I am ready for a long road flight for work with a week- or months-long projects.
Being Apart — Being a Part:
Practices and Theories of Belonging
Summer School at the
Yerevan Center for International Education
Yerevan Center for International Education
15-29 June, 2025, Armenia
Program Description
“Being Apart – Being a Part: Practices and Theories of Belonging” continues the summer school series “Societies and Cultures Torn Apart,” started in 2024. In the summer of 2025, the participants of the second school are invited to focus on practices and theories of belonging in Eurasia. The goal is to discuss various links, formations, and settings which help individuals, groups, and institutions to create common contexts, shared experiences, and distributed agencies during the Soviet period and after the collapse of the USSR.
What are experiential and conceptual options for crafting a satisfactory sense of belonging in situations where state borders are unstable, national histories are imagined, family configurations are flexible, and personal identities are fluid? How do people forge social ties and group loyalties in the face of powerful social conflicts that are reassembling society? How do they envision communities to which they belong now and those to which they belong no more? How are these choices made? How are these choices articulated, represented and symbolized? How are they justified?
More specifically, what vernacular theories of belonging and solidarity were used in the USSR and are used now to normalize relationships with variously scaled formations – be it a state, a nation, a community, or a family?
We invite graduate students in social sciences and humanities, studying the USSR and its aftermath to discuss these and related problems together with leading academics in the field. The summer school will consist of a series of lectures and seminars, and will include workshops on academic writing and ethnographic fieldwork.
What are experiential and conceptual options for crafting a satisfactory sense of belonging in situations where state borders are unstable, national histories are imagined, family configurations are flexible, and personal identities are fluid? How do people forge social ties and group loyalties in the face of powerful social conflicts that are reassembling society? How do they envision communities to which they belong now and those to which they belong no more? How are these choices made? How are these choices articulated, represented and symbolized? How are they justified?
More specifically, what vernacular theories of belonging and solidarity were used in the USSR and are used now to normalize relationships with variously scaled formations – be it a state, a nation, a community, or a family?
We invite graduate students in social sciences and humanities, studying the USSR and its aftermath to discuss these and related problems together with leading academics in the field. The summer school will consist of a series of lectures and seminars, and will include workshops on academic writing and ethnographic fieldwork.
Themes
To provide meaningful focal points for discussions, the school will be organized as a sequence of four thematic clusters that address differently scaled units of belonging — from such macro-formations as Nations and States to geographically-bound Cities, and from intimate circles of Home and Family to diverse Affective Communitiesbound by shared emotional experiences.
● The cluster on Home and Family zooms in on various relations engendered by structural conflicts between the demands of kinship and relatedness, on one hand, and desires for personal freedom, distinction, and choice. As the ultimate site of “cultural intimacy” Home/Family shapes long-term sensibilities, orientations, and dispositions. Our goal is to explore the vocabulary of family models and the syntax of family ties activated by the Soviet style modernity and post-Soviet transformations.
● Nations and States cluster problematizes the role of these formations in forging meaningful practices of belonging and alienation. What is the role of the nation-state in fostering loyalty? What kinds of experience could be used as a foundation for non-discriminatory vision of the nation? What are the ways for combining cosmopolitan aspirations and global practices of consumption with highly localized memory politics?
● Modern Cities traditionally provided environments where social mobility could be practiced in a variety of ways. Life-style experiments could take place there and subcultural milieus could be formed. Or, alternatively, careers could be built (and ruined) there, and networks could be established. We will focus on material and institutional affordances that Soviet and post-Soviet cities could provide for creating distinctive forms of attachment—to spaces, venues, structures, things, urban legends and urban texts.
● Affective Communities will move us beyond the external constraints imposed by large-scale institutions and formations (e.g., nation-state and cities) or overdetermined networks of relatedness (family, ideology, religion). Using individual emotional states as the starting point, this cluster examines their ability to generate communities and networks. Constituted and sustained through shared emotional reactions, these affective formations produce their own rituals of exchange and protocols of public existence—be it a spontaneous joy of fans or an embodied excitement of a performing collective, a choreographed manifestation of loss or a carefully disguised feeling of guilt.
Lectures
Madeline Reeves
University of Oxford
Serguei Oushakine
Emma Widdis
Ekaterina Melnikova
European University
at St. Petersburg
at St. Petersburg
Nari Shelekpayev
Ronald Suny
Yulia Antonyan
Apply by January 20, 2025
for full consideration
for full consideration
Julie McBrien
Artemy Kalinovsky
Temple University
Princeton University, Guest director
University of Cambridge
Daria Bocharnikova
Stephen Hanson
Yale University
KU Leuven
University of Michigan
University of Amsterdam
Yerevan State University
William & Mary
Inna Leykin
Caroline Humphrey
Kevin M. F. Platt
Open University of Israel
University of Cambridge
University of Pennsylvania
Jeanne Kormina
YCIE, Principal director
How to apply
Priority deadline is January 20, 2025 by the end of the day. Applicants will receive notification of acceptance in February. Students in need of financial assistance will have the opportunity to apply following acceptance. The cost includes room and board (two/three meals a day) and a limited number of excursions.
Dates: 15-29 June, 2025
Cost: $900 + travel
Applications should include a one-page cover letter introducing yourself, explaining your academic and professional interests, and outlining your qualifications, as well as demonstrating how you are a good fit for YCIE's Summer School program.
The application should also include a small-scale creative or research project that problematizes one of the cluster themes; this could take the form of a short essay, a podcast, a curated archive of materials, or another innovative format. In addition, applicants must submit a copy of their CV/resume and a recommendation letter from their academic advisor. All materials should be uploaded and submitted using the form on this page.
Please ensure that all documents meet the specified requirements before submission. In case any of the required materials are accessible via an online link, please include the active link in a Word or PDF document and upload it through the form.
The application should also include a small-scale creative or research project that problematizes one of the cluster themes; this could take the form of a short essay, a podcast, a curated archive of materials, or another innovative format. In addition, applicants must submit a copy of their CV/resume and a recommendation letter from their academic advisor. All materials should be uploaded and submitted using the form on this page.
Please ensure that all documents meet the specified requirements before submission. In case any of the required materials are accessible via an online link, please include the active link in a Word or PDF document and upload it through the form.
*By clicking 'Submit,' you consent to the processing of your personal data in accordance with our Data Processing Consent Agreement.
How to get a Financial Aid
Financial support in the form of a partial or full tuition waiver and/or a travel allowance is available for admitted students with demonstrated need. The level of support awarded will be dependent on the scale of requests we receive, given that our budget for support is not unlimited.
Participants may apply for financial support after receiving confirmation of their acceptance to the summer school. Applications should be sent via email to summerschool@yerevancenter.org.
In your application, please specify the amount of support you are requesting and provide an explanation of the circumstances necessitating the request.
Applications for financial support must be submitted no later than 10 days after receiving your confirmation of participation. Decisions regarding financial aid will be communicated after your application is reviewed.
Participants may apply for financial support after receiving confirmation of their acceptance to the summer school. Applications should be sent via email to summerschool@yerevancenter.org.
In your application, please specify the amount of support you are requesting and provide an explanation of the circumstances necessitating the request.
Applications for financial support must be submitted no later than 10 days after receiving your confirmation of participation. Decisions regarding financial aid will be communicated after your application is reviewed.
