Call for papers

IS WAR A PEACE? THE FUTURE OF PHILOLOGY

The topic of war, which is especially current in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, raises questions regarding, among others, the condition of contemporary humanities. We hope that an in-depth analysis of the suggested theme will be helpful in determining the importance of the growing need for reflection in the light of current events and rethinking the role of humanities in shaping public opinion in terms of the cultural, philosophical and linguistic aspects.

In its recent research, linguistics focuses on changes and transformations in the context of crisis or breakthrough events that lead to the initiation or activation of various linguistic phenomena and processes. This is clearly reflected in mass media, which are the quickest in responding to external stimuli. As it is observed in Russian society, the deformation of its values and the relegation of universal, moral and ethical dominants are expressed in the everyday language use.

The ongoing destruction of traditional morals in contemporary Russian society, as can be assumed, is correlated with the principle of organising power that is particular to Russia, being primarily based on the demonstration of power and the obliteration of social, cultural and political diversity.

In contemporary socio-cultural research, the devaluation of moral values is also justified, among others, by the growing importance of the culture of violence manifested not only through direct acts of coercion or repression, but also through ideology. The role of these representations is to disqualify individual forms of existence independent of the centralised government and to shape the idea that power is the sole defender of national interests.

Reflection on the mechanisms of power and their impact on culture evokes direct associations with the works of George Orwell and can contribute to expanding the scope of potential research. Taking advantage of the image of a totalitarian state depicted in the novel 1984, the writer presents similar tools and means of exercising power. The party slogan “war is peace” constitutes one of the vivid examples of the Orwell’s concept of “doublethinking”, illustrating the possibility of both representing and distorting reality through language. In this context, language is used not only to create an image of the world, but also to control the masses and manipulate consciousness.

The theory of linguistic determinism, analysed within the framework of political discourse, among others, can also be applicable to reflection on the role and place of the artist in the creative process and the role of the reader (viewer) in perceiving a work of art.

The journal’s editors hope that these themes will serve as an encouragement to undertake in-depth linguistic, literary and comparative analyses focused on the following notions (or similar ones):

Linguistics

  • Does today’s social narrative shape morals and priorities, or is it rather a tool requisite to create an individualised and distorted image of the world for a narrow group of people?
  • Consequently, is there any evolution in the Russian system of values, while elements of hate speech, linguistic aggression, the narrative of rivalry and domination originating from national chauvinism can be experienced increasingly frequently?
  • Will the recent developments in language analysis allow us to distinguish truth from falsehood, reality from simulation?
  • Does dialogue still exist as a basic form of exchanging ideas, or has it already been preventively buried as a dangerous pretext for exposing the one-sided propaganda discourse?

Literary and Comparative Studies

  • Can Dostoyevsky be read after Bucha? How can the historical tragedies influence the interpretation and perception of classical literature on a deeper level?
  • The chronotope of “doublethinking”. Will the Russian language be Pushkin’s language or Putin’s language? Will the words precisely name concepts (war or “the special military operation”)?
  • The artist and power. Will Russian culture: language, literature, music, film and fine arts be subjected to ideologisation in the modern world? Does culture have to be entangled in politics? What is the writer’s duty? What is creative independence and what is conformism?
  • How are the concepts of “slavery culture” and “violence culture” manifested and interpreted? What is the meaning of visual, narrative and symbolic elements of each of the cultures and how do they influence the perception and interpretation of works of art?
  • What sociological and cultural factors are the basis of the next wave of emigration from Russia (escape, “self-purification of Russian society”, search for freedom)? How are they correlated with the historical contexts of the previous waves of emigration and what potential consequences can they have?
  • How should the concept of “Russianness” be interpreted in the context of the current events? The definition of “Russophobia” and the cultural factors contributing to its formation.
  • What is meant by the concepts of “(post)colonialism” and “(neo)imperialism” in the context of contemporary socio-cultural and literary discourses?

Deadlines and editorial timetable

THE PROBLEM OF DEPARTURE/VIOLATION OF NORMS IN CULTURE, LITERATURE, LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION (issue no. XLIX/2/2024)

Editors: Alena Kalechyts (Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, Slovakia), Natalia Królikiewicz, Olga Makarowska, Anna Stryjakowska (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland)

LITERARY STUDIES

The next issue of the journal “Studia Rossica Posnaniensia” is devoted to the violation of norms in Russian language, literature and culture. The questioning of traditions and rules accepted in a given community arouses understandable fear and provokes resistance, but is often an indispensable factor of change and development. The problem of the violation of norms is also a constant object of artistic reflection. Since the dawn of time, the imagination of artists has eagerly turned towards unconventional individuals, those in conflict with their environment and in disagreement with the existing reality. The heroes confronted with a violation of the status-quo, provoked to take a stand and work out appropriate forms of action in the new situation, are equally fascinating. The multi-faceted dialogue with tradition and formal experiments, in turn, determine the vitality of the literary process and the evolution of art, while the changes in social mentality make it possible to go beyond the usual patterns of perception.

