The editors of the journal 'Forum for Modern Language Studies' at the University of St Andrews, UK invite submissions dealing with any topic pertaining to the theme of Ecologies, understood in its broadest sense, for the 2016 Forum Prize competition. Submissions may address literature of any period, from a literary or linguistic perspective, and in any of the languages covered by the journal: usually Arabic, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Russian, but we will consider others too. The competition is open to all researchers, whether established or early-career: it is worth noting that previous competitions have been won by scholars in both categories. The winner will receive publication of the winning essay in the next appropriate volume of Forum for Modern Language Studies and a prize of £500.

Entries must be written in English, between 6,000 and 10,000 words in length including notes, should conform to MHRA style, and must be accompanied by an abstract (approx. 150 words) summarizing the principal arguments and making clear the relevance of the article to the competition topic.Articles should be submitted online at www.fmls.oxfordjournals.org, flagged as Forum Prize entries and following the guidelines for authors. We will also accept submissions by email or hard copy and disc, if there is a compelling reason: in this case, please contact the Administrative Editor, Dr Robin MacKenzie (rmm10@st-andrews.ac.uk).

Concordia Language Villages' summer Russian immersion program for kids ages 6-18 is now hiring camp counselors for July-August 2016. We are actively recruiting for a diverse pool, so please spread the word!

Most successful US-based applicants will be in third year Russian or beyond. In general, our US-based staff members are usually either heritage speakers or L2 learners who have already spent a year in a Russian-speaking country, as this position requires a strong command of informal spoken Russian. Staff members are expected to be able to use Russian to communicate both in staff meetings and with campers in all daily life situations. This is a summer camp experience, so prospective staff should enjoy rustic living, physical exertion, and sharing responsibility for maintaining communal spaces. We also hire staff from abroad, as we have a J1 camp counselor visa.

St. Petersburg, May 16-18, 2016,  Institute of Russian Literature at the Russian Academy of Science (The Pushkin House), Makarov Embankment, 4.

The Institute of Russian Literature (The Pushkin House, Russian Academy of Sciences), the State Hermitage Museum, the Russian Museum, and the Prigov Foundation announce the 6th International  Prigov Symposium to be held in St. Petersburg, May 16-18, 2016. The encyclopedia and encyclopedic knowledge is the central theme of this symposium. Since the Enlightenment, the main means of  imparting the human knowledge a systemic character, the encyclopedia has been reconsidered by the  20th century's thinkers as a utopian discourse and as a vehicle of imaginary worlds. This reinterpretation of the encyclopedia triggered the need to systematize creative and scholarly approaches in search of the perfect language (to use Umberto Eco's formula). Seen in this context, Prigov's oeuvre represents possibilities of the language and various media in the production of universalizing discourses, each displaying encyclopedic ambition to embrace the entire world. We invite papers focusing on Prigov's treatment of the encyclopedic discourse and discussing his interpretation of relationships between the word and the image, expansion of genres into various medial spheres, as well as  Prigov's global life-long creative project, which by itself constitutes the "encyclopedia of the Russian life".

Presenters are allocated 20 minutes each + 5 min. for comments and questions after each presentation. Papers will be presented in Russian and English.

A limited number of travel grants of  up to $500 are available upon admission to the conference program. Accommodation for 3 nights will be provided and partially covered.

Please send your abstract (300 words) and a short bio to d.a.prigov2016@yandex.ru<mailto:d.a.prigov2016@yandex.ru>.

• Democracy and Governance http://ut.ee/democracy

• European Union – Russian Studies http://ut.ee/eurus

• International Relations and Regional Studies http://ut.ee/irrs

• Baltic Sea Region Studies http://ut.ee/baltic

We welcome applications from all disciplines and backgrounds. All programmes combine comprehensive academic knowledge with training in core competences, preparing you for a career in the public as well as private sector or academia. Tuition-waiver scholarships available on a competitive basis for all programmes! Scholarships decided based on admission results, all candidates are automatically considered.

Transitions (TOL) is now accepting applications for the International Storytelling Course, a special edition of TOL’s renowned Foreign Correspondence Course. This course will be held in Prague, Czech Republic on July 10-18, 2016.

This summer course is organized in cooperation with some of the leading international media such as the International New York Times, the Economist, the Christian Science Monitor and others. The capstone of the course will be a real-life reporting assignment produced under guidance of the faculty. The assignment will generate an invaluable clip for an early-career journalist.

Canadian Slavonic Papers/Revue canadienne des slavistes invites contributions to a special section to mark the awarding of the 2015 Nobel Prize for Literature to Belarusian writer Svetlana Alexievich.  We invite articles from a range of disciplines that explore the author, her oeuvre, and her milieu.  Among other topics, explorations of creative non-fiction in the Soviet and post-Soviet space, of the female voice, of oral history, of the intellectual and social history of Soviet and Belarusian writers, or of important themes in Alexievich’s work would be welcome.  The issue aims to be multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary. Authors who submit papers must become members of the Canadian Association of Slavists (CAS). Manuscripts may be in English or French.  The normal peer-review process will apply.

Works of modern art, archaeological or ethnographic artefacts and human remains generally occupy separate realms in the museum world. Yet, the growing discourse surrounding claims on certain objects made to museums by former owners or communities of origin unite them in one very specific category. Their status appears unsettled as they are caught between conflicting desires and points of view. By bringing together scholars and practitioners dealing with case studies related to different types of museums and collections, this conference aims to facilitate a transdisciplinary engagement with the issue of returns (a term that encompasses here both restitution and repatriation questions).

Indiana University’s Summer Language Workshop is proud to host the 2016 Baltic Studies Summer Institute (BALSSI), offering intensive beginning Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian language courses. Courses will be held from June 6-July 29, 2016 on the Bloomington campus. 

* Competitive Title VIII and FLAS fellowships available for qualified students. 

* All students pay in-state tuition. 

* Students complete one year of language study in one summer and earn 6-8 transferable credits. 

* Applications are still being accepted on a rolling basis. 

See http://indiana.edu/~swseel/balssi for more information and to apply. 

Questions? Please contact swseel@indiana.edu or 812-855-2889.

Wolfson College, Oxford, 12-13 September 2016

Interrogating the notion of ‘identity’ remains a central concern in Humanities and Social Sciences research. For East-Central Europe, the subject has particular resonance: this was a region forged in diversity, remade after 1945 along ethno-national lines, and which in the present, continues to resist alternative narratives. This two-day conference invites submissions for 20-minute papers that engage with a specific definition of ‘sub-cultures’ through case studies drawn from the East-Central European region, over the period c. 1900-present.

The conference concludes a four-year research project that proposes a new definition of the term ‘sub-cultures’ to understand identities that do not conform to the fixed, standard categories imposed from the top down, such as ‘ethnic group’, ‘majority’ or ‘minority’. Instead, a ‘sub-culture’ is an identity that sits between these categories.