belonging after the rise of new states, changes in self-identification on cultural grounds before and after 1918;

• People on the move: wartime migrations (refugees, exiles, internees, repatriates) and cultural encounters;

• The remnants and cultural memory of empires and war, including the repurposing of physical remains such as fortresses, internment and POW camps, sites of memory such as monuments and cemeteries, artistic renderings of memory, or residual administrative practices carrying over from imperial rule and wartime, interrogating where we find continuity and where we see rupture after 1918;
  

• Cultural encounters in the early years of newly created Poland after 1918, dominated by Poles but inhabited by other nations (Ukrainians, Jews, Lithuanians, Belarussians and Germans), whose sense of belonging was different (especially those arising as a consequence of long-lasting conflicts).

 

Any other potential contributions linking cultural encounters and Polish territory in WW1 are warmly welcome.

The 4^th Congress is scheduled for October 19–22, 2022 and will be held in Kraków. The languages of the Congress will be English and Polish. For our panel “War and Diversity” we invite up to 8 speakers and discussants, all contributions should be approximately 20 minutes in length. Please submit proposals of approximately 250 words to Keely Stauter-Halsted (stauterh@uic.edu) and Kamil Ruszała (kamil.ruszala@uj.edu.pl) by August 1, 2021. The complete roster of speakers will be announced by the end of Summer 2021. Congress organisers are seeking funds for lodging in Kraków and to cover travel expenses (especially for non-European scholars). Further details will be provided later.

Panel moderators plan to follow-up after the Congress and collect contributions to publish in a journal as a special issue.

CFP: “From Perestroika to Putin and the Pandemic: Russian humour since the mid-1980s to the present”

Deadline: Feb 28, 2021

Studia Rossica Posnaniensia, an internationally indexed open access journal based in Poland, publishes original research papers that contribute to the development of two disciplines: Linguistics and Literary Studies related to Russian culture. A special issue of our journal (2022, vol. XLVII/ 1) aims to publish articles on the topic:

“From Perestroika to Putin and the Pandemic: Russian humour since the mid-1980s to the present”

1) Scope of the special issue and the relevance of the subject:

The term ‘humour’ tends to be used in many different ways. Sometimes its meaning is treated very broadly and is identified with the comic, although many forms of humour are more easily associated with seriousness, melancholy or even sadness. Representations of this phenomenon are known from the works of Nikolai Gogol, Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, Anton Chekhov, Mikhail Zoschenko, Abram Terts, Grigori Gorin or Fazil Iskander. Humour can be also found in many forms of cultural expression, such as satire, film comedies, anekdoty, internet memes, etc. In the Russian context it often brings to mind well-grounded theoretical approaches (e.g. Mikhail Bakhtin, Vladimir Propp), popular authors (Igor Guberman, Mikhail Zhvanetsky), certain themes (politics, human vices, stereotypes), genres or stylistic devices (estradnyj yumor, evreyskiy yumor, menippea, sarcasm, cynicism, obscenity, hyperbole).

This special issue of Studia Rossica Posnaniensia (2022, vol. XLVII/ 1) wants to uncover new perspectives on the research of humour and satire from the Perestroika all the way to Putin and the corona virus pandemic. In these trying times it seems important to recall that both forms have had a long history in the development of Slavonic literatures, languages and cultures. They have always been and remained one of the important carriers of the reflection on the most essential questions concerning human existence. We would like to continue the discussion on the complexity of the topic in all its variations, inviting multiple perspectives in its study, including new theoretical considerations, experimental methodologies, comparative and interdisciplinary approaches. It is clearly not a saturated subject of study or a case, which is in any way “closed”. In this special issue, we plan to focus on humour and satire in the late Soviet era and in the subsequent decades, as these are periods that are less widely studied, but their analysis can offer a new understanding of the past and the present. This is evident, for instance, in the popularity of Soviet tropes in internet memes or in unique genre forms coexisting with, controlling or competing with conventions in postmodern and contemporary fiction. One of such phenomena is gossmekh, humour appropriated by the state that presumably appeals to the taste of the masses[1], which can be seen as the counterpart of Soviet dissident humour. Whereas some may dismiss this type of humour as “unfunny” or lacking social criticism, the immense popularity of Soviet film in the 21st century, for example, calls for a closer look at the relevance of humour beyond dissident works. Other issues yet to be explored are, for example, how far the division between gossmekh and dissident humour helps us understand humour (or not) and also if, in today’s Russia, humorous cultural expressions targeted at the masses can be considered gossmekh or another term needs to be worked out.

