Ab Imperio 2005 Annual Program

[glebov at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU]

Dear colleagues,

the editors of Ab Imperio would like to draw your attention to the
journal's annual program in 2005 and solicit contributions to the four
issues of AI this year.
All information on Ab Imperio, including manuscript submission guidelines,
editors contact info, and subscription, can be found on our website at
http://abimperio.net

AB Imperio editors

CALL FOR PAPERS

2005

annual theme:

LANGUAGES OF SELF-DESCRIPTION IN EMPIRE AND MULTINATIONAL STATE



The genealogy of the concept of empire demonstrates its dependence not
only on various dominant political discourses. Empire in modern history
also appears to be largely a construction of the language of the social
sciences formed in the era of nationalism. Ab Imperio invites scholars to
reflect on the nature and semantics of languages of self-description,
which mapped and framed the space of empire, nation, and multinational
state. One of the goals of this annual program is to evaluate the
analytical potential of the concept of empire for analysis of the crisis
of modern social sciences and forms of social, political, and cultural
organization. In other words, empire is taken as an analytical perspective
for understanding the dynamically changing world, in which the key problem
is the management of differences.

№ 1/2005 “Empire: The Lexicon of Praxis and the Grammar of Analysis”

Critical historiography and the evolution of studies of nationalism and
empire · recent debates on approaches to empire and nationalism · debates
on the crisis of the national state in global and post-Soviet perspectives
· the problem of the comparative study of continental (contiguous) and
colonial empires and historical forms of nation-building · the origin of
modern social sciences and the influence of modern nationalism · the
ideology and representations of empire and the national state · empire in
the mirror of modern political language: the critique of imperialism · the
historiography of imperialism and colonialism.

№ 2/2005 “The Politics of Language and the Language of Politics of
Empire and Nation”

Language as a factor in the formation of nations in multinational states ·
the politics of language in empire and nation · languages vs. dialects ·
the formation of modern literary languages and forms of linguistic
interaction in multicultural space · thematiziation of discourses of
political community in empire and nation · representations of empire and
nation in international relations · applying the language of law and
economics to multinational space · human and political rights as a problem
of intercultural dialogue · empire and nation in the language of art · the
problem of translation and the transfer of key social and political
concepts in a multinational context · discourses of power, submission, and
revolution · the concept of freedom and progress in multinational space.

№ 3/2005 “Empire and the Challenge of Nationalism: Searching for
Modes of Social, Political, and Cultural Self-Description”

Imperial distinctions and national unity in languages of culture and
scholarship · sedimentary society and universal social categories between
empire and modernity · the problem of translation: the economic space of
empire and the conversion of social capital · the syntax of social
organization · Empire as biography: social and cultural interactions in
imperial space · prosopography of the imperial elite · the imperial
transit: sons of empire, founding fathers of nations.

№ 4/2005 “Discussing Imperial Legacy: Archaisms and Neologisms”

Etymology and genealogy: the language of empire in national discourses ·
the legacy of “classic” empires and self-representation in multinational
space · nostalgia for empire as a political and cultural problem in
post-Soviet space · assessments of the history of the Russian empire and
Soviet Union in national historiographies of the Newly Independent States
· the Russian Federation and the (post) imperial perspective: from the
search for a “national idea” to the resurrection of the state · the myth
about proto-language: empire in the postmodern imagination · the metaphor
of empire and post-national projects ordering global space · the
anti-colonial paradigm, imperial legacy, and post-imperial development ·
the search for new languages to describe contemporary states and
societies.

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