2023 Midwest Slavic Conference
Friday, March 24, 2023 , 5:30 p.m. - March 26, 12 p.m.
Location: The Ohio State University (Columbus Campus)
Contact: Center for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies
The Midwest Slavic Association and The Ohio State University Center for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies (CSEEES) are pleased to announce the 2023 Midwest Slavic Conference to be held at Ohio State in Columbus, Ohio on March 24-26, 2023. The conference committee invites proposals for papers on all topics related to the Slavic, East European, and Eurasian world, particularly those related to the theme of displacement and diaspora. As war and other disasters continue in these regions, this theme will explore how war has displaced and damaged cultures, cultural artifacts, and cultural production. It will also provide students and scholars with the opportunity to think about how these horrors prompt cultures, societies, and languages to flourish and thrive while creating new centers and pulls across the globe when citizens are forced to flee.
The conference will open with a reception at the OSU Faculty Club (181 S Oval Mall, Columbus, OH 43210) from 5:30 -7 p.m. followed by the keynote address from 7 - 8:30 p.m. by Dr. Valeria Sobol (U. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign). Building on the keynote address, a plenary panel will follow on Saturday morning from 8:30 - 10:15 a.m. at the Blackwell Inn and Conference Center (2110 Tuttle Park Pl., Columbus, OH 43210). Panels by conference participants will then be held on Saturday from 10:30 a.m. - 4:45 p.m. and Sunday from 8:30 - 11:45 a.m. This year’s conference will also celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Society for Slovene Studies.
Abstract and Panel Submissions
Please send a one-paragraph abstract and a brief C.V. in a single PDF format file to cseees@osu.edu by January 27. Undergraduate and graduate students are strongly encouraged to participate. Interdisciplinary work and pre-formed panels are encouraged. Proposals for individual papers will be accepted.
Registration is required to attend all conference events and activities.
Deadlines
- Abstract and C.V. Deadline: January 27
- Notification of Acceptance: February 13
- Scheduling Conflicts Due: February 16
- Panels Announced: February 17
- Final Papers to Chair: March 17
- Presenter Registration Deadline: March 17
Registration Fees
- Student Presenters: $35
- Faculty/Independent Scholars: $50
- General Attendees: $25
Opening Reception and Keynote Address
"Gothic Displacements and the Russian Imperial Conquest: Literary Cases of Finland and Ukraine"
Valeria Sobol (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)
Friday, March 24, OSU Faculty Club, Main Dining Room on the 2nd Floor (181 S Oval Mall, Columbus, OH 43210)
- Opening Reception, 5:30 - 7 p.m.
- Keynote Address, 7 - 8:30 p.m.
In this presentation, Sobol will discuss how displacement—one of the key tropes of the literary Gothic tradition—assumes a new, urgent meaning in the context of the Russian imperial conquest. While Gothic literature is often perceived as divorced from a concrete historical or geographical reality, Sobol will demonstrate that Gothic tropes, when examined in the context of the Russian empire and its assimilative tendencies, function as symptoms of deep anxieties about fluid imperial borders, national identities, and modernization. For literary examples, Sobol will focus on two texts from the early 1840s that represent the “Northern” and “Southern” poles of the Russian imperial Gothic: Vladimir Odoevsky’s novella “The Salamander,” partly set in Finland, and Panteleimon Kulish’s novel Mikhailo Charnyshenko, or Little Russia Eighty Years Ago, set in Ukraine. The talk is partly based on my relatively recent book, Haunted Empire: Gothic and the Russian Imperial Uncanny (2020).
