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Policy-Connect Collaborative Research Grants
US Department of State’s Title VIII Program

IREX is pleased to announce the 2007 Policy-Connect Collaborative
Research Grants
competition. IREX’s Policy-Connect program seeks to attract, select,
and support advanced research by US experts in policy-relevant
subject areas related to Southeast Europe and Eurasia, facilitate
collaboration among and between US and international scholars, and
disseminate knowledge about Europe and Eurasia to a wide network of
constituents in the United States and abroad.

Policy-Connect provides American scholars with the means and support
necessary to conduct
research, particularly on lesser-studied regions such as the Balkans,
Central Asia, and the
Caucasus, where issues central to the national security and foreign
policy interests of the
United States must be studied. The knowledge and expertise gained by
the grant recipients become a valuable resource for the policymaking
community, as the scholars share the results of their research
through research briefs, policy fora, and individual meetings.

The Policy-Connect Program provides fellowships to US scholars and
professionals for overseas
research on contemporary political, economic, historical, or cultural
developments relevant to
US foreign policy. Fellowships support collaborative teams of two or
three US scholars
and professionals for up to 12 months. Upon completion of the
project, scholars will be
requested to present their research findings at a Policy Forum at the
US Department of State and to write a short policy paper.

This year applications will be accepted for research on the following
topics and regions:

• Eurasia & Southeast Europe: ethnic and religious conflict,
transition economics, access
to information, youth and women’s issues, and citizen participation
in politics and civil society.

• Cross-regional: Post-Soviet relations
between Eurasia and the Middle East/North Africa and/or South Asia.

Eligible Countries of Research Focus

• Eurasia: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus,
Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia,
Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.

• Southeast Europe: Albania, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia
(Former Yugoslav Republic of), Romania, Serbia and Montenegro.

• Cross-regional: Countries of Eurasia
(see above) and Algeria, Afghanistan, Bahrain,
Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait,
Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, West Bank/Gaza, and
Yemen.

Applications and supporting materials for
Policy-Connect Collaborative Research Grants are
available on the IREX website at:
http://www.irex. org/programs/ policy-connect/ index.asp

¯ Grant Award: Up to $30,000
¯ Duration: Up to 12 months
¯ Application Deadline: April 1, 2007

Policy-Connect Collaborative Research Grants are funded by the US
Department of State’s Title VIII Program and John J. and Nancy Lee
Roberts.

Questions may be addressed to the Policy-Connect
Program Staff at policyconnect@ irex.org or by calling (202) 628-8188.

IREX, 2121 K Street NW, Suite 700, Washington, DC 20037 USA

11th Cultural Studies Symposium, Ege University
EGE UNIVERSITY

11th INTERNATIONAL CULTURAL STUDIES SYMPOSIUM

May 9-11, 2007

Ege University, Faculty of Letters, Izmir, TURKEY

CALL FOR PAPERS

“Memory and Nostalgia”

The dialectic between `Memory’ and `Nostalgia’ has always been a significant issue for various disciplines like history, sociology, psychology, cultural studies, gender studies, media studies, literature, etc. Especially nostalgia, as Sean Scanlan states, has “an uncanny ability to exceed any constraining definition” (1).
As a Greek term, comprising the two parts “nostos” (to return home) and “algos” (pain), nostalgia, Linda Hutcheon explains, was coined in 1688 by a Swiss medical student “as a sophisticated … way to talk about a literally lethal kind of severe homesickness” (1). In Nicholas Dames’ terms, nostalgia is a form of “retrospect that
remembers only what is pleasant and only what the self can employ in the present; … [it is] an absence; what it lacks is what… has come to be regarded as memory in its purest form” (4). Nostalgia, then, is a “memory that is always only the necessary prehistory of the present [which] consists of the stories about one’s past that
explain and consolidate memory rather than dispersing it into a series of vivid, relinquished moments and … [which] can only survive by eradicating the `pure memory’” (Dames 4).

Nostalgia has always been a useful compensatory tool to construct an alternative historical reality created by the images of the golden past, especially when there is discontent with the present socio-economic situation in any culture. Just like governing bodies, modern global corporations also use nostalgia to advertise their
commodities by relating either their products or companies to a more desirable time in the past. By implanting modified images in the prospective clients’ minds, such advertising strategies rewrite history through forged memories about the good old days when prices were more reasonable, goods more durable, and services were more
satisfactory.

As Dylan Trigg, the author of The Aesthetics of Decay: Nothingness, Nostalgia, and the Absence of Reason (2006) claims, “nostalgia demands … the fixation of the past … Thus, both static images – memories – and lived experience – place – serve as homogenous platforms for the nostalgic conscious to impose and identify itself” (1). Both memory and nostalgia, then, have always had some spatial and territorial connotations, whether real or ideal, either in some negative or positive sense.