Recent studies on the topic show both the relevance of the subject and its popularity. The publication, in Russia and abroad, of countless collections of Soviet jokes has resulted in the popularisation of some myths, such as the notion that Soviet humour and satire somehow played a part in the demise of the Soviet Union or even gave citizens a form of political power[2]. Research in the afterlife of Stalin jokes, in turn, shows how the same jokes were “recycled” all the way to the Putin era, with the subject of the joke being randomly interchanged to even include dissident figures, providing parody and social relief in difficult times. “The transformation shows how dangerous it is to use jokes as a source of information either about reality or about people’s attitudes to this reality”[3].

2) Possible topics and areas of discussion include, but are not limited to, the following:

• New theoretical considerations touching upon today’s understanding of satire, hybridization of generic conventions, fundamental models and concepts of the comic and humour in Russian culture;
• The 21st century reception of Soviet humour, such as that of Faina Ranevskaya’s aphorisms in the internet, or the reception of Soviet heritage on YouTube and other online platforms;
• New perspectives on social humour: gender, class and ethnic relations, taboos, anekdoty about New Russians, “corona” jokes;
• Political and historical verse of the 1980ies, 1990ies, 2000 – ad-hominem-satire (satires on Brezhnev, Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Chernomyrdin, Zyuganov, Zhirinovsky, but also Clinton, Kohl etc.);
• Genres, styles and media: gariki, gubariki, dvushki, aphorisms, short stories, fables, kukly;
• Humour in Russian comedies as the adaptation of the tradition, e.g. Gogol’s caricatures and absurd or the visual manner of Charlie Chaplin etc. (Muratova, Surikova, Bortko, Todorovsky, Rogozhkin);
• Intertextuality as the development of subplots, motifs and literary tradition in contemporary texts of culture (Korolev, Pelevin, Sorokin, Krusanov, Aksenov etc.);

3) Deadlines and organization of the editorial process:

Submission of abstracts: 28.02.2021

Decision of the editors’ committee: 15.03.2021

Submission of complete articles: 31.08.2021

Results of peer reviews: 30.10.2021

Submission of revised articles: 02.01.2022

Publication of the issue: 30.06.2022

Languages of submissions: Russian, German, English and Polish;

Abstracts (1000-1500 characters, in the language of the article) should be sent by email to the editors of the volume: Prof. Prof. h.c. Dr Michael Düring (dueringm@slav.uni-kiel.de), Dr Elisa Kriza (elisa.kriza@uni-bamberg.de), Prof. UAM Dr hab. Beata Waligórska-Olejniczak (beata.waligorska@amu.edu.pl) by February 28, 2021;

We kindly ask you to submit complete papers (25,000-40,000 characters with spaces including bibliography) through the OJS platform at https://pressto.amu.edu.pl/index.php/strp/login

Editorial guidelines can be found at:

https://pressto.amu.edu.pl/index.php/strp/about/submissions

More information about the journal is available at the journal’s website: http://srp.amu.edu.pl/en/about-the-journal/

CFP: 28th International Conference on Learning (Jagiellonian University)

Deadline: April 7, 2021 (proposal submissions)
June 7, 2021 (conference registration)

Conference dates: July 7-9, 2021
Location: Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland
 

The Learner Research Network is brought together around a common concern for learning in all its sites, formal and informal, and at all levels, from early childhood, to schools, colleges and universities, and adult, community and workplace education. We seek to build an epistemic community where we can make linkages across disciplinary, geographic, and cultural boundaries. As a Research Network, we are defined by our scope and concerns and motivated to build strategies for action framed by our shared themes and tensions.

The Twenty-eighth International Conference on Learning features research addressing the following annual themes and special focus–Universalism or Particularism: Knowledge and Power in the Process of Decolonization Revisited.

 

Reimagining the Scholarly Conference  

To support the range of options, and flexibility needed in our current climate, we will offer a blended conference experience. You do not need to commit either to a place-based or virtual presentation at the time of submission. You can present both ways, or change your mode of the presentation if your preferences change. The choice to participate virtually could also be a moral decision – for the planet, for security, or when the financial burden of travel is too great. We aim to foster spaces that align with principles of social justice and community development.

