Past conferences

Londongrad and Londongradians: Identities, Imaginaries, and Cultural Practices of Russians in the UK

15 - 16 June 2017

This international workshop formed part of the AHRC-funded, Edinburgh University based project ‘Global Russians: Transnational Russophone Networks in the UK’. (PI: Professor Lara Ryazanova-Clarke).

With a number of Russian speaking migrants reaching almost half a million, Russian diasporic and transcultural spaces and networks are making an increasingly prominent mark on the British multilingual and multicultural map. The workshop explored the imaginaries of ‘Londongrad’ – the British spaces populated and inflected by Russians, by bringing together academics, writers, journalists and actors whose work has reflected on the Russian community of ‘Londongrad’.

The Global Russian: International Travel as Cultural and Linguistic Practices

26 - 27 November 2015

The workshop, part of the LBAS (AHRC) funded research project ‘Travelling Cultures: Discourses of Russian Tourism in Scotland’, developed the Dashkova Centre’s ‘Global Russian’ research strand. It brought together scholars examining tourism from linguistic, historical and cultural perspectives, and practitioners who produce tourist discourses: writers of guidebooks, Russian TV and radio travel programme creators and Russian-speaking guides in Scotland.

Giving Voice to Cultures: Practices of Russia-Britain Cross-Cultural Communication in the 21st Century

12 - 13 December 2014

This conference set out to explore practices of cross-cultural communication between Russia and Britain in the 21st century. It focused on the forms and systems of meaning making in a variety of cultural fields in dialogue.

'Middle' and ' Creative' : Emerging Russian Social Groups in Language and Culture

25 - 26 October 2013

This international conference aimed to facilitate an interdisciplinary investigation of the linguistic and cultural forms, codes and practices associated with the Russian ‘creative’/‘middle class’.

Making Things Sayable: Censorship, Violence, and Justice in Speech Practices (the USSR and present-day Russia)

3 - 4 September 2013

This two day international workshop took place in Stockholm on September 3 and 4, 2013 with the purpose of initiating a broader multidisciplinary international network to study new aspects in the relations between language and power in the USSR and Russia.

In the Shadow of Global Languages

15 March 2012

With invited speakers from Belarus, the US and Scotland, this one-day conference examined the parallels in attitudes and policies towards language management in Belarus and Scotland. The conference was followed by a reception and dinner in the Elder Room at Old College.

Enlightened Russian

31 August - 1 September 2012

In partnership with the 2012 Catherine the Great Exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland, which features exhibits from the collection of Russia's State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, this 3-day conference revolved around the socio-cultural shifts in the Russian language brought about by exposure to Enlightenment thinking.

Negotiating Ideologies II: Inclusion and Exclusion in Russian Language and Culture

5 October 2012

Global Russian Symposium: Exploring New Research Perspectives

24 - 25 January 2013

The objective of the symposium was to contextualise the Russian language within the new and rapidly developing field of sociolinguistics of globalisation and to provide collectively a critical reflection on the theoretical challenges posed by Russian as a global language.

The writer as a ‘Language Laboratory’: experiment, reflection and construction of social meaning

14 March 2013

Participants: Roman Leibov (Tartu University), Lara Ryazanova-Clarke (Edinburgh University), Mikhail Epstein (Durham and Emory Universities), Tine Roesen (Aarhus University), Maxim Krongauz (Russian State Humanitarian University), Rose France (Edinburgh University)

Russian politics from below

26 April 2013

This one-day conference explored Russia's contemporary politics through the lens of civil society and various 'bottom-up' social movements and organisations.

Making Things Sayable: Censorship, Violence, and Justice in Speech Practices

September 3 and 4, 2013

This international workshop was a collaboration between UCRS, CBEES, The Princess Dashkova Russian Centre (University of Edinburgh), the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures of Stockholm University, with participation of colleagues from St. Petersburg University and Queen Mary University of London.