The War and Beyond: Perspectives on Ukrainian culture and society

Ukrainett+ aims to enhance Ukrainian-Norwegian research collaboration and advance Ukrainian studies in Norway, Ukraine, and internationally. The conference will bring together scholars from diverse disciplines to facilitate dialogue and exchange insights on key topics within Ukrainian history, culture and society.

Please submit your proposal for a presentation or panel in this registration form. The deadline for submitting your proposal is 1st May. We plan to let you know the outcome by mid-June.

You may propose either an individual presentation or a panel consisting of several presentations. The time frame for individual presentations is 20 minutes + 10 minutes for Q&A and for panels 90 minutes for presentations and discussion, including Q&A.

If you submit an individual presentation you will be included in a panel with other individual presentations according to your theme.

Contributions might address, but are not limited to, the following topics:

• Ukraine’s linguistic and cultural diversity
• Continuities and disruptions in Ukrainian history
• Memory culture and identity-building
• Ukrainian resilience in historical perspective
• Cultural diplomacy and the media landscape in times of war
• Language ideologies and language policies
• Russia’s destruction of Ukrainian culture – historical and legal perspectives
• The history of Russo-Ukrainian relations
• The role of civil society in rebuilding Ukraine
• Cultural and societal aspects of Ukraine’s EU accession process

• Reconstruction, accountibility, and justice

• Migration, integration, re-integration

Programme and practical information

The programme for the conference and a registration form will be available here after the submissions for presentations and panels have been accepted.

Keynote speakers

We are very pleased to announce that you will meet the following two keynote speakers at the conference.

Bohdana Neborak is a journalist, curator of cultural projects and editor at «The Ukrainians Media». With an MA in law, Bohdana has more than ten years of experience in creative industries, working as a journalist, culture manager, and curator in Ukrainian and international projects. In 2020, Bohdana drafted and launched the first state literary translation grant program at the Ukrainian Book Institute. She co-hosts a podcast about culture and colonialism and is a lecturer of a contemporary Ukrainian literature course at the Projector Institute. Bohdana is a co-curator at the FUNDAMENT literary festival and founder of the Kyiv Book Club reading promotion platform.

Bohdana was recognized by «30 Under 30: Most Prospective Young Journalists» in 2021, by the Heorhii Gongadze Prize and «30 Under 30 Kyiv Post» (award for the most innovative Ukrainians) in 2020. Her podcast about the influence of literature on civil society, «I Read That,» was recognized as one of the top 30 Ukrainian podcasts in 2021, and her podcast about colonialism, «Unnamed for Now,» won «The Best Ukrainian Podcast about culture» nomination award by «Slushno» (2022).

Dr Uilleam Blacker is Associate Professor of Ukrainian and East European Culture at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European studies and a translator of Ukrainian literature. He is the author of Memory, the City and the Legacy of World War II in East Central Europe (2019), co-author of Remembering Katyn (2012) and co-editor of Memory and Theory in Eastern Europe (2013). He has written on Ukraine for The Guardian, The Atlantic, Financial Times, Times Literary Supplement and others, and his translations have appeared in The Guardian, The White Review, Words without Borders and others. He is currently writing a book on Ukraine’s rich, multilingual literary landscape in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. www.uilleamblacker.com