The two-day event is held at Griffith University’s Gold Coast campus on January 31 and February 1 2019, and explores key issues facing communist and post-communist states in Europe and Asia.

Conference theme: 30 Years since the Fall of the Berlin Wall. How Communism and Post-communism are tracking?

The final program is now available for viewing

For more information, see the Conference website.

Contact

Dr Alexandr Akimov, Conference Convenor,  Phone: (07) 5552 8579 Email: aacaps2019@griffith.edu.au

Call for Papers

31 January – 1 February 2019 Griffith University, Gold Coast Australia

The Australasian Association for Communist and Post-Communist Studies (AACaPS) invites panel and paper proposals for the 14th Biennial Conference to be held at the Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia on 31 January – 1 February 2019. The event will be hosted by Griffith Business School in collaboration with the Griffith Asia Institute and the National Centre for Research on Europe, University of Canterbury, New Zealand.

Conference theme: 30 Years since the Fall of the Berlin Wall. How Communism and Post-communism are tracking

The year 2019 will mark 30 years since the fall of the Berlin wall. This symbolic event led to German unification and the collapse of communist party rule in countries of the Soviet-led Eastern bloc. Since then, the post-communist countries of Central, Eastern and South-eastern Europe have tied their post-communist transition to deep integration into the West, including EU accession. Most of these states have been able to relatively successfully transform their previous communist political and economic systems, although the non-Baltic post-Soviet states have generally been less successful in doing so. In contrast, communist countries in Asia, in particular China and Vietnam, have focused their transformation on economic reforms and development while largely maintaining communist party political dominance.

This conference seeks to address and compare those diverse developments in communist and post-communist countries and their relationship with the West from various angles. The conference organisers welcome papers and panel proposals from a broad range of disciplines, including but not limited to: economics and finance, political science, history, sociology and cultural studies. The geographic focus of the conference is broad and includes countries of the former USSR, Eastern and South Eastern Europe, and Asia. Studies focusing on other regions are also welcome.

Main discussion topics

1. Central and Eastern Europe: Challenges of EU accession and post-accession.
2. Russia and its role in global affairs.
3. China under Xi Jinping’s leadership.
4. Crisis on the Korean Peninsula and the prospects for peace.
5. Central Asia and its recent developmental dynamics.

Confirmed keynote speakers

• Stephen E. Hanson, Lettie Pate Evans Professor of Government, William & Mary
• Viktor Larin, Professor of International Relations, Russian Academy of Sciences, Far Eastern Branch

Submission of proposals

Please send the following to aacaps2019@griffith.edu.au:

1) name, 2) current institutional affiliation, 3) title/position, 4) postal address, 5) title of panel or paper, 6) panel description or abstract of paper (200 words or less).

Key dates

• Abstract submission deadline: 31 July 2018
• Panel and abstract acceptance notification issued: 31 August 2018
• Full draft paper submitted to be peer-reviewed: 31 December 2018

Selected papers presented at the conference will be invited for publication in the special journal issues.

Conference registration

• Standard—$100
• Concessional—A$60 (current AACaPS members, Griffith University staff, full-time students)

Website

www.griffith.edu.au/aacaps-2018

Contact

Dr Alexandr Akimov, Conference Convenor,  Phone: (07) 5552 8579 Email: aacaps2019@griffith.edu.au

Download the Conference Flyer

AACaPS intends to provide an online update of the scholarly activities of our members from time to time. Below we feature the recent publications, conference attendances and other news of select members.

Slobodanka Millicent Vladiv-Glover (Monash University)

Slobodanka attended the ‘100th Anniversary of the Russian Revolution’ conference at Deakin University in November 2017. She has recently been chief editor of three special journal issues:

• Slobodanka Vladiv-Glover and Geza Horvath (Eds.), “Structure, Object, Narrative: Towards a Revised Theory of Discourse Part II”, The Dostoevsky Journal: A Comparative Literature Review, Vol 17, 2016
• Kaarina Aitamurto, Sanna Turoma, Slobodanka Vladiv-Glover (Eds.), Special Issue: “Politics of Religion and Patriotic Production of Culture in Contemporary Russia”, Transcultural Studies: A Journal in Interdisciplinary Research, Vol 12, No 1, 2016
• Maja Soboleva and Slobodanka Vladiv-Glover (Eds.) Special Issue: “What is Philosophical Knowledge?” Transcultural Studies: A Journal in Interdisciplinary Research, Vol 12, No 2, 2016

A revised edition of her book Russian Postmodernism: New Perspectives on Post-Soviet Culture (with M Epstein and A Genis, Berghahn Books, 2015) has been released, and she has also contributed chapters to two bilingual monographs.