We invite you to engage in a scholarly discussion within the broad spectrum of contexts activated by the proposed category. Readings of the classics using new research tools, analyses of recent texts of Russian culture, comparative and interdisciplinary approaches may be a fertile field of study. Potential areas of discussion could include, for example:

-the outsider as a character in Russian literature and art,

-the problem of mental disorders in Russian literature and culture,

-queer themes in Russian literature and art,

-literature and art as a factor of social change,

-the latest Russian literature in relation to the literary tradition …

LINGUISTICS

The theme of the special issue and its current relevance

The words of Jan Baudouin de Courtenay “there is no stillness in language” apply fully to culture and communication. To a certain extent, their dynamics are determined by deviation/violation of norms. Some of these deviations/violations are sporadic, others long-lasting, leading to changes in linguistic, cultural and communicative norms. Despite extensive inquiries, the issue of studying deviations/violations of linguistic, cultural and communicative norms remains not only an open one, but also one of the most topical issues in contemporary linguistics, especially in the light of discussions concerning the variability of the norm and the divergence of specialists’ opinions on the necessity of codifying language. This is evidenced by the growing number of scholarly works devoted to the issue.

The special issue of “Studia Rossica Posnaniensia” will be devoted to various aspects of deviation/violation of norms in language, culture and communication, examined from different perspectives. The main objective of the collection is an in-depth analysis of deviance/violation of linguistic, cultural and communicative norms in texts and discourses of the first half of the 21st century. Great importance is attached to the presentation of a variety of research methods, including experimental methods, approaches (comparative, interdisciplinary), new theories and research strategies (transdisciplinary, hybrid, etc.).

In proposing topics for consideration, the authors are left free to choose their approaches, methods and research material and to interpret the topic.

Potential topics and areas of discussion could include, for example, the following:

-violation of cultural, communicative and linguistic norms in texts/discourses of various types;

-language-game in texts/discourses of various types;

-norm variance in contemporary Russian;

-problems of translation of literary norm variance used as a literary device in literary texts;

-types, causes and specificity of errors in oral and written statements as well as techniques and methods of their prevention and correction in the process of teaching Russian as a foreign language.

Deadlines and editorial timetable:

Submission of abstracts: 15.12.2022.

Decision of the editors’ committee regarding abstracts: 28.02.2023.

Submission of complete articles: 30.09.2023.

Results of reviews: 15.12.2023.

Submission of revised articles: 15.03.2024.

Verification of articles in the context of reviewers’ comments; scientific editing, proofreading: 03.16 – 30.06.2024.

Submission of the issue to the Publisher: 07.2024.

Languages of submissions: English, Russian and Polish.

Abstracts (1000-1500 characters, in the language of the article) should be sent by email to the scientific editors of the volume by 15.12.2022:

natasza@amu.edu.pl – dr Natalia Królikiewicz (Literary Studies)

akalechyts@ukf.sk – dr Alena Kalechyts (Linguistics)

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 on the journal’s website: https://srp.web.amu.edu.pl/en/about-the-journal/

“Eastern European Urban Narratives of Conflict” (issue no. XLIX/1/2024)

Editors: Seth Graham (University College London), Rachel Morley (University College London), Beata Waligórska-Olejniczak (Adam Mickiewicz University)

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

The 2022 edition of ‘Millennium Docs Against Gravity’, Poland’s largest documentary film festival, featured a Susan Sontag retrospective that included her work Waiting for Godot…in Sarajevo, made in the Bosnian capital during the siege and codirected with Nicole Stéphane. The film, which is often described as Sontag’s lasting gift to Sarajevans and which gave them hope and the possibility of responding to suppressed emotions, today inevitably brings to mind places such as Kyiv, Kharkiv and Mariupol, whose suffering inhabitants and ruined architecture have made us doubt the existence of a civilized world. Focusing attention on the mission of art and the role of the artist as an engaged witness of reality, this special issue of “Studia Rossica Posnaniensia” will concentrate on urban experiences of all kinds of conflicts: military, political, interpersonal, ethnic, religious, environmental, etc. We would like to pinpoint the role of Eastern European cities as sites of power and powerlessness, as spaces where pain is/was inflicted, contemplated, embodied, expressed or (re)negotiated, and as intersections of different cultures and traditions (e.g. Catholicism and Orthodoxy). We would also welcome proposals rooted in gender studies, queer studies, post-colonial studies, disability studies, performative studies and animal studies, that may offer perspectives on the city space as a battlefield for one’s dignity, rights and identity. We expect that authors might refer to Sontag’s belief in the artist’s social and ethical duty to explore the link between the aesthetic and the political as well as the relationship between the mind and the body in urban environments.

Treating Russian and Soviet literature, cinema and language as a point of departure for discussion, we anticipate that the special issue will address, among others, the following questions:

  • What is the language of conflict as expressed in visual images, metaphors and verbal communication? Are there recurrent formulas and images in Eastern European cultures? Are they linked specifically to one culture or are they multicultural?
  • How does urban space endorse or prevent conflicts and/or wars?
  • How/why do specific cities become the primary sites of conflict?
  • How are future urban conflicts imagined, predicted and narrated?
  • How do Eastern European cities engage in negotiating conflicts related to sexual identity? What is the role of liminal and transit spaces in this domain? Does urban architecture blur or define sexual conflicts?

Both theoretical works and discussions of artistic representations are welcome. We are particularly interested in proposals that seek connections between various disciplines, such as literary studies, film studies, linguistics, urban studies, memory studies, anthropology, and urban psychology, to name just a few.

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

– conflicts of marginalized nationalities and ethnicities

– places that are ignored, neglected, degraded or destroyed as a result of (military) conflicts

– literary and cinematic first and second cities

– monster cities – city monsters

– navigating the psycho-fantastical geography of urban conflict

– urban memory spaces

– human vs. non-human in cities

– bodies in pain

– travel writing in the context of social, political and military conflicts

– common challenges of survival in the city

– city diaries, cinematic cities

– sounds & silence in the city under siege

– urban nature-culture

– crime fiction, speculative fiction, nuclear narratives, utopias/dystopias

– healing spaces in the urban context

– city diasporas, biopolitics, surveillance

– environmental justice, ecofiction & ecocatastrophes

– Holocaust, genocide, urban ghettos

– urbicide, the killing of cities, urban destruction, death in the city

– representations of trauma, grief, loss, mourning, works on witnessing conflicts

– urban narratives as metaphors of fear & apocalypse

– Eastern European war testimonies

– fragmented cities – fragmented nations

– decaying empires

– working women in the city, social and political control, violence and discrimination

– liminality of the city, borderlands, peripheral spheres, intersections in the context of city architecture

– childhood conflicts in the city

– cities of revolution

3) Deadlines and editorial timetable:

Publication of the CfP online (in English, Russian and Polish): 15.07.2022

Submission of abstracts: 15.11.2022

Decision of the editors’ committee regarding abstracts: 15.12.2022

Submission of complete articles: 15.05.2023

Results of reviews: 30.06.2023

Submission of revised articles: 15.09.2023

Publication of the issue: 30.06.2024

Languages of submissions: English, Russian and Polish;

Abstracts (1000-1500 characters, in the language of the article) should be sent by email to the editors of the volume by November 15, 2022: Dr Seth Graham (s.graham@ucl.ac.uk), Dr Rachel Morley (rachel.morley@ucl.ac.uk), Dr Beata Waligórska-Olejniczak (beata.waligorska@amu.edu.pl).

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 on the journal’s website: https://srp.web.amu.edu.pl/en/about-the-journal/

“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 [i], 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[ii]. 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”[iii].

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 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 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: https://srp.web.amu.edu.pl/en/about-the-journal/

[i] Dobrenko, Yevgeniy A. (Sostavitelʹ bloka) “Gossmekh”, NLO, 3 (121), 2013.

[ii] Kristof, Nicholas. “To Beat Trump, Mock Him”. The New York Times. 26 September 2020; Aron, Leon. “Russian Jokes Tell the Brutal Truth”. The Atlantic. 29 November 2019.

[iii] Kozintsev, Alexander. “Stalin Jokes and Humor Theory”. Russian Journal of Communication, 2:3-4, 2009:199-214 (204).

volume XLVI, no. 2 (2021)

SPACE

We would like to devote the next issue of Studia Rossica Posnaniensia to the notion of space in the Russian texts of culture. The spatial turn has become almost an obvious thing in cultural studies around the world, yet within the field of Russian studies understood in their broadest sense there is still a visible lack of inquiries associated with the spatial reality of Russia that are concerned with both literary and linguistic research, especially those of comparative and interdisciplinary nature. Therefore, the profile of the issue will be determined by the examinations of cultural landscapes, regions and cities perceived either as models of reality or as partial representations of local spaces. Additionally, it will be determined by the geography of transcultural regions of Russia, metaphorisation of space, spatial founding myths, literary and cinematographic imagologies examined from the point of view of their language, as well as by the (re)interpretation of the meaning of spatial relationships in the context of ideologies, situations of exclusion, control or oppression. We encourage Authors to submit the papers presenting the analyses of selected texts (case studies) as well as the review papers focused on theoretical or practical approaches to the notion. We hope that the issue will include papers with attempts to develop and apply new methodologies both in historical and contemporary Russian texts. Besides, the issue is definitely open to pondering identity narratives embedded in space, cultural interactions represented in (autobiographic) texts of the Russian emigration, as well as the motives and techniques of magisation of the spatial reality. Obviously, these themes serve only as the initial framework for further exploration of the question of the Russian space.

We sincerely invite you to participate in the project! We accept papers within the character limit between 20000 and 40000. The papers should be formatted in accordance with the journal’s editorial guidelines and written in Russian, English, Polish or German.

We await your submissions until the 30th of November 2020.

We kindly ask you to submit your papers through the PRESSto. platform (https://pressto.amu.edu.pl/index.php/strp/login). In case of technical difficulties please contact the secretary of the journal at the following email addresses: konrad.rachut@gmail.com or studia.rossica.posnan@gmail.com.