The editorial board of the journal "New Literary Observer"
and the European University at St. Petersburg
announce a call for applications for the VI Annual Conference within the framework of their joint project "Anthropologization of Humanities and Social Sciences"
The Theme of the Sixth Conference:
The Anthropology of Uncertainty: Living in Pivotal Times
October 24 – 25, 2024, Yerevan
Conference working languages: Russian, English

The use of the category of uncertainty, as well as reflection on the nature and consequences of uncertainty, has long remained the prerogative of natural sciences and mathematics. However, since the middle of the 20th century, it has been increasingly used in the social sciences and humanities, often in association with the category of risk. Initially, in studies concerning the spirit and humanity, both categories were applied by analogy with the sciences of nature: they were considered to be objectively existing phenomena. Then the anthropologist Mary Douglas and the political scientist Aaron Wildavsky formulated an approach in which assessments of risk and uncertainty depend on cultural and social factors (Douglas and Wildavsky, 1983). The English sociologist Anthony Giddens defined a risk society as "a society increasingly preoccupied with the future (and also with safety), which generates the notion of risk" (Giddens and Pierson, 1998), while the German sociologist Ulrich Beck defines it as "a systematic way of dealing with hazards and insecurities induced and introduced by modernization itself" (Beck, 1992). The evolution in the understanding of uncertainty has also affected the natural sciences. For instance, if in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries the risks associated with climate change were perceived as objective, today the assessment of the risk of global warming includes attention to the perception of this risk in society (Douglas et al, 2003; Crate, 2008;; Crona et al, 2013; Anisimov and Orttung, 2019).

When using the concept of uncertainty in the social sciences and humanities, one should not forget about the possible inconsistency between the views from inside and outside the community. Historians apply the category of uncertainty to periods of abrupt changes in the social order, changes which deprive people of their usual patterns of behavior and modes of existence. However, such changes can cause opposing reactions: on the one hand a strengthening of conservative tendencies in an attempt to regain familiar ground underfoot and on the other an explosion of social design (and projection) aimed at creating new forms of social interaction, institutions, and practices. One part of society may perceive uncertainty as the loss of firm moral guidelines and the erosion of ethical and aesthetic values, while another part may perceive it as a "time of opportunity”. The assessment of the consequences of uncertainty for society and the individual can also be radically different: for some it is a fall, a crisis, or trauma, while for others it is a necessary stage in the change of social and cultural paradigms and, consequently, in the evolution of reflective society and the individual. The chronological framework of the period of uncertainty in different areas of social and cultural life may not coincide: historians of technology will insist that an equally strong sense of uncertainty can be associated with sudden leaps in technological development, while cultural historians will note that the fashion for the aesthetics of uncertainty and the interest in "mixed feelings" often preceded or lagged behind sudden social changes.
The aim of our conference is to discuss the specifics of the perception of uncertainty in different social groups and the peculiarities in the use of this category by representatives of different academic, scholarly and scientific areas.
Historians, sociologists, political scientists, cultural anthropologists and cultural historians, as well as representatives of other academic fields interested in the topic of uncertainty are invited to participate in the conference.

Questions for reflection:
- How do attitudes to uncertainty differ and evolve across disciplines, cultures, and social groups?
- How does the category of uncertainty manifest itself in the worldview of any given epoch (in ideas about temporality, the structure of the universe, regularity and randomness, fate and providence, etc.)?
- What typical feelings and emotions are associated with the feeling of uncertainty in different cultures and in different epochs?
- Can periods of uncertainty be linked to the process of gradual secularization and autonomization of society?
- How do attitudes to uncertainty and risk correlate with different social strategies and how are they reflected in social and cultural practices?
- How can the feeling of uncertainty be reflected in the forms of everyday life, in the organization of living space and habitat?
- How do these transformations correlate with changes in the structure of society?
- What new challenges and uncertainties are brought by modern technologies (artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, geoengineering, improved climate modeling techniques, etc.)?
- How does the category of uncertainty work in the field of ethics and aesthetics, and how does its use change during periods of social transformation?

Applications for participation, containing the title, an abstract of the report (no more than five hundred words) and a short CV of the author(s) should be sent to
anthropology.NLO.EU.2024@eu.spb.ru
no later than March 15, 2024.

The Organizing Committee reserves the right to select the applications received. The results of the competition will be announced by June 15, 2024.
A limited number of grants will be available for conference participants to cover travel and accommodation in Yerevan

ABOUT THE PROJECT
The editorial board of the New Literary Observer journal and the European University at St. Petersburg have agreed to establish a long-term project organizing a series of annual international conferences under the common title of "Words and Things: the Anthropological Turn in the Humanities and Social Sciences". The project is based on their common interest in the promotion of new knowledge in the humanities and aims to support and develop international academic connections.
The conferences are conceived as a platform for the promotion in the international academic community of Russian thought in the humanities in a broad sense. They are seen as an instrument to help foster a new generation of scholars in the humanities in Russia, and thereby create conditions for the emergence of new humanities centers throughout Russia and mitigate isolationist tendencies in academia and the public sphere.

The term "anthropological turn" is applied here to refer to the powerful intellectual trend that gained momentum throughout the 20th century. The "anthropologization" of the humanities and social sciences today is seen in the emergence of new disciplines such as historical, philosophical, cultural, sociological, economic, and medical anthropologies, among others. Most of the "disciplinary vogues" of the past three decades – such as oral history, gender studies, urban studies, history of emotions, memory, trauma, history of everyday life, corporeal theory, etc. – have somehow fit into this larger anthropological trend.

The works of academics of different ages and with varying research methods demonstrate a similar vector of motion within Russian thought in the humanities. In an extremely schematic fashion, it may be presented as a transition from rigid and generalized total constructions to a more flexible, detailed, and individualized study of humans and culture; a shift from being centered around the text to visuality and corporality, from binary oppositions and intertextuality to cultural and philosophical anthropology.

The "anthropological turn" is partly associated with the collapse of the Soviet era and its entire system of sociocultural mythologems. For Russian scholars in the humanities (and Russian academic research and scholarship in general) the collapse of the Soviet era engendered a critical re-thinking of perspectives and the tools of their own profession. It brought about the development of new conceptual categories and aesthetic landmarks and led to important reforms in the cultural field and its institutions.

The broad framework of the "anthropological turn" is intended not to limit the topics of intellectual dialogue but to contribute to the expansion of that dialogue and to development in the direction of new methodological approaches, relevant to the intellectual challenges of the coming era.

We hope that this new project will attract colleagues from related fields and will facilitate the integration of Russian researchers from the "Slavistics ghetto" into the international intellectual space.