Nick Fischer (Monash University)

Nick’s book Spider Web: The Birth of American Anticommunism (2016, University of Illinois Press) was reviewed by the New York Review of Books.

Roger Markwick (University of Newcastle)

Roger contributed an article, ‘Violence to Velvet: Revolutions – 1917-2017‘ to a special issue of the Slavic Review (Vol 76, No 3, 2017)

Ludmilla Antypenko

Ludmilla has had a busy year, speaking at conferences in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Sofia, Bulgaria and Zurich, Switzerland and Amsterdam, Holland. Her papers explored language and nationhood in the post-Soviet world, the conflict in Eastern Ukraine, representations of Ukrainian migrants and linguistic topics. She has also edited a volume, in which she also contributed a chapter on language legislation in Ukraine and South Africa.

• Ludmilla A’Beckett and Theodorus du Plessis (eds), In pursuit of societal harmony. Reviewing the experiences and approaches in officially monolingual and officially multilingual countries (SunMedia, 2017)

Kirill Nourzhanov (The Australian National University)

Kirill concluded his term as AACaPS president, and was the primary organiser of our 13th biennial conference ‘A Century of Revolutionary Change – 1917-2017’. He contributed an article to Nationalities Papers (Vol 45, No 1, 2017) entitled ‘From hero worship to organized oblivion: representations of the People’s Front in Tajikistan’s national memory’, and authored a chapter on Kazakhstan and the Eurasian Economic Union in a book edited by fellow AACaPS members Graeme Gill and Milenko Petrovic (and Steven Fish), A Quarter Century of Post-Communism Assessed (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).

Kirill continues to work on an Australian Research Council-funded monograph on Afghanistan-Central Asia security dynamics, with Distinguished Professor Amin Saikal and Kieran Pender.

Alexandr Akimov (Griffith University)

Alexandr was appointed AACaPS president in 2017. He had an article published in Economic Modelling with J Kakhkharov and N Rohde, ‘Transaction costs and recorded remittances in the post-Soviet economies: Evidence from a new dataset on bilateral flows’ (Vol 60, No 1)

Members wishing to have their news featured in future updates should email aacapsassociation [at] gmail [dot] com.

2017 has been a fruitful year for the Australasian Association for Communist and Post-Communist Studies (AACaPS). It was headlined by our 13th biennial conference, on the centenary of the Russian Revolution, and much important scholarship by our members. We also unveiled this new website.

On behalf of president Dr Alexandr Akimov and communications officer Kieran Pender, the AACaPS would like to wish everyone a pleasant Christmas and New Year break. We look forward to engaging with you in 2018.

The recent AACaPS Conference at The Australian National University featured a plenary panel entitled ‘East-West Relations in an Uncertain World’. Chaired by Milenko Petrovic of the University of Canterbury it featured three speakers:

Nick Fischer (Monash University): ‘Washington’s Shadow: Communism and the Transformation of the American State, 1917-2017’
Matthew Sussex (The Australian National University): ‘National Security “Rebound” Strategies: The Case of the Russian Federation’
Ian Parmeter (The Australian National University): ‘The Middle East in Putin’s Foreign Policy and Domestic Security Priorities’

The recent AACaPS Conference at The Australian National University featured a plenary panel entitled ‘The Russian Revolution: A Century of Communist and Post-Communist Development’. Chaired by Roger Markwick of the University of Newcastle, it featured three speakers:

Roderic Pitty (University of Western Australia): ‘The Russian Revolution and the World Capitalist System: An Historical Assessment’
Milenko Petrovic (University of Canterbury): ‘(A Return to) Communism is Not a Solution’
Graeme Gill (University of Sydney): ‘The Development of Executive Power in Russia’

Dr Andrey Kazantsev, Director of the Analytical Centre at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), delivered the keynote presentation at the recent AACaPS biannual conference at The Australian National University. A recording of his presentation is below (beginning at minute 21.45).

 

In late June, the AACaPS hosted its biannual conference at The Australian National University: A Century of Revolutionary Change – 1917-2017. Dr Andrey Kazantsev from MGIMO in Moscow was the Conference keynote, and ANU Vice Chancellor Brian Schmidt AC opened proceedings.

A photo gallery is below, and audio from several presentations will be made available online shortly.

The 13th biennial conference of the Australasian Association for Communist and Post-communist Studies will be held at The Australian National University from 29-30 June 2017. Co-hosted by the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies and School of Politics and International Relations, the conference – A Century of Revolutionary Change: 1917-2017 will examine a wide-range of Soviet and post-Soviet topics. More information and a draft programme can be found here.