[ Call for Papers-Call for Applications ]

Erfreulicherweise wendet sich Estland in einer von Stereotypen "kontaminierten" Region mit einer Ausschreibung dem folgenden Thema zu: Ethnic Images and Stereotypes - Where is the border line? Russian-Baltic Cross-Cultural Relations. Veranstalter u. Ort: Narva College of Tartu University (Estonia). - Die Problematiken u. Verstellungen der russisch-baltischen kulturellen Beziehungen können überdies auf den beiden Blogs All about Latvia u. Tere, Eestimaa! nachverfolgt werden.

Die Konferenz findet vom 20. bis 22. Oktober 2006 statt, die Deadline endet mit dem 01. April 2006.

Der Ausschreibungstext lautet:

The conference in 2006 will focus on cultural contacts. We intend to pay attention to the problems and interactions of border cultures, and to study how the image of another nation and its culture are formed on historical, literary, folklore materials and other sources. The image of a foreign culture and its people largely determines the cultural strategic behavior chosen by an individual when dealing with a particular ethnicity. Reconstructing the keystones of these images and understanding the causes that govern certain elements of these images will help to understand many peculiarities of the Russian-Baltic cross cultural relations.

Issues of greatest interest:

• Understanding of Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians in Russian culture
• The image of Russia and Russians in the national cultures of the people of the Baltic States
• Understanding of German traditions of describing the Baltics and their impact on Russian images
• Official and unofficial view of Baltic culture in Russian culture
• Influences of genre on ways to describe another culture
• Formation of Russian ethnic and cultural identity in the Baltics.

Please send the completed application form and an abstract of your presentation for the preliminary publication (not more than 350 words) by the 1st of April, 2006 via e-mail to Jelena Nõmm (as an .rtf attachment) or via regular post to
Jelena Nõmm,
Kerese 14,
Narva 20304,
Estonia.

Especially post-graduate students are encouraged to send their abstracts. The working languages of the conference will be Russian and English. We plan to publish a collection of articles based on the materials of the conference.

Application form
(Narva, 20–22 of October 2006)

1. First name / Surname
2. Scientific (academic) degree
3. Place of work (Address), position
4. Theme of paper
5. Home address, phone.
6. E-mail address