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Call for PapersBorder CodeConference dates: November 6–8, 2013.Location: University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu*Verbal and visual representations of borders are surprisingly similar around the world. The rese­arch project Writing Cultures and Traditions at Borders (WCTB) has been studying historically, cul­turally, and politically layered characteristics and meanings of borders in amateur and professio­nal writing practices and texts in the national Finland–Russia and Estonia–Russia borderlands.Political, cultural, and individual interests are always present when talking about borders. These interests influence how the borders are seen and what kinds of meanings are given to them. Rep­resentations of borders are fairly durable and standardized in certain political eras and situations. The WCTB-project concluding seminar theme centers on whether there even exists a so-called ‘border code’ that directs the research on borders.WCTB welcomes papers that investigate any aspects of conceptualization and representation of borders and borderlands. Possible themes could include, but are not limited to:•What kinds of durable and standardized concepts direct each discipline?•What factors, such as scholarly traditions, culture, politics, and ideology, influence border research?•Could the ‘border concept’ be deconstructed from the viewpoints of different disciplines or is it fossilized?Please send the proposals (max 200 words) to Tuulikki Kurki ( tuulikki.kurki@uef.fi ) by 6 May, 2013. A biographical statement of no more than 250 words should be included (additional to the abstract word count). Those who submit a proposal will be advised by 31 May, 2013.Further information available from the organizing committee: Saija Kaskinen, Tuulikki Kurki, Kirsi Laurén, Mari Ristolainen and Tuija Saarinen (firstname.lastname@uef.fi).We are looking forward to your proposals.Invited keynote speakers of the conference are :Professor Sarah Green and Professor David Newman.Sarah Green is Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Helsinki. She has focused her research on issues relating to border dynamics and to questions of space, place and location more widely since the early 1990s. She is the Chair of EastBordNet, a 27-country re­search network studying border regions across the eastern peripheries of Europe. She has pub­lished widely on borders issues, with the most recent book, Borderwork (2013).David Newman is Dean of the faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, and professor of political geo­graphy in the Department of Politics and Government atBenGurionUniversity inIsrael. Since 1999, he has been the chief editor of the international journal, Geopolitics. He has published widely on the role and significance of borders in the contemporary era.