Snapshots from Openspace.ru's multimedia "new year's presents"Little time, but lots of blogworthy info... Some staccato-style announcements:

    Pamiatnik klaviature; fragment of a comic strip after a BOR quotation (both from FoR site).

If you've always wanted to visit Salzburg and would enjoy a little professional networking while you're at it, the recurring global conference on Cybercultures has issued its call for papers. 5th Global ConferenceCybercultures - Exploring Critical IssuesFriday 12th March - Sunday 14th March 2010Salzburg, AustriaThis inter- and multi-disciplinary conference aimsto examine, explore and critically engage with theissues and implications created by thegrowing adoption of information technologies for

With the Russian authorities about to launch an official Law Enforcement Site, and Chinese blogs being closed for their damaging political content, it is the perfect moment to visit a symposium on 'War, Conflict, and Reconciliation on the Internet'. Well, the John Moores University at Liverpool has organized one. This Wednesday, January 21, three speakers from different British universities will consider how issues of cultural memory, peacemaking, and xenophobia - among other topics - take shape in digital spheres.If the mini-symposium - which lasts a mere two hours - doesn't tackle Russian developments in particular, the last speaker does zoom in on the Russian-speaking Internet. Adi Kuntsman, co-organizer of the Internet Studies Festival later this year, will present a talk labeled 'Cyberwars and Cyberhate', about 'Islamophobia, Anti-Semitism and Homophobia on the Russian-Language Internet'. For where-when-what information, surf to this website: http://www.ljmu.ac.uk/MCA/91705.htm. If the Internet Studies Festival sounds more like your thing, here is the festival link: http://www.ljmu.ac.uk/MCA/91522.htm. The festival theme sounds inviting enough: the participants will ponder 'Internet on the Move: Mobility, Technology and Everyday Life'.ER  

 ...and it has beaches, too Did you buy your agenda for next year already? In September 2010, the University of St Andrews will host a conference on 21st-Century European Literature. 'Mapping New Trends' - that is what the organizers hope to do, together with speakers specializing in any contemporary European literature, including Russian.I won't repeat the entire call for papers: you can easily find that elsewhere. Here it suffices to know that papers about 'Blosphere Narratives (Between Essay and Fiction)' are warmly welcomed. Now it may be my increasingly WWW-oriented mind, but it surprises me that an academic gathering on new literary trends only devotes one out of 26 possible topics to a digital development. Or have digital practices become so intrinsically embedded in contemporary culture that there is no need to point them out separately? Surely the web is bound to pop up in sessions devoted to, say, 'Diasporic identities,' 'New takes on old genres,' or 'Archiving and memorialising the past'?Digital or not, the conference is collecting proposals for individual papers or panels between now and September 1. Anyone longing to share thoughts on 'what is new, right now, in the national literature you research; what patterns are already discernable, what clusters of texts exploring common themes, ethical or aesthetic imperatives, theoretical or generic preoccupations, can be identified in the new millenium' - write the Russian-literature convenor and prepare yourself for Scottish autumn days.ER