Narva College of Tartu University (Estonia) announces the third international scientific conference on political and cultural relations between Russia and the states of the Baltic region

ETHNIC IMAGES AND STEREOTYPES — WHERE IS THE BORDER LINE?
(Russian-Baltic Cross-Cultural Relations)
October 20–22 nd, 2006

The first two conferences took place in Samara (2001) and Narva (2003). The conference in 2006 will focus on cultural contacts. We intend to pay attention to the problems and interactions of border cultures, and to study how the image of another nation and its culture are formed on historical, literary, folklore materials and other sources. The image of a foreign culture and its people largely determines the cultural strategic behavior chosen by an individual when dealing with a particular ethnicity. Reconstructing the keystones of these images and understanding the causes that govern certain elements of these images will help to understand many peculiarities of the Russian-Baltic cross cultural relations.

Below you find a list of some issues that are of greatest interest to us:
- Understanding of Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians in Russian culture
- The image of Russia and Russians in the national cultures of the people of the Baltic States
- Understanding of German traditions of describing the Baltics and their impact on Russian images
- Official and unofficial view of Baltic culture in Russian culture
- Influences of genre on ways to describe another culture
- Formation of Russian ethnic and cultural identity in the Baltics.

At the same time we admit that the number of topics and issues to discuss during the conference is not limited by the above list.
If you intend to participate in the conference, please send the completed application form and an abstract of your presentation for the preliminary publication (not more than 350 words) by the 1st of April, 2006 via e-mail: jelena.nomm@ut.ee (as an .rtf attachment) or via regular post: Jelena Nõmm, Kerese 14, Narva 20304, Estonia.

We would especially like to encourage post-graduate students to send us their abstracts. The working languages of the conference will be Russian and English. We plan to publish a collection of articles based on the materials of the conference.

Sincerely,

Jelena Nõmm, Ph.D.
Conference organizer,
Lecturer of Narva College of Tartu University

Application form
(Narva, 20–22 of October 2006)

1. First name / Surname
2. Scientific (academic) degree
3. Place of work (Address), position
4. Theme of paper
5. Home address, phone.
6. E-mail address