This symposium, then, aims to explore how memory and nostalgia collaborate to construct a meaningful space in a given culture, both individually and collectively, either through “the willing suspension of disbelief” or as a state apparatus, with reference to such issues as globalism, consumerism, nation-states, neo-conservatism, etc. During the symposium we hope such questions as Linda Hutcheon raises about the relationship between postmodernism and nostalgia will also be discussed: “Was [the] postmodern recalling of the past an example of a conservative – and therefore
nostalgic – escape to an idealized, simpler era of `real’” (1). Or, if “nostalgia is given surplus meaning and value at certain moments – millennial moments, like our own,” has nostalgia become an “obsession of both mass culture and high art” or is it only “the media’s obsession”? (Hutcheon 1).

Proposals might include, but are not limited to:

· Nostalgia and Collective Memory

· Cultural Memory as Cultural Repression

· Cultural Memory = Nostalgia?

· Culture as Nostalgic Object and Commodity

· Nostalgia, Consumerism, and the Heritage Industry

· Nostalgia and Ideology

· Diaspora and Nostalgia

· Diaspora as Temporal Displacement

· Nostalgia and Ideology

· Homologies of Religious Faith and Cultural Memory or Nostalgia

· Nostalgia as a Social Disease

· The Violence of Cultural Memory

· Nostalgia as the Abdication of Memory

· Community without Nostalgia?

· Trauma, Collective Memory, and Nostalgia

· Pain and Authenticity

· Nostalgic Structures of Feeling in Cultural Studies

· Mourning and Melancholia in Cultural Memory

· Reflective and Restorative Nostalgia

· Nation, Narration, and Nostalgia

· Counter Nostalgia

· Literature and Art as Cultural Memory

· Media of Memory (Historical Monuments, Public Archives, Oral Histories, etc.)

· Popular Culture, Amnesia, and Nostalgia

· Personal Memory, Collective Identity, and Nostalgia

· Historiography, Autobiography, and Nostalgia

· Memory as a Means of Cultural Regeneration

· Nostalgia, Memorabilia, and “Subcutaneous Advertising”

· Values and Nostalgia

· Nationalist Interests and Nostalgia

The deadline for submission of proposals: January 05, 2007.

The notification for acceptance of proposals: January 22-26, 2007.

We welcome proposals for individual papers, entire sessions, presentations, performances, films, roundtables, workshops, conversations, or alternative formats both in English and Turkish. However, there will be no simultaneous translations during the conference. The time allowance for any presentation is 20 minutes.
Abstracts for papers should be 250-300 words in length and should include a title. Please e-mail your proposals and short bios to: css2007@mail. ege.edu.tr and egeucss@gmail. com or mail/fax them to:

Atilla Silkü

Ege Üniversitesi, Edebiyat Fakültesi,

Amerikan Kültürü ve Edebiyatý Bölümü,

35100-Bornova, Ýzmir, Turkey

Fax: +90 (232) 388 11 02

Please note that selected papers will be published in the forthcoming proceedings.

Seminar Registration Fee: USD 50 regular, USD 30 graduate students and research assistants. USD 75 On-site registration

Please deposit the non-refundable seminar fee to:

Garanti Bankasi, Bornova Branch (Branch # 524), Izmir , Phone: +90 232 342 6002

USD Account # 9093282 ( For International transfers: Swift Code: TGBATRISXXX )

YTL Account # 6298461

Mail or fax your registration form and a copy of your bank receipt to:

Atilla Silkü (address above)

For further information please visit symposium web site:

http://css.ege. edu.tr

Co-Organized by:
Ege University Departments of American Culture and Literature &
English Language and Literature
The Embassy of the United States of America
The British Council

The American Studies Association of Turkey (ASAT)

ESF-LiU Conference - Literature for Europe, Sweden, May 2007
Please find below information on an ESF Research Conference which may be of particular interest to you:

ESF-LiU Conference
Literature for Europe : European Identities and European Literature in a Globalizing World
Vadstena Klosterhotell, Sweden
12-16 May 2007
Chaired by: Theo L. D’haen (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, BE)

Scientific programme and application form are accessible on-line through www.esf.org/ conferences/ 07230
(closing date for application & for abstract submission: 28 February 2007).

Some grants available for young researchers to cover the conference fee and possibly part of the travel costs.

Many thanks for passing on the attached flyer to your colleagues who may be interested in this event.

Contact person at ESF: Mr. Rachid Adghoughi (radghoughi@esf. org).

Kind regards,
Corinne Wininger - Le Moal
Publicity Officer - Research Conferences

European Science Foundation - Research Conferences Unit
1 quai Lezay-Marnésia, BP 90015 67080 Strasbourg , Cedex
Phone: +33 (0)388 76 71 35
Fax: +33 (0)388 36 69 87
clemoal@esf. org
www.esf.org/ conferences

Jean Monnet International Summer Seminars, Rome and Bozen, Italy,
18th June – 13th July 2007

“INTEGRATING EUROPE IN A CHANGING WORLD”

In order to mark the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Rome Treaty, the traditional Jean Monnet Chair International Summer Seminar, which has by now reached its 4th edition, doubles!!! The University of Rome Tor Vergata, in collaboration with the Free University of Bozen, proposes 3 intellectually stimulating Seminars dedicated to the exploration of the changing “nature of the European beast” in an ever-changing world. They all propose an innovative and stimulating teaching method with over 10 different speakers every week!

