Proposals for papers are invited for the online workshop on practices and performances of late-Soviet institutions — from communist party structures and government ministries to plants, collective farms, schools and pioneer camps, the military and the police, and to the institutions of science and cultural production. We wish to explore such institutional cases from the broadest range of perspectives, including microhistory, microethnography and historical sociology, and in doing so address a significant conceptual gap in the anthropology of the state and historiography of late socialism. Keynote speakers are Alexei Yurchak (Berkeley) and Sergei Abashin (European University St Petersburg). Working languages are English and Russian (simultaneous translation provided). Conference coordinator is Nikolai Ssorin-Chaikov (HSE St Petersburg). Application deadline: 15 September 2021.
