*International Conference Announcement and Call for Papers:*
*  “The Russian Language Outside the Nation: Speakers and Identities”*
*1-3 April, 2010*
held by *Russian in Context Research Unit*, *The University of Edinburgh*

Papers are invited for the conference to be held at the University of
Edinburgh. The aim of this conference is to explore multiple issues
connected to the position of Russian as a post-imperial language and
Russian speakers’ identities as members of a linguistic minority in
the new world configuration. The organisers wish to bring together
scholars in the broadly understood field of Russian language in
society, including sociolinguistics, (critical) discourse analysis,
linguistic anthropology, language politics, and interdisciplinary
areas such as diaspora, identity, memory studies and others.

It is envisaged that the conference will include but not be limited to
the following themes:

  * Politics of the Russian language outside Russia;
  * Space and place in Russian identity construction;
  * Language, identification and self-understanding (cultural, ethnic,
    national, religious etc) of Russian speakers in the countries of
    the former Soviet Union and those of traditional emigration;
  * The Russian community as a story-telling society: narrative
    identities and construction of common memories outside Russia;
  * Fields of Russian identity negotiations;
  * Russian and the questions of linguo-cultural marginality;
  * Responses of Russian to the problems of globalization;
  * Contested concepts (for e.g. diaspora, minority, integration) in
    relation to Russian speakers;
  * Linguistic performance of Russianness;
  * Russian language virtual communications and questions of identity.
It is planned to publish an edited volume of selected papers.
Please E-mail your proposals, including a working title and an
abstract of around 300 words, *by 15 August 2009* to the conference
organisers:
Dr Lara Ryazanova-Clarke and Kristine Uzule, Russian in Context
Research Unit, Russian, Division of European Languages and Cultures,
The University of Edinburgh, U.K. Lara.Ryazanova-Clarke@ed.ac.uk
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