Seminar 1 will take place from the 18th to the 22nd of June in Rome and will focused on the Decision-Making, Negotiations and Lobbying in the European Union. The lectures will alternate with theoretical background with roundtables with practitioners – decision-makers, MEPs, EU officials, lobbyists, etc and will end with the simulation of a co-decision. This Seminar will therefore be an exciting hands-on course focusing on the complex EU decision-making procedures under Pillar I and the way it can be influenced by both internal and external actors.

Seminar 2 will take place from the 25th to the 30th of June in Bozen and will devote its attention to the Economic and Monetary Constitution of the European Union. The lectures will focus on the implications of the principle of free movements of goods in the evolution of the EU. The changing nature of national barriers, the European Monetary Union and the adoption of the Euro and their implication both for the internal market and the trade relationships with third countries are just a few of the issues tackled with during this Seminar.

Seminar 3 will take place from the 2nd to the 13th of July in Rome and it is our traditional and highly-prestigious Summer Seminar dedicated to the domestic and external dimensions of Integrating Europe in a Changing World. The first week will be dedicated to the EU domestic integration, with particular focus on the impact of the 2004 and 2007 enlargements and the status of the Treaty for a European Constitution in the process of “widening and deepening” Europe. The second week will be dedicated to the impact of the EU in the world; particular focus will be put on the changing nature of the transatlantic relations and the impact of the recent US
legislative elections in their current evolution, on the role of the EU in the Middle East peace process and the rise of Asia as an undeniably important actor in the world affairs.

The Seminar is organized in collaboration with the Center for American Studies, it is financed by the European Commission in Brussels and goes under the patronage of prestigious local and international institutions such as the Italian Parliament or the Lazio region and Municipality.

The Opening Lecture will be given by the Vice President of the European Convention and the former Prime Minister of Italy, Prof. Giuliano Amato. Other esteemed speakers – coming from all over the world - will include Prof. Andrew Moravcsik (Princeton University);
Amy Verdun (Jean Monnet Chair at the University of Victoria, Canada);
Leopoldo Nuti (University Rome 3);
Stefano Grassi (Secretariat General of the European Commission);
Martin Holland (National Centre for Research on Europe in New Zealand);
Prof. Geoffrey Miller (New York University, Stuyvesant P. Comfort Professor of Law);
Prof. Jean-Victor Louis (Emeritus Professor, Université Libre de Bruxelles);
Philomena Murray (Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence of Melbourne, Australia);
Charis Xirouchakis (Head of the Public Relations of the Council of EU Ministers) and many other international faculty, diplomats, academicians, journalists, EU officials, etc.

The Summer Seminars addresses primarily graduate and PhD students, young professionals. Exceptionally skilled senior undergraduates can be accepted on an individual base. It will be a highly intensive and selective programme, according to the tradition of the Rome Summer Seminars, held under the umbrella of the Jean Monnet Chair.

The teaching body will be composed of an unique mix of top international Policy Makers, Diplomats and Academicians, from both Europe and US and there will be over 10 different speakers each week! The participants will have the opportunity to obtain ECTS/US Credits: Summer Seminars 1 and 2 will award 4 ECTS/2 US credits each, whereas Seminar 3 will give 8 ECTS/4 US credits to its participants. Additional credits (up to 4 ECTS/4 US credits) can be gained by writing a paper on a topic assigned by the Jean Monnet Chair.

The tuition fee is of 900€ per week (i.e. 1800€ for the Summer Seminar 3). Students attending more than one course will be entitled to a 20% discounts. Some scholarships are available and awarded on the basis of merit and need. Room and board are not included in the tuition fee. Organizers may assist students in these issues.

The deadlines for applications are the 31st of March 2007 (for grant requests) and 30th April 2006 (for full-tuition paying students). Acceptance will be notified within one month after the deadline.

Applicants shall provide: the filled in Application Form, a personal statement of purpose, a letter of recommendation, a Curriculum Vitae, a copy of diplomas or a transcripts of grades. Applications by email are warmly advised.

For further information, please visit our website at www.ue.uniroma2. it or contact us at eu.summer.school@ uniroma2. it.

GRANT- American Councils Programs for Research & Language Training in Eurasia
American Councils for International Education: ACTR/ACCELS announces the following Fall 2007 and Academic Year 2007-2008 fellowship programs: Title VIII Research Scholar Program: Provides full support for three to nine-month research trips to Russia, Central Asia, the South Caucasus, Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova. Fellowships include roundtrip international travel, housing, living stipends, visas, insurance, affiliation fees, archive access, research advising, and logistical support in the field. …далі »