We also want to be ready for the possibility of place-based postponement due to COVID-19. If we are forced to postpone, the online engagement will still go ahead, and your registration will allow you to join the conference in person in a later year.

This way we build for our Research Network Members flexible, and at the same time resilient, spaces for communication, engagement, and participation.

For more information or to register, please visit https://thelearner.com/2021-conference 

CFP: The 14th National Conference of Historians of the 19th Century

Deadline: January 30, 2020

The Institute of History, University of Warsaw invites scholars and doctoral students to participate in the 4th National Conference of Historians of the 19th Century. The upcoming  conference will be devoted to iconosphere as a research perspective for the social, political and cultural history in Europe and in the world until 1918. The conference will take place in Warsaw, June 19-20, 2020.

This year, we would like to discuss the matter of iconosphere in the following fields: 

• Sources for the research on iconosphere 
• Methodologies, frames of interpretation, theoretical approaches 
• Analyses and interpretations 
• Case studies 

We wish for the discussion to touch upon a range of problems, including source studies, theoretical studies, social imageries, and processes of social communication. Our time span includes the First World War. The geographical scope of the papers is unlimited. The languages of the conference are Polish, English and Russian. Paper proposals should be sent to konferencjaxixwiek.ih@gmail.com by Jan 30, 2020, using the attached form. 

Notifications of acceptance will be sent by the end of March 2020. 
Presentation time is 20 minutes. 
The organizers do not cover travel and accommodation expenses. 

Form: 
1. Name and surname 
2. e-mail address 
3. Affiliation 
4. Title of the presentation 
5. Abstract of the presentation (no more than 200 words) 

CFA: How to Approach Biographical Research? Workshop (Warsaw, Poland)

Deadline to Apply: July 31, 2019

Workshop on Biographical Studies for Young Scholars. The days when historical biographies had been reserved for life pictures of “great men” and – to a lesser degree – “great women” have long passed. Since then, many outstanding studies have demonstrated the enormous potential of either individual or group biographies, or biographical approach for historical research.

30 November (Saturday), applications until: 31 July, free admission

Biographical approach can provide insight into the way people thought and felt in the past, make us aware of the complexity of political and personal decisions and also of the scope for action of individuals in historical situations. It has a special place in the Jewish studies, since it allows to research and analyse complex identity choices. Similar processes also affect other ethnic and/or religious. However, it is also useful to scholars dealing with migration studies, social history and history of ideas. 

In order to assist young scholars with biographical research projects and to provide them with a friendly space to discuss research questions and problems, the POLIN Museum invites early career scholars and especially PhD students to participate in a one-day workshop on 30 November 2019 in Warsaw. The workshop precedes the conference “Biographies and Politics. The Involvement of Jews and People of Jewish Origin in Leftist Movements in 19th and 20th Century Poland” (1-2 December 2019), jointly organized by the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, the Aleksander Brückner Center for Polish Studies, the Center for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, University of Oxford and the UCL. The participants of the workshop are expected to also attend the conference.

Interested early career scholars and PhD students are invited to submit the completed application form to: geopconference@polin.pl. The working language of the workshop will be English. Additional reading skills in Polish, Yiddish or German will be a plus. Participation in the workshop is free of charge. The POLIN Museum will cover the costs of accommodation and meals during the Workshop and the subsequent conference. Participants without institutional funding may apply for a travel grant.

CFP: Biographies and Politics: Involvement of Jews and Activists of Jewish Origin in Leftist Movements in 19th and 20th Century Poland

Deadline to Apply: May 31, 2019

For additional information, please visit the website.

The aim of the conference is to outline the actual involvement of Jews and activists of Jewish origin in the leftist movements of the 19th and 20th centuries from the perspective of individual motivations, ideological choices and personal biographies.

1-2 December 2019, POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, (Warsaw, Poland)

To explore the different paths which led Jewish individuals to engage in leftist parties and organizations, we suggest approaching the topic from a biographical perspective. We thus invite scholars to present their findings on the formation of Jewish political identities based on biographical sources, especially ego-documents like diaries, personal letters, memoirs or oral testimonies. 

