[OPE] FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE "HIERARCHY AND POWER IN THE HISTORY OF CIVILIZATIONS"

FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE "HIERARCHY AND POWER IN THE HISTORY OF CIVILIZATIONS"
June 23-26 2009, Moscow, Russia E-mail: conf2009@conf2009.ru

The aim of the Conference, like that of the four previous ones, is to bring together the researchers doing the respective problematics in the whole variety of its contexts, within the framework of different academic schools and traditions from the positions of a wide range of disciplines: social anthropology, archaeology, history, political science, sociology, philosophy, psychology, etc.

The objective of the Conference is to discuss the following issues:

- hierarchical and net structures in the history of cultures and civilizations;
- civilizational and evolutionary models of socio-political development;
- historical and ethno-cultural variability of the forms of socio-political organization;
- from simple societies to the world-system: pathways and forms of political integration;
- socio-political and cultural-mental factors of social transformations;
- cultural and socio-biological foundations of dominance in human societies;
- ideology and legitimation of power in different civilizational contexts;
- cultural models of power's perception in different civilizations;
- violence and non-violence in the history of political institutions;
- access to information as a means of political manipulation and mobilization;
- power, society, and culture in the era of globalization;
- the study of “hierarchy and power”: schools, trends, and methods.

CALL for papers
Panel title. Macroevolution: Hierarchy, Structure, Laws, and Self-Organization.
Panel organizers:
(1) Leonid E. Grinin, PhD, the Volgograd Center for Social Studies, a senior research fellow; E-mail address: lgrinin@mail.ru
(2) Alexander V. Markov, PhD, Paleontological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences. Position: senior research fellow. E-mail address: markov_a@inbox.ru.
(3) Akop P. Nazaretyan, PhD (psychology, philosophy); Institute of Oriental
Studies, senior researcher. E-mail: anazaret@yandex.ru tel.
(4) Fred Spier, Dr., Senior Lecturer in Big History
Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies University of Amsterdam. E-mail address: f.spier@uva.nl

ANNOTATION: It is increasingly realized today that interdisciplinary research has a great potential. The study of evolution very much belongs to this type of research. The proposed panel is aimed at bringing together major scholars investigating different type of evolution in order to exchange the results and unify the efforts. The panel is supposed to consider cosmological, chemical, biological and socio-cultural macroevolution as both consecutive and co-existing types of macroevolution. We believe that this is a very important form of interdisciplinary cooperation, which may well help to achieve a better understanding of the trends, patterns, mechanisms, and peculiarities exhibited by all these different types of evolution. The experience gained with using ideas originating within one particular type of macroevolution (e.g., biological evolution) for the study of another type of macroevolution (e.g. social macroevolution) indicates that such an approach can be very fruitful. In fact, in certain respects it appears possible to consider macroevolution as one single process. In this case it is especially important to understand the underlying regularities and laws, although some of these regularities and laws can be rather different, depending on the concrete entity evolving (cosmic, biological, or social).
We suggest the following range of topics for discussion:
1) comparisons between cosmic, chemical, biological, and social evolution;
2) General issues within Big History / Universal History;
3) The “evolution of evolution” (the evolution of evolutionary theories);
4) Particular types of macroevolution, or macroevolution “at the border between two domains” (e.g. with respect to ethology or biochemistry);
5) Other topics, such as linguistic, cultural, epistemological, or psychological macroevolution.
A main focus for the panel will be to look for those regularities and rules that are common for different types of macroevolution, as well as the analysis of the applicability of concrete rules to particular types of macroevolution.
Our main starting points are the following. Firstly, evolutionary rules should not be regarded as rigid functional relationships that are necessarily found in all evolutionary phenomena of a particular class, but rather as certain principles that tend to be supported by empirical data and that can therefore help us to provide a more adequate explanation of the studied complex processes.
Secondly, there are important grounds for seeking to determine similarities between different types of macroevolution:
а) In most cases we are dealing with very complex non-equilibrium yet relatively stable systems. The general principles of the functioning and evolution of such systems are described by general systems and complexity (non-linear dynamics) theories;
b) We observe a complex interaction between systems and their environments that can be described by a few general principles (although they emerge in somewhat different ways in different types of evolution);
c) It is important to become aware of certain “genetic” links between different types of evolution.

One further important task of the panel will consist of the analysis of evolution of various types of hierarchically and heterarchically ordered structures within different types of macroevolution.
http://www.uchitel-izd.ru/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=139&Itemid=51

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Received on Wed Mar 25 15:24:25 2009