The annual REECAS-Northwest conference is the official northwest regional conference of the  Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES). Established in 1994, REECAS Northwest welcomes students, faculty, independent scholars, and language educators from the Pacific Northwest and beyond, with participant and partner universities from across the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia. The interdisciplinary conference is organized by the University of Washington’s Ellison Center for Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies together with the Center for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies, Jackson School of International Studies.

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Call for Proposals | Now Open

 

Fill out form

32nd Annual REECAS Northwest Conference 

April 16-18, 2026

at the University of Washington

Proposal Deadline Extended: January 25th, 2026

REECAS-Northwest, the annual ASEEES northwest regional conference, welcomes faculty, students, independent scholars, and language educators from the United States and abroad. The conference will be hosted by UW-Seattle, 16-18 April 2026.

Proposals on all subjects connected to the European, Russian, and Eurasian regions, from any disciplinary perspective, are welcomed. Proposals are encouraged, but not required to address the conference theme, “Strategy in European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies.” Individual proposal submissions will be grouped into panels by topics.

To submit your proposal, please submit a 250-word abstract and abbreviated C.V. using the form on the REECAS Northwest Conference webpage: Call for Proposals Form: REECAS NW 2026 – Fill out form. Deadline January 25th, 2026. 

Questions? Please email cereas@uw.edu with any questions not answered on the conference webpage.

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Conference Theme: Strategy in European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies

Strategy is essential in times of great changes, to identify long-term goals, anticipate paths and overcome barriers. Strategic planning underlies all disciplines of Area Studies: International relations scholars assess European, Russian, or Central Asian strategies in the war over Ukraine. Historians assess strategies of the past, as they have played out into the present. Instructors assess pedagogical strategies to help students learn and use languages in studying history and politics of countries and peoples.  Literary translators and musicians alike decide whom to interpret and publish for future readers, and why. Professors and students decide why, career-wise, it is useful to gather, as a regional community, at a conference, to meet and hear their peers across disciplinary divides. All of the above are reasons to share your work at the REECAS-NW conference.

Professor Phillips O’Brien is the Chair of Strategic Studies and Head of the School of International Relations at the University of St Andrews. He has published widely on issues of conflict, politics, war and strategy in the 20th and 21st centuries. Amongst his books are: How the War was Won: Air-Sea Power and Allied Victory in World War II (Cambridge University Press, 2015) and The Second Most Powerful Man in the World: The Life of Admiral William D. Leahy, FDR’s Chief of Staff, (Penguin/Random House 2015).

O’Brien has also published multiple articles in major journals including Foreign Affairs,Diplomatic History, the Journal of Strategic Studies, and, Past and Present. In 2024 he published a new multi-archival study of grand-strategy making in World War II with Penguin/Random House, entitled: The Strategists: How Churchill, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini and Roosevelt were Made by and Made War. His latest book, published in autumn of 2025, is War and Power: Who Wins Wars and Why.

Professor O’Brien has been particularly active as an analyst and commentator during this most recent phase of the Russo-Ukraine War. He has been appointed as a Senior Adviser (non-residential) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington DC and has worked with scholars and analysts in Ukraine and much the rest of Europe and across the Atlantic to try and digest some of the lessons of the war. His commentary has been published regularly in The Atlantic, The Times, The Spectator, The Telegraph and other major newspapers and journals, while he has made media appearances for outlets in more than 15 countries, including MSNBC, CNN, NPR, BBC, DW and L’Express.

Nargis Kassenova, Senior Fellow and Director, Program on Central Asia, Davis Center, Harvard University

Justyna Zając, Director, Polish Studies Center; Professor of Practice in European Security Studies, Indiana University

Olena Lennon, Practitioner In Residence, National Security Department/Homeland Security, University of New Haven

Featured Panel, Strategies in Language Pedagogy

Featured Concert: New Directions in European Music

Registration is required for the REECAS Northwest Conference. ALL participants (accepted presenters and audience members) must register using the below online form.

• Faculty/Scholar Presenters: $50
• Student Presenters: $25
• General Public Attendees (non-presenters): $0
• University of Washington Faculty/Students/Staff: $0 
• Keynote Lecture-only Attendees: $0 

Conference Registration

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Conference Program | Coming in 2026

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Graduate Student Essay Prize

REECAS Northwest awards an annual prize for the best graduate student paper presented at the conference and nominates the winner for the ASEEES Beth Holmgren Graduate Student Essay Prize. For consideration, students must present their paper at the REECAS Northwest Conference and submit their paper. Submission link coming 2026. 

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Conference Hotel | Conference Rates

Graduate by Hilton Seattle
4507 Brooklyn Ave NE, Seattle, Washington, 98105
Conference Rate: $189/night (single or double occupancy), April 16-18, 2026
[Link to hotel booking website]

 

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Venue, Campus Maps, Parking, and Transportation | Coming in 2026

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Invitation Letter Request

(February 2026, Accepted proposals only) – If you require a letter of invitation to present at the conference, please complete the below form.

Invitation Letter Form

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Contact Information

If you have questions not answered by this webpage, please contact cereas@uw.edu.