Crisis: Interruptions, Reactions and Continuities in CEE

11th International Postgraduate Conference at SSEES

The conference

This is the 11th International Postgraduate Conference on Central and Eastern Europe at SSEES.

Crises have been common in the history of Central and Eastern Europe. The term crisis implies that a particular order, whether financial, social or political is thrown into a state of flux. The resultant instability usually forces those affected to react to the disturbance and reassert a sense of equilibrium. By unravelling the operation of social and political mechanisms that are normally taken for granted, crises give rise to a number of questions: Were crises preceded by a generally accepted order? How did individuals confronted with a crisis react to the new state of affairs? Were their attempts successful or has instability remained?

This conference examines the concept of crisis from a plethora of disciplinary angles within the Central and Eastern European context. It offers a platform for discussing a complex set of interactions, interruptions and continuities that various forms of crises provoke.

The conference is particularly addressed to postgraduate students and early career researchers in the Humanities and Social Sciences, invited to take part in an interdisciplinary debate about the nature, meaning, causes and results of crises in Central and Eastern Europe, including South-East Europe, Russia and the countries of the former USSR. The disciplines include anthropology, art history, cultural and literary studies, economics, geography, history (medieval to modern), linguistics, politics and sociology. The organisers have also encouraged comparative and multidisciplinary perspectives, as well as papers using new research methodologies.

The following areas are among those covered at the conference:

• financial and economic crises;
• social crises, gender and sexuality struggles, crises of memory and identity, crises of values, crisis of political activism;
• environmental and energy crises;
• existential crises, crises of the subject, philosophical, religious and confessional crises;
• representation of crises in literature, film and drama
• institutional, political and security crises, crises of regime, succession and legitimacy, crises of empire;
• urban crises, rural and agrarian crises.

The programme

The conference runs over three full days, with over one hundred young scholars from across Europe, North America and Australia speaking in parallel sessions. For details, download the full programme here.

Supported by

The UCL European Institute, the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES), UCL Graduate School and the Royal Historical Society.