Our Activities

Conference (20-21 March 2010).
"The 'East-West' Discourse: Symbolic Geography and its Consequences."
The Conference schedule (as a Word document).
The Conference Flyer (as a Word document).
The Call for Papers (as a Word document).

This conference attempts to ground the rhetoric of "East vs. West" in particular contexts and problematize its implcit assumptions.  How does this contrast play out in specific places and times? What are historical actors attempting to accomplish when they invoke this binary dichotomy?

Twenty-one speakers from Australasia, Europe and America will present papers. The keynote speaker is Charles Ingrao of Purdue University. Selected papers will be considered for publication in the Journal of Australian Slavonic and East European Studies, or in a volume of conference proceedings scheduled to be published by Peter Lang. A generous donation from the of the Polish Embassy helped make this event possible. The organizers wish to thank her excellency ambassador Beata Stoczyńska.

The conference will take place at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand. It is free and open to the public. For further information, contact Alexander Maxwell.

Call for Papers
"Miroslav Hroch's Stage Theory of National Awakening in Theory and Historiography": A planned edited volume.

The Call for Papers (as a Word document).

Miroslav Hroch’s Social Preconditions of National Revival schematized the process of national awakening in terms of Phase A, the “period of scholarly interest”; Phase B the “the period of patriotic agitation”; and finally Phase C “the rise of a mass national movement.” We seek authors who can critique and extend Hroch’s stage theory of national awakening by applying the A-B-C schema to specific cases and evaluating its usefulness. Has your research revealed a gap in Hroch’s theory? Can you extend Hroch’s theory in some new direction? Does the A-B-C theory work in regions of the world that Hroch did not consider, e.g. the Pacific, Latin America, Africa, or Asia? Contributors should not merely apply the A-B-C theory to a specific case study, but engage with Hroch’s theoretical assumptions. In the volume’s final chapter, Professor Hroch has agreed to comment on the various contributions. For further information, contact Alexander Maxwell.

Conference (28-29 August 2010).
"National Bodies in Eastern Europe."
Co-sponsored by the Russian Programme of University of Canterbury.
The Call for Papers (as a Word document).

This conference explores the spread of nationalized thinking as it relates to the body. How did people in central Europe, Eastern Europe, and the Balkans classify each other in terms of national concepts? Topics of interest include: bodily practices, literary concepts of the body, national sexuality, national clothing, sporting nationalism, and eugenics. We expect to publish selected proceedings. Abstracts are due 1 June 2010. For further information, contact Alexander Maxwell.

Public Talk (9 March, 2010), 12:30 pm.

Gergely Galantha, (Central European University, Budapest).
"Death to Fascism, Freedom to the People! The Extradition of Hungarian
War Criminals to Yugoslavia." This talk took place in the Wood Seminar Room (Old Kirk room 406). It was free and open to the public. See the flier (as a word document).

 

Public Talk (23 Feb, 2010), 2:30 pm.

Metodija Koloski, President, United Macedonian Diaspora.
“Integrating Macedonia into Global Institutions: The Role of the Macedonian Diaspora.” This talk took place in the Wood Seminar Room (Old Kirk room 406). It was free and open to the public. See the flier (as a Word document).

 

Public Talk (10 Feb, 2010), 3:00 pm.

Robert Imre, University of Newcastle.
"Re-imagining Borders: Hungary and 'its own' sub-Regions." This talk took place in the Wood Seminar Room (Old Kirk room 406). It was free and open to the public. See the flier (as a Word document).

Public Talk (10 September 2010), 10 am.
Des Brennan, Canterbury University, (Christchurch) "Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine: Relations in the Aftermath of EU Enlargement." This talk took place the Wood Seminar Room (OK 406) at Victoria University, Wellington. It was free and open to the public. See the flier (as a Word document).

Film Evening (25 August 2009).
"Sisters from Siberia"
Russel Campbell, Victoria University (Welllington), will show and discuss his new documentary, "Sisters from Siberia" (Vanguard films, 2009). The film traces the life of Wellington City Councilor Stephanie Cook, who adopted Katya (9) and Nadya (4) from a Siberian children's home, and the family's relationship to Wellington's Russian emigre community. This event took place in the Wood Seminar Room, Old Kirk Building, Victoria University, Wellington. It was free and open to the public.

Public Talk (30 July 2009).
Alexander Maxwell, Victoria University (Wellington) "Consumption, Manliness and Nationality in Central Europe.” This talk, at the invitation of James Watson, took place in Main Building Room 102, Massey University, Manawatu Campus, Palmerston North. It was free and open to the public.

Public Talk (28 July 2009).
Gürer Karagedikli, Bilkent Üniversitesi (Ankara). " ‘Turkey for the Turks, Greece for the Greeks’: The 1923 Greco-Turkish Population Exchange." This talk took place in room 301, Old Kirk Building, Victoria University, Wellington. It was free and open to the public. See the Flyer (as a Word document).

Public Talk (24 March 2009).
Mate Tokić, Freie Universität (Berlin): "Black Shirts, Red Menace: Croatian Separatist Terrorism and the Cold War." This talk took place in the Wood Seminar Room (Old Kirk room 406). It was free and open to the public. See the Flyer (as a Word document).

Conference (12 December 2008).
"Hungarians and Their Neighbors: Conflict and Nationality in Central Europe."
The Conference schedule (as a Word document).

This conference, convened by John Perkins, explored ethnicity in Hungary before the 1918 partition. Various papers examined ethnic communities in the Hungarian kingdom: Sacha Davis spoke about Transylvanian Saxons, Alexander Maxwell about Magyars and Shannon Woodcock about Gypsies (Roma).

The conference took place at Macquarie University, Australian History Museum, Building W6A, room 127. The conference had no registration fee and was open to the public.

Conference (4 October 2008).
"Polish Culture, Polish Experiences"
The Conference schedule (as a Word document).
The Conference s chedule (as a printable flier in .pub format).
The call for papers (as a Word document).

Speakers at this one-day conference include Lech Mastalerz (Polish Ambassador to New Zealand), Eva Polonska-Kimungyui (Monash University in Melbourne), and Desmond Brennan (Canterbury University in Christchurch).

The conference was held at the Kelburn Campus of Victoria University, Wellington in the Wood Seminar Room (Old Kirk room 406). The conference had no registration fee and was open to the public.

Selected papers from this conference were published in a special issue of the New Zealand Slavonic Journal, vol. 42 (2008). Glyn Parry, "English Magicians and the Crown of Poland: John Dee, Edward Kelly, and Albrecht Łaski, 1583-1585," pp. 79-100; Alexander Maxwell, "Walerjan Krasiński's Panslavism and Germanism (1848): Polish Goals in a Pan-Slav Context," pp. 101-120; Richard Millington, "Dissent in the Nation of Nobles: The Polishness of Joseph Roth's "The Bust of the Emperor," pp. 120-136; Filip Slaveski, "Competing Occupiers: Bloody Conflicts between Soviet and Polish Authorities in the Borderlands of Post-War Germany and Poland, 1945-46," pp. 137-55.

Public Lecture (8 August 2008).
Peter Barrer (Christchurch), "National Identity in Popular Music and Rap in Slovakia." The talk took place in the Wood Seminar Room (Old Kirk room 406). It was free and open to the public.

Public Lecture (14 July 2008).
Alexander Maxwell, Victoria University (Wellington) "A Historian Examines Slovak Dialectology." The talk took place at Room 509, Arts Centre, University of Melbourne. It was free and open to the public.