June 2021 Newsnet
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NewsNet News of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies June 2021 v. 61, n. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Revisiting the “Contours of Race, Racialization, and Race-Making” 2 in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies Summing Up Poetry: 8 A Case Against Packaging Supporting Precarious Scholars 12 in Eastern Europe: Addressing Barriers to Publishing in US & UK New Lease on Life for Physiological Collectivism? 15 Reading Bogdanov in the Time of COVID 2021 ASEEES Dissertation Grant & 20 Internship Grant Recipients 22 Publications 2021 ASEEES Cohen-Tucker 24 Dissertation Fellowship Recipients 26 Affiliate Group News 27 Institutional Member News 28 Personages 31 In Memoriam Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) 203C Bellefield Hall, 315 S. Bellefield Ave Pittsburgh, PA 15260-6424 tel.: 412-648-9911 • fax: 412-648-9815 www.aseees.org ASEEES Staff Executive Director: Lynda Park 412-648-9788, [email protected] Deputy Director/Director of Membership: Kelly McGee 412- 238-7354, [email protected] NewsNet Editor & Program Coordinator: Trevor Erlacher 412-648-7403, [email protected] Communications Coordinator: Mary Arnstein 412-648-9809, [email protected] Convention Manager: Margaret Manges 412-648-4049, [email protected] Administrative Assistant: Jenn Legler NEWSNET June 2021 1 412-648-9911, [email protected] Financial Support: Roxana L. Espinoza 412-648-4049, [email protected] field, and ASEEES as an organization. we found numerous intersecting and this type of ethnographic work can yield The theme of last year’s ASEEES overlapping threads as they pertain insight into how particular histories meeting was “Anxiety and Rebellion,” to race and racialization. This enabled and the contemporary moment and one of our conversations was us to conduct a rich conversation that shape lived experiences surrounding shaped by a type of anxiety that addressed the interrelated subjects racialization, marginalization, othering, scholars themselves can perpetuate of marginalization and othering, and dehumanization. Regarding when it comes to the subjects of and how these ideas shaped our dehumanization, the roundtable also race and racism. Our roundtable engagement with gender, religion, drew attention to silences that often participants called attention to this migration, and diaspora within our prevent authentic engagement on anxiety, specifically highlighting what region. this subject, whether the conversation is pertaining to Roma persons in the it means for us as scholars to conduct When and how does the language Balkans, to Africans in the former research on race in our region. In of whiteness, blackness, and Soviet Union, or to Black folks in the order to meaningfully address race otherness get employed across United States. and racialization, it is imperative our region? And how and when that scholars in our field be willing does this language get strategically From a more personal perspective, to discuss the tension between avoided or dismissed? How does this roundtable represented an being unable to engage vs. unwilling this inform us about the globality of intellectual shift from West Ohueri’s Soviet-era phenotype chart used by police to identify ethnicity to examine forms of racism and racialization? As sociologist Michelle first ASEEES conference in 2014. anti-blackness. Given more recent Christian argues, we cannot look At that time, she was an advanced global conversations and dialogue at racial dynamics and inequities graduate student presenting on Revisiting the “Contours of Race, about race and racialization, this in any given society as emanating racial belonging in Albania, but there Racialization, and Race-Making” in framing could create an opportunity solely from the logics, beliefs, and were no opportunities to collectively to investigate race and racism in structures of that society. Although discuss race and racialization, nor Slavic, East European, and Eurasian multiple forms, and move beyond white supremacy is not at all new was she able to connect with other Studies racism as unfortunate, unexpected, or “resurgent” (Speed 2020), its scholars conducting similar research. or not reflective of an entity’s true latent roots are being explored The roundtable in 2020 gave us a ELANA RESNICK, UC SANTA BARBARA, values, but instead as shaped by globally—and finally in SEEES fields. chance to reflect and dialogue about SUNNIE RUCKER-CHANG, UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI, global white supremacy and in need And the roots and histories of white race studies in the field, as well as the CHELSI WEST OHUERI, UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS, AUSTIN of critical engagement. supremacy throughout the region opportunity to collectively