The Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies (CREES) at the University of Michigan is pleased to host the 20th Annual Symposium of SOYUZ: The Research Network for Postsocialist Cultural Studies on March 23-24 in the Kuenzel Room of the Michigan Union. The theme of this year’s symposium is “Affections/Afflictions/Afterlives.” Participants will ponder the sentiments, the failures, and the successes around making do with those ongoing, productive connections that are afforded by infrastructures and procedures conceived during (or in response to) socialism in various parts of the world including Europe, Asia, and South America.

Judith Farquhar, Max Palevsky Professor of Anthropology and of Social Sciences at the University of Chicago, will give the keynote lecture on Friday afternoon. The title of her talk is, “Afterlives of the Field Survey: Several Modern Moments in Chinese State Knowledge Production.”

The 2012 conference organizing committee includes University of Michigan anthropologists working across regions where socialism has figured in important ways: Kelly Askew (Tanzania), Anya Bernstein (Buryatia), Krisztina Fehervary (Hungary), Alaina Lemon (Russia, Romani diaspora), Erik Meuggler (China), and Damani Partridge (Germany).

For more information including the schedule of events, click here or visit www.ii.umich.edu/crees and follow the link for “SOYUZ Conference Information.”