Dear
colleagues,
The
Davis Center is pleased to announce a new Fellows Program for 2011-2012. The
Fellows Program will bring together scholars at early and later stages in their
careers to consider a common theme spanning the social sciences and
humanities. The Program will be coordinated by faculty from across Harvard
University whose research interests include aspects of the selected theme. In
2011-2012, the Fellows Program will be coordinated by Professors Terry Martin
(History), William Mills Todd III (Slavic Languages and Literatures) and Rawi
Abdelal (Harvard Business School).
The
theme for 2011-2012 is “Informing Eurasia: Informational Approaches to
Eurasian Cultures, Politics and Societies.” Eurasian studies currently
has no sub-field of “Information Studies,” but historians, literary
critics, and social scientists working on Eurasia have recently produced novel
work on surveillance, the social construction of collective identities,
autobiographical and documentary self-fashioning, horizontal and vertical
communication (rumors, petitions, denunciation), political policing, censorship
and Aesopian strategies, the construction of economic and political data, and
the impact of such information on political and economic decision-making. The
Davis Center invites scholars working on, or interested in pursuing, such
informational approaches to Eurasia to apply to our Fellows program.
In
addition to pursuing their own research, Fellows will participate in a
bi-weekly interdisciplinary seminar series that will explore informational
approaches to Eurasian studies. Papers will be presented by the visiting
Fellows, Harvard faculty, and invited outside speakers. For more detailed
information on the fellows program, and opportunities to apply for postdoctoral
and senior fellowships, visit the Davis Center web site http://daviscenter.fas.harvard.edu/ or consult the
text below. The convening faculty including myself will host a question and
answer session at the ASEEES Convention, Friday, November 19, 10–11:30
a.m. in the Lobby Court Coffee Shop at the West Bonaventure in L.A.
Additionally, the Davis Center will be hosting an online question and answer
session on December 15 from 12-2 p.m. Details will be posted on the Davis
Center website by the middle of November.
Note
that scholars whose work does not address the selected theme are encouraged to
apply for fellowships at the Davis Center, and that their applications will
receive full consideration.
I
encourage you to consider applying and to forward this message to any
colleagues or advanced graduate students who may be interested.
Sincerely,
Terry
Martin
Director,
Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies
George
F. Baker III Professor of Russian Studies
Harvard
University
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Fellowships
at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University
Informing
Eurasia: Informational Approaches to Eurasian Cultures, Politics and Societies
Deadline:
January 10, 2010
More
information: http://daviscenter.fas.harvard.edu
The
Davis Center is pleased to announce a new Fellows Program for 2011-2012. The
Fellows Program will bring together scholars at early and later stages in their
careers to consider a common theme spanning the social sciences and
humanities. Professors Terry Martin (History), William Mills Todd III (Slavic
Languages and Literatures) and Rawi Abdelal (Harvard Business School) will
coordinate the 2011-2012 program. We are interested in applications from
scholars currently working on our chosen theme, or equally those working on
unrelated themes, but who are interested in exploring our theme.
The
theme for 2011-2012 is “Informing Eurasia: Informational Approaches to
Eurasian Cultures, Politics and Societies.” Eurasian studies currently
has no sub-field of “Information Studies,” but historians, literary
critics, and social scientists working on Eurasia have recently produced novel
work (described below), that the Davis Center plans to bring into dialogue.
The Davis Center invites scholars working on, or interested in pursuing, such
informational approaches to Eurasia to apply to our Fellows program. In
addition to pursuing their own research, Fellows will participate in a
bi-weekly interdisciplinary seminar series that will explore informational
approaches to Eurasian studies.
Our
imagined field of “Information Studies” includes, but is hardly
limited to, the following:
History – work on
surveillance has analyzed not just how the imperial Russian and Soviet state
gathered information and what information they gathered, but also how they used
various technologies of rule (e.g. the passport, census, map, autobiography) to
categorize individuals by identity, loyalty, geography and utility. Social and
cultural historians have in turn traced how these categories took on meaning
both collectively (nationalism, class conflict, patriotism, dissent) and
individually (in projects of self-transformation and self-protection).
Political historians have studied how information-gathering and categorical
construction has influenced policy formation, political policing, mass coercive
actions and mass persuasion. Other work analyzed how subjects spoke to the
state through petitions, denunciations, personal narratives, riots and mass
collective actions; how individuals have communicated information in periods of
censorship through gossip, rumor, and Aesopian language; and how evolving
technology has transformed communicative possibilities.
Literature
and culture
– scholars have studied the many resources of language, genre and
literary tradition to provoke reflection on imperial Russian and Soviet
information practices and policies. They have assessed techniques of
myth-making, ambivalent representations and the modeling of alternative
realities. Beyond studying individual works and their reception, they examine
actors in the literary process including authors, publishers, censors, readers,
theoreticians and critics. The Tartu-Moscow semioticians have at times drawn
directly on information theory in developing their approach to the generation
of texts and discourse. Such everyday and more formal genres as novel, film,
memoir and jokes have proven fertile ground for research, which has often drawn
upon the methods of the social sciences.
Social
sciences
– scholars have, like historians, evaluated the ways in which governments
collect, disseminate and interpret information. Some fruitful work explored how
processes of reifying economic, social and political activity lead governments,
elites and mass publics to understand the world around them. For example,
economic data regularly influence public policy-making, and yet the process of
categorizing and accounting for economic activities reveals the necessity of
judgment and the use of prevailing social constructions for creating meaningful
categories. Recent work by scholars who emphasize the influence of social
constructions such as collective identities and domestic and international
norms of appropriate practices, suggest that information is mediated by
particular understandings of the world. Economic sociologists and political
scientists have examined the cognitive frameworks that are necessarily employed
when making sense of myriad pieces of economic information. Market participants
themselves must attribute meaning to seemingly straightforward concepts like
budget deficits, inflation and rates of growth in national output in making
investment decisions, which in turn can have self-fulfilling consequences for
the sustainability of economic policy stances.
Types
of Fellowships
1)
Postdoctoral Fellowships: Junior scholars
who will have completed a Ph.D. or equivalent by September 2011 and no earlier
than September 2006. Stipend of up to $37,500.
2)
Senior Fellowships: Senior scholars
who have made a significant contribution to the field and have completed a
Ph.D. or equivalent by September 2006 and hold an academic appointment. Stipend
of up to $25,250 to bring salary to full-time level.
3)
Regional Fellowships: Senior scholars
who have completed a Ph.D. or equivalent by September 2006 or policymakers,
journalists, and specialists. Citizens of Russia, Eastern Europe, Central Asia,
and the Caucasus may apply. Stipend of up to $45,500.
Scholars
with outside or sabbatical funding who wish to be in residence at the Davis
Center in 2011-2012 should apply using the fellowships application and indicate
that they do not require Davis Center funding.
Note
that scholars whose work does not address the selected theme are encouraged to
apply for fellowships at the Davis Center, and that their applications will
receive full consideration.
---
Davis Center for Russian and
Eurasian Studies
Harvard University
1730 Cambridge Street, 3rd Floor
Cambridge, MA 02138
T 617.495.4037
F 617.495.8319
http://www.daviscenter.fas.harvard.edu