[cid:image001.jpg@01CB7CE3.E497B8C0] 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