International Summer School "Between Giants: local responses to global power dynamics. Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia"

This summer school is to bring together students in social sciences and humanities from Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia to discuss the long-term and hidden social, cultural, historical, and political consequences affecting societies situated between empires.

We will explore the subjectivity of individuals and communities inhabiting these in-between spaces or imperial peripheries from diachronic and synchronic perspectives, while also examining their agency both within and against imperial structures.

• How have they used the available cultural repertoire?
• How have they shaped their sense of identity and understanding of the world around them?
• In what ways have they taken advantage of the opportunities that come with being part of an empire?

We will also discuss the impact of major political transformations of the 20th century on local communities and individuals, as well as analyse the effects of Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine on communities bordering the Russian Federation.

JOIN US TO

• analyse regional and global interactions from global, glocal and local perspectives
• understand discourses of historical appropriation and reinterpretation in public spaces
• examinine models and concrete forms of self-conception and self-imagination
• decolonize knowledge on historical, social, political and cultural processes taking place
  in between the empires.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Timur Dadabaev, University of Tsukuba
Iwona Kaliszewska, University of Warsaw
Ivan Peshkov, Adam Mickiewicz University
Andrii Portnov, European University Viadrina
Tomasz Zarycki, University of Warsaw

Invited experts will present keynote lectures in their respective fields on Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and their historical and anthropological connections to the wider world, including the rival imperial powers to Russia.

A two-day field trip to Podlasie and Kurpie, located in the northeastern part of Poland, will serve as a practical “laboratory” for discussing the core themes of the summer school.

Discussion panels with students’ presentation based on their research will be discussed by an expert who will provide feedback and moderate an extended Q&A session.

Prior to the summer school, students will be assigned compulsory readings in English.

HOW TO APPLY
Online Application >>
Please send your paper abstract (1000 words) and biographical statement (300 words) by March 1, 2025. 
The participants for the summer school will be selected by the academic committee and notified by March 15, 2025.

WHERE
Poland: Warsaw & Białystok

WHEN
September 8 - 13 (Monday-Saturday), 2025

COST
free of charge; organisers cover travel expenses, accommodation and part board

REQUIREMENTS
MA or Ph.D. student
fluent English
paper in English (max. 10 pages) to be submitted by June 15, 2025
20min presentation

In case you have any questions, please contact
Zuzanna Bogumił: z.bogumil@uw.edu.pl (Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, UW)
Natalia Królikowska–Jedlińska: nkrolikowska@uw.edu.pl (Faculty of History, UW)

ORGANIZERS
Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology University of Warsaw
Faculty of History University of Warsaw
Center for Research on Social Memory
Warsaw Center for Global History
Excellence initiative – research university

The summer school is part of the project “Global history – non-European contexts of the Modern Word,” which has received funding in the framework of the Excellence Initiative Research University programme, no. I.3.13.