Roundtables mark the beginning of this year’s Tartu Conference on Russian and East European Studies

Two roundtables, focussing on information warfare and on Soviet subjectivities, respectively, will take place ahead of the Fifth Annual Tartu Conference on Russian and East European Studies. While the conference is held on 6-8 June for registered participants and guests, the roundtables on 31 May and 5 June are open to everyone interested.

The theme of the 2021 conference is “Post-Socialist (dis)Orders“ and it is held in cooperation with the PONARS Eurasia Network. The keynote speech will be delivered on 6 June by Dr Ayşe Zarakol, Reader in International Relations at the Department of Politics and International Studies of the University of Cambridge, titled “What makes a region a region? The future and promise of area studies“.

Due to the pandemic, this year’s conference will take place online. The conference programme includes 60 panel sessions and roundtables over two days, with presentations from various disciplines of Social Sciences and Humanities. The full conference programme is available on the conference website, as are guidelines for guest registration, which will close after 28 May.

As an innovation of the conference format, two pre-conference roundtables will take place on 31 May and 5 June, which are available for registration to the general public:

The roundtable on 31 May at 17:00-19:00 (EEST) is entitled “The rise of populism and information warfare - the influence of Russian strategic narratives on the Global Knowledge Warfare”, featuring Holger Mölder (Tallinn University of Technology), Eric Shiraev (George Mason University), Vladimir Sazonov (University of Tartu/EMA), Noel Foster (Princeton University), Zanobia Chan (Princeton University), and Louis Wierenga (University of Tartu).

The roundtable on 5 June at 16:00 - 18:00 (EEST) is entitled “Was there such thing as a Soviet subject? Subjectivities in flux, 1947-2000”. Speakers include Epp Annus (Tallinn University/ Ohio State University), Alexey Golubev (University of Houston), Anatoly Pinsky (University of Helsinki), Zita Karkla (University of Latvia), and Uku Lember (Tallinn University).

To register only for the pre-conference roundtables, please fill in the form here. Please note that 2021 conference participants and guests who have already registered will receive the event details directly from organisers and will not need to mark their interest in the roundtables separately.

For more information, please see the conference website.