strategize Several key questions animated have been discussed among local about addressing race within our communities of color for decades—if association. To advance dialogue about the applicability of critical theories of race and our discussion, including those not centuries—but have yet to enter racialization to Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (SEEES) fields, six scholars pertaining to how we situate race In writing about race in SEEES fields, the traditionally white spaces of SEEE (including a scholar journalist), who work and write on race and racialization in as a historical category of social Elana Resnick acknowledges how she area studies. Central and Southeast Europe, Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia, came organization and not just as a newly has been consistently confronted with together for the roundtable, “The Contours of Race, Racialization, and Race- emergent one in Eastern, Central Personal Narratives questions about the fundamental Making,” at the 2020 ASEEES Annual Convention. Roundtable participants actively and Southeast Europe, Russia, and Chelsi West Ohueri’s experience with premise of her research: does race challenged the entrenched silences about race, racialization, and “amnesia of Central Asia. Though roundtable long-term, ethnographic research in (or racial hierarchy) in Bulgaria even racial capitalism” (Bjelić, 2021) in Central and Southeast Europe, Russia, and Central participants were working in different the Balkan region has allowed her exist? Throughout her fieldwork, she Asia, and urged others, particularly those engaged in similar scholarly pursuits, areas across the Balkans and the to consider the complex registers was often asked to justify why race to push for the recognition of how racial logics and processes of racialization former Soviet Union, and though of racialization and belonging that is a relevant framework, support affect the various members of racialized, and otherwise minoritized, communities shaped by multiple disciplines emerge in everyday life, even in it with quantifiable numbers, and throughout geographies associated with SEEES fields. For this article, three of the including anthropology, cultural spaces that often cling to notions of account for why race is not just an roundtable participants, who work in the Balkans, reflect on their own research, studies, journalism, film and media racelessness. As many of the other “Americanization” of a local issue— their positionalities, and the significance of the roundtable to their scholarship, the studies, gender studies, and history, roundtable participants also noted, of what many of her non-Romani NEWSNET June 2021 2 NEWSNET June 2021 3 interlocutors (academic and non- of some groups without the critical positions that minimize critical frames what language will these students which current scholarship too often Resnick has a recent (2021) article academic) categorized as “culture.” lenses necessary to understand them of knowledge and understanding. use to express their experiences continues to ignore or deny. in American Anthropologist stemming When she disagreed with the notion fully. Perpetuation of the myths of abroad where their racial positions from this research entitled “The Limits As an organization, the Association Sunnie Rucker-Chang is Assistant of Resilience: Managing Waste in the that the terms “ethnicity” or “culture” racelessness in Eastern, Central, and will inevitably define them much of Slavic, East European, and Professor of Slavic and East European Racialized Anthropocene.” more than at home? How will their could adequately account for the Southeast Europe, Russia, and Central Eurasian Studies is supporting and Studies and Diversity, Equity, and faculty leaders or advisors help them Citations: power differentials or perspectives of Asia does not diminish connections incorporating more programs and Inclusion Lead for the Institute for the Romani communities with whom work through their experiences? Research in Sensing at the U of Cincinnati. shared among marginalized initiatives that will hopefully result Bjelić, Dušan, “Abolition of a National There are both scholarly and She works, writes, and teaches primarily she worked, many non-Romani communities transnationally and in more inclusive and racially diverse Paradigm: The Case Against Benedict scholars dismissed her approach as the structures that support what is practical implications for our fields on racial and cultural formations and Anderson and Maria Todorova’s Raceless membership. The ASEEES Initiative minority-majority relations in Southeast not “emic” enough. They would assert typically their minoritized position. if addressing race and racialization Imaginaries,” Interventions: International for Diversity and Inclusion, ASEEES Europe. She is the co-editor of and that her reliance