Possible questions to be addressed might be:

• Was being Jewish an important factor in choosing a specific political path?
• Which other factors led Jews and people of Jewish origin to affiliate with a particular political group?
• How did their leftist involvement influence their attitude towards imperial settings, occupying powers, internationalist movements, as well as Poland and Polish identity?
• How did they assess their leftist engagement later in their lives?

Proposed issues:

1. Biographies: individual and collective paths of Jewish leftists, circumstances of social and political involvement in leftist movements and organizations, self-perceptions, alternatives to leftist engagement, entangled ideologies (e.g. leftists Zionists), generational transmission of ideologies;
2. Methodologies: biographical approach, gender history, oral history, and others;
3. Ideologies: attractive leftists ideas for Polish Jews (socialism, communism, labor Zionism etc.);
4. Historical culture and politics of history: Perceptions and instrumentalizations of “Jewish” leftist biographies.

The deadline for submitting the proposals is 31 May 2019. SUBMIT YOUR PROPOSALS >>

For additional questions please contact us at: geopconference@polin.pl

Job: Assistant Professor of Polish Language, Literature and Culture, University of Toronto

Deadline to Apply: May 15, 2019

The Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures in the Faculty of Arts and Science at the University of Toronto invites applications for a two-year contractually limited term appointment (CLTA) at the rank of Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream in Polish Language, Literature and Culture beginning July 1, 2019, or shortly thereafter, and ending on June 30, 2021.

The successful candidate must have a Ph.D. in Polish Culture or a related field by the time of appointment. The candidate must show prior experience, expertise and excellence in teaching Polish language, literature and culture at a North American university. Excellence in teaching and pedagogical inquiry can be found through teaching accomplishments, awards and accolades, presentations at significant conferences, the teaching dossier submitted as part of the application including a strong teaching statement, sample syllabi, course materials , and teaching evaluations, as well as strong letters of reference from referees of high standing. Excellent (native or near native) knowledge of Polish and of English is required, as are knowledge of current teaching methodologies, culture-based instruction, and use of technology and prior teaching experience in Polish as a second language at the University level in a North American program.

We seek candidates whose teaching interests complement and strengthen our existing program strengths. (See http://sites.utoronto.ca/slavic/polish/index.html.) The successful candidate will teach undergraduate courses in language, literature and culture (both in the original and in translation). In addition, the candidate will be expected to organize Polish extra-curricular events.

Salary to be commensurate with qualifications and experience.

All qualified candidates are invited to apply by clicking on the link below. Applications should include a cover letter, a curriculum vitae, and a teaching dossier including a statement of teaching philosophy, teaching evaluations and sample syllabi/course materials. Any inquiries about the application should be sent to the Department Chair, Professor Donna Orwin, at donna.orwin@utoronto.ca. All application materials must be submitted online.

Submission guidelines can be found at: http://uoft.me/how-to-apply. Applicants must also ask three referees to send signed letters of reference (on letterhead), including at least one primarily addressing the candidate's teaching, directly to the Department Chair via email to donna.orwin@utoronto.caby the closing date.

All application materials, including reference letters, must be received in the department by May 15, 2019.

For more information about the Department of Slavic Languages, please visit our home page at: http://sites.utoronto.ca/slavic/.

The University of Toronto is strongly committed to diversity within its community and especially welcomes applications from racialized persons / persons of colour, women, Indigenous / Aboriginal People of North America, persons with disabilities, LGBTQ persons, and others who may contribute to the further diversification of ideas.

As part of your application, you will be asked to complete a brief Diversity Survey. This survey is voluntary. Any information directly related to you is confidential and cannot be accessed by search committees or human resources staff. Results will be aggregated for institutional planning purposes. For more information, please see http://uoft.me/UP.

All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, Canadians and permanent residents will be given priority.

CFP: The War That Never Ended: Postwar Continuity and New Challenges in the Aftermath of the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires, 1918–1923 (Kraków, 24-26 October 2019)

Deadline: June 1, 2019

The Institute of History of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow is organising an International Conference and Research Workshop "Postwar Continuity and New Challenges in the Aftermath of the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires, 1918–1923" (Krakow, October 24-26, 2019). Deadline for submitting applications is June 1, 2019.
 

• Organiser: Institute of History, Jagiellonian University; Pratt Institute
• Venue: Poland, Kraków, Institute of History, Jagiellonian University
• Date: October 24–26, 2019 (Thursday–Saturday)
• Application deadline: June 1, 2019
• Form of abstracts: electronic file (doc, docx, rtf, pdf), 300 words max in English
• Applications to be sent to: krakowpostWWI@pratt.edu
• Workshop fee: 250 PLN
• www: https://postwarconference.wordpress.com/

In 1914, imploding European powers committed murder and mayhem on an unforeseen scale around the world with enormous and irreversible global consequences. This bloody, sometimes even fratricidal, struggle wrought unprecedented destruction and death; by the time this disaster was “over,” a new world emerged beyond the imaginations of the perpetrators, participants and witnesses of this era. Post-armistice humanity around the globe was changed and was left heavily scarred, anxious, and full of economic, political, and cultural uncertainty.  Many reflected about the recent catastrophe and sought to engage entire societies in the formation of a new order. This re-building and re-imagining could be seen from the local to the national to international levels and included the process of constructing a lasting memory of 1914–1918 and of creating narratives about the conflict. Undoubtedly, the years of the Great War are an important caesura in the historiography of the new world.

The centuries-old empires of Europe collapsed following the 1918 truce, but the agile colonial powers insisted on clinging to their overseas territories and their colonial clashes continued. For some historians there were not two world wars, but a twenty-year-long intermission that festered with uncertainties and anxieties. What is more, despite the fact that the Great War was over in the West, warfare continued for months and even years in Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe, including the territories of the former Ottoman Empire.

The War That Never Ended Conference invites papers engaging with the multilayered complexities, lasting and prolonged global contributions of this period, including the cultural, political, and social history of the immediate and prolonged aftermath of the First World War, its revolutions and birth of nations and states. We invite:

• a particular focus on the responses of the politicians, intellectuals, artists, as well as ordinary citizens with the expectation that social history profoundly informs political and economic history;
• papers focusing on and revealing the ensuing violence, mayhem and destruction in the aftermath of the war;
• papers considering the creation of new cultural and political trends in the hothouse of the period;
• a consideration of whether the term “Lost Generation” coined by Ernest Hemingway can be used in reference to East-Central Europe and the Ottoman Empire.
• papers on post-imperial settlements, adjustments and consolidations within the geographies of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires to further our comparative understanding of post-imperial national projects and Comparisons may consider areas and issues such the rule of law, the role of religion, minorities, (de)democratization, governance, as well as cultural, economic and political clashes in the Middle East and Eastern Europe.
• explorations of the post-Great War formation of new states and their relationships with cultural diversity, de/colonization, democracy, and how they all interfaced with the impending clashes of World War II.

Together, these inquiries can enhance our understanding of contemporary brutal conflicts such as the refugee crisis, the obstacles for democratization and the impending rise of authoritarianism in post-Empire geographies. While illuminating the post-Great War period, we hope The War That Never Ended Conference will also contribute to our understanding of the present.

Accompanying events

The conference will be accompanied by keynote lectures delivered by experienced scholars in this field, as well as a source-studies seminar in the Kraków Archives and Museums.

As a part of our workshop, we are planning to prepare a special tour to WWI battlefields in order to visit selected military cemeteries created to commemorate the fallen soldiers in Galicia, and to see some of the splendid examples of war monuments designed by the famous artists. The excursion will only take place in favourable weather conditions. As an alternative, we are planning a visit to Kraków’s museums.

Procedure

Abstracts, no longer than 300 words (including title, research questions, a brief description of sources and methods), as well as contact details, name and institutional affiliation, should be sent to: krakowpostWWI@pratt.edu. The deadline for abstract submission is 1st June 2019. The complete lineup of speakers will be announced by the end of June 2019.

Conference fee

The conference fee is 250 PLN (=€60/$65), which includes: participation, conference materials, participation in the planned excursion, refreshments, lunches and dinners). Please note that neither the costs of travels to and from Kraków nor of accommodation are covered by the organizers (however, we will be happy to assist you in looking for a hotel near the conference venue)

Organizing Committee:

• Tomasz Pudłocki, Jagiellonian University (tomaszpudlocki@hoga.pl)
• Kamil Ruszała, Jagiellonian University (kamil.ruszala@uj.edu.pl)
• Kumru Toktamis, Pratt Instiute (ktoktami@pratt.edu)