Posts

Speaking at Columbia University, Harriman Institute, Edward Allworth Lecture in Central Asian Studies

Edward Allworth was the first Central Asia scholar I met, when I was considering becoming an academic studying this region.  He was one of the few American specialists of Central Asia during the Cold War, remembered here by journalist Bruce Panier.  It’s a bit like returning a favor for me to now give a lecture in his honor.

Speaking at Princeton with my work in progress

I’ll be speaking at the Department of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University, 31 October 2022, about my developing project on  Eurasian elites.  See their announcement.

Next week at the Central Eurasian Studies Society (CESS) annual meeting at Indiana University in Bloomington, I lead a Network Event on the theme, “Is ‘Corruption’ a Useful Category for the Study of Eurasian Governance and Society?”

Fulbright-Hays Promotional Video

The Fulbright-Hays program for Faculty research is being reinstated by the U.S. Congress, after a many-year hiatus.  They asked me to make this short promotional video of my experience in 2008 in Jalal-Abad, Kyrgyzstan through Fulbright-Hays.  For Ohio State faculty, inquire and apply here; for OSU students, