Call for Papers: Contemporary Political Myth and Reality in Eurasia
/The University of Texas at Austin invites submissions for an interdisciplinary conference on Contemporary Political Myth and Reality in Eurasia, taking place February 12-13, 2026, at the University of Texas at Austin. Proposals are due October 15, 2025.
DESCRIPTION
Eurasian states face mounting challenges amid growing polarization, gaps between social needs and political responses, and disinformation blurring myth and reality. Eurasian countries face additional pressures from a legacy of authoritarian rule, active conflict and irredentism, and political mobilization of social divisions across the region. Yet Eurasian countries also have unique strengths in navigating these challenges, with strong national identities, robust civic engagement, bursts of democratic progress, and deep cultural traditions.
This conference explores the complicated social and political realities and myths shaping the contemporary Eurasian region, as they are poised to either discourage democratic progress or inspire civil society to action. Academic disciplines have each made progress in understanding the complex dynamics in their area of social, political, legal, or cultural study, yet these lessons are often stove-piped. Meanwhile, states—and students training to work in those states—must grapple with the intersection of challenges across all of these areas. This conference tackles this by bridging disciplines, bridging academic and policy spheres, and bridging legal and cultural studies to critically examine these pressing issues in Eurasia. Panels will be designed to foster discussion among experts from cultural studies, history, law, linguistics, policymaking, political science, sociology, and other fields.
We welcome proposals on a range of topics related to current political myth and reality in Eurasia, including but not limited to:
Aspirations, Achievements, and Setbacks in State-Building
● Nations in progress: creating, recreating, and revitalizing the nation and mobilizing its citizens
● Imperial legacies and ambitions: rhetoric, political agendas, and nostalgia for past glory
● State positions in the world: self-perception, international perception, and political maneuvering
● Democratic consolidation: constitutional design, rights protection, and the legal reorientation from protecting the state to protecting the people
● Democratic backsliding: election manipulation, executive aggrandizement, and the erosion of rights and institutional checks
● Contested spaces: from Transnistria to Donbas, the Arctic to Abkhazia, and spaces in between
Myth and Reality Experienced by Individuals and Networks
● Minorities in nationalizing states: state orientations toward minority groups, migrant and refugee integration, and competing realities of groups in states undergoing political change
● Majority and minority identities: identity creation and maintenance, social cohesion and polarization, language, education, and citizenship
● Participation and abstention: constituent roles in political movements, the national economy, the military service, religious organizations, and other voluntary and compulsory spaces
● Individual relationships to the community and the state: age, class, education, gender, sexual identities, socio-economic status, and other identity traits
● Invented traditions: state invention and propagation of myths through traditions and rituals
Memory and Identity
● National heroes and national identity: narratives of heroism, sacrifice, power, and political and cultural capital
● Nostalgia and glorification of the past: community preservation of historical memory
● Narratives of belonging, abandonment, and ostracism in the community and the state
● Cultural artifacts and their role in promoting national narratives through food, sports, art, music, religion, and other aspects of society
● Violence, victimhood, crisis, trauma, survival, and perseverance
● Gender and sexuality in politics, society, religion, media, and culture
Misinformation and Disinformation
● Misinformation and disinformation: origins, dissemination, and target audiences
● Conspiracy theories as myth and alternative reality: lived experiences, communities, and actors
● Changing political norms: metapolitical activity by fringe groups
● Contested identities: competing myths, sources of truth, intersectionality, and incongruent narratives around national identities
● Propaganda in peace and war
Making of Myth and Reality in Varied Spaces
● Media roles in the construction and promotion of political myth and reality
● Social media: myth and reality in engagement, conversion, and community-building
● Religion and politics: morality and narratives of truth in mobilization and policymaking
● Youth and politics: movements, recruitment, indoctrination, and political participation
● Science, technology, and mythmaking: scientific progress, depersonalization, exploitation, and environmental impact
PROPOSALS
We invite proposals for fully-formed panels and individual papers on these or similar topics from scholars, policymakers, practitioners, jurists, and others working in varied disciplines and regions of the world. Fully-formed panels must include a panel chair and 3-4 paper presenters; the panel chair may be one of the paper presenters but is not required to be. Individual papers will be organized into thematically similar panels and could potentially be added to fully-formed panels that are not at the maximum participation limit.
To participate, submit your panel proposal or paper proposal by October 15, 2025. Successful applicants will be notified by November 15, 2025, and must confirm their participation by November 30, 2025. Each confirmed participant will receive a hotel room for two nights and up to $500 in other documented travel costs reimbursed after the event. Download the call for proposals pdf here.
The working language of the conference will be English.
ORGANIZERS
University of Texas at Austin organizers include:
Marina Alexandrova, Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies
Eliza Fisher, Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies
Ashley Moran, Center for Law and Democracy; Government Department
Alexandra Sukalo, Clements Center for National Security; Strauss Center for International Security and Law
Co-hosts include the Center for European Studies, the Center for Law and Democracy, the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies, the Clements Center for National Security, the Department of Communication Studies, the Department of Government, the Department of Religious Studies, the Program in Comparative Literature, the Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice, and the Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas at Austin.
For questions or more information, please contact eurasiapolicyforum@gmail.com. We look forward to reading your proposals!