Forwarding FYI.

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From: H-Net Discussion List on Folklore and Ethnology [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ergo-Hart Västrik
Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2010 12:02 PM
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Subject: [H-FOLK] CFP: Oral Charms in Structural and Comparative Light, Moscow, October 27-29, 2011

From: "Jonathan Roper" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: October 19, 2010 2:51:41 PM GMT+03:00

CALL FOR PAPERS

Oral Charms in Structural and Comparative Light

An International conference at the Russian State University for  
Humanities, Moscow October 27th-29th, 2011

You are kindly invited to submit your proposals in the field of charm  
studies to the Moscow conference on 'Oral Charms in Structural and  
Comparative Light'. This conference aims to be as broad as possible in  
terms of geographic spread of charms discussed, and the same time  
strict in its major themes: the questions of systematization of  
charms, their typological and structural analysis and the comparative  
studies of charms various national and linguistic traditions.

The conference will focus on following topics:

·      the comparative study of different national charm traditions,  
the history of charms in Europe; the spread of specific charm  
formulas; fever charms in time and space;

·      charm indexes and their systematization;

·      charms and incantations as texts; charms and witchcraft; charms  
and related traditions (church prayers, pagan incantations, apocrypha,  
curses, benedictions etc);

·      oral and written charms; charms books; magic inscriptions;  
ancient and medieval amulets, curse tablets in archaeology;

·      the social background of charm tradition; charms and their  
transmission in folk Christianity; differences between Catholic,  
Protestant and Orthodox traditions; the functions of the priest in  
Christian and non-Christian societies; love and social charms;

·      psychological and social sources of charm suggestion; the  
'work' of charms, the actuality of charm tradition in modern urban  
societies;

·      ethnographic films on charms and their importance for the study  
of the traditions of words of power.

The conference language will be English.

This Conference is organized by the Committee on Charms, Charmers and  
Charming of the International Society for Folk Narrative Research  
(ISFNR), the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy, the  
Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy and the Russian  
State University for Humanities (RGGU - RSUH)

The ISFNR's Committee on Charms, Charmers and Charming aims to the  
facilitate charms studies in various countries by a wide variety of  
means, including, but not limited to, the elaboration of common  
methodology for the structural and typological description of charms,  
and the editing of international and local charms-indexes. The 2011  
conference follows on from a series of conferences organized by the  
Committee in London (2003, 2005), Pecs (2007), Tartu (2008), Athens  
(2009) and Bucharest (2010) in which scholars from various countries  
exchanged ideas from interdisciplinary perspectives (see the ISFNR  
site for further information: http://www.isfnr.org/ ).

The deadline for proposals is the 15th of January 2011. Please send  
the title of your paper and an abstract (of not more than 100 words) to:

roper <at> ut.ee, with copies to: tamih.msu <at> mail.ru; atoporkov  
<at> mail.ru

Please also send the following information: your first and last names,  
academic affiliation, work address, home address, e-mail, contact  
telephone and fax numbers.

The early submission of paper proposals is strongly recommended, as  
there will be (at maximum) twenty-six presentations. The Organizing  
Committee will select proposals on the basis of their fit with the  
main themes of the Conference. The proposals will be considered as  
they come in and every effort will be made to give a definite response  
as soon as possible. There is however no limit on the number of people  
who wish to attend the conference. The length of each paper with  
discussion must not exceed 30 minutes.

We intend to publish texts of papers before the conference and we ask  
all the chosen participants to send us papers of three to five pages  
(including references, 8 000 - 15 000 characters, or 1500 - 3000  
words) in .doc or .rtf format, Times New Roman, by the 15th of March  
2011.

All costs (travel, accommodation, food, health insurance) are to be  
paid by the participants themselves. Details of the precise costs of  
accommodation (generally 60-80 Euros a night for a single room), meals  
and the conference trip will be included in our Second Circular.

The Russian Academy has exchange programs with academies and  
institutions from numerous countries, so the participants are highly  
recommended to apply to come to Moscow within the exchange program.

We kindly ask you to note that we have moved the previous date of the  
conference forward by one week (7 days).

The Organizing Committee