Open Future: Concepts of Political Modernity

Seminars Description

Each seminar will involve approximately 30 participants and 4-6 resource professors. Activities are scheduled throughout the three years of the seminar, but the central meetings will take place in Ekaterinburg and Kaliningrad (Russia) in the summers of 2010, 11, and 12. Between these sessions, there will be a number of smaller meetings as well as internet conferences, e-mail discussions, and so on.

Participants's expences - including travel and accomodation - will be met by the OSI through Ural State University. Readings and other materials will be distributed by the so-directors.

Seminar Content

The main theme of the project is one with the widest possible appeal within the social sciences and humanities. On the one hand, it is a rather familiar theme in the majority of social sciences in the target region. Since at least the end of World War II, it became common in the mainstream social sciences to talk of “modern society” and “modernization”. This classical idea of modernization found its expression in post-communist countries of 1990th in the quite wide-spread concept of “transitology”, of more or less smooth transition from communist regimes to “modern”, “civilized” liberal and democratic polities of the Western type. In this form it is still very much present in the academia of the target region.

However, in the last decades, this modernist understanding of “modern society” was widely challenged so that the concepts of modern society and modernization basically gave place to a rather different concept of “modernity”. The seminars are focused on the discussion of these new developments in the social sciences from the point of views of several cognate disciplines, most importantly, political and social philosophy, history, political science, international relations, and sociology. The specific task of the project is to introduce the participants to the complexity of the field through exposing them to various recent discussions about modernity going on in international academia.

The main focus of the project is, however, on teaching and learning rather than on pure research, although we think that the best way to approach these issues is to discuss both the methodology and the substance of mostly contemporary debates in political theory. However, there are also some important problems concerning the establishment of reflexive undergraduate teaching in the target region which obviously require something more than simple knowledge of the substantial issues. In order to address this sort of problems, we also intend to introduce the participants to a range of the latest pedagogical developments relevant to scholarly teaching and learning, including concepts of teaching and course portfolios, syllabus writing, methods of problem-based learning as well as some other particular instruments of achieving the main goals of scholarly teaching.

Resource Persons

The co-directors of the seminar are:

• Professor Maxim Khomiakov, Ural Centre for Advanced Studies and Education, Ural State University, Ekaterinburg, Russia .
• Professor Lars Binderup, Department of Philosophy, The University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark.

The team of the resource persons includes:

• Prof. John Horton, Department of Politics, The University of Keele, UK
• Prof. John C. Laursen, Department of Politics, The University of California, Riverside, USA
• Prof. Peter Wagner, Department of Sociology, The University of Trento, Trento, Italy
• Prof. Martin Van Gelderen, Department of History and Civilization, European University Institute, Florence, Italy
• Prof. Timothy Stenton, Department of Politics, The University of York, UK
• Prof. Emanuela Ceva, Department of Philosophy, The University of Pavia, Italy
• Prof. Kristina Shtoekl, Marie Curie Fellow, The University of Rome, Italy.

Eligibility Requirements and Application Procedure

Eligibility

Young (under 35 y.o.) academics in Philosophy, Political Science, and cognate disciplines in Central and Eastern Europe (from the countries outside of EU) and the former Soviet Union.

Applications from the other countries are welcomed, but the travel and accommodation expenses for the participants from these countries cannot be reimbursed. However, depending on the quality of the application, the tuition fee for the participants from the countries outside of the target region can be waived.

Eligible candidates are required to hold a university or other equivalent post (or to be post-graduate students at an institution of higher education).

The working language of the seminar is ENGLISH and all candidates must demonstrate a good command of both written and spoken English. Auxiliary language of the school is Russian.

Application

Candidates must send, in English, a CV, a Letter of Interest, and a short essay (of between 350 and 500 words) on a topic related to the seminar to Uralreset@yahoo.co.uk by March 15th, 2010. Candidates can expect to hear whether they have been successful by May 1st, 2010. Any candidate who has not heard by that date should assume that s/he has not been selected.

If you have any further questions or concerns, please, contact Prof. Maxim Khomyakov (Uralreset@yahoo.co.uk)