Given the changing cognition of borders, spheres and spaces it is becoming more pertinent to investigate interpersonal relationships and the production of intimacy or proximity. The research project „Intimate Texts, Intimate Spaces: Intimacy and Proximity in Russian Culture" at the Slavic Studies Department of the University of Tübingen in Germany (Prof. Schamma Schahadat; Dr. Nadezda Grigor'eva; Sandra Evans, M.A.) is dedicated to investigating the production of intimacy and proximity in literary texts and cultural spaces in Russian culture, e.g. in letters of friendship, in platonic dialogue that was conceptualized in texts and put into action in cultural performances, in literary salons in the early 19th century as well as in communal living spaces ranging from the radical 1860s to the postrevolutionary Avantgarde utopias that culminated in the Soviet communal apartment. Here intimacy is understood to be a discursive phenomenon, something that is produced rhetorically and/or contextually, transcending its usual associations with physical intimacy to include intellectual and emotional intimacy. For more information go to: http://homepages.uni-tuebingen.de/schamma.schahadat/Intimitaetsprojekt/

Within the framework of this research project we would like to initiate an international interdisciplinary network of researchers from Europe, North America and Russia who are working on topics connected in some way with the concept of intimacy and proximity (not limited to Russian philology). The primary goal of this informal network would be to promote the exchange of information across borders and disciplines with individual researchers, projects and intitutions, yet collaborative activities in the future might include conferences, workshops, book publications and other cooperative projects -- we are open to suggestions and ideas. We would like to inaugurate the network with an online publication of selected papers that deal with intimacy and related topics. Papers can be submitted in English, German or Russian in order to make this online publication and the network in general accessible to a greater audience. If you would like to join the network or publish a paper or both, be sure to contact Sandra Evans (sandra.evans@uni-tuebingen.de). Please forward this announcement to others who might be interested in participating. We look forward to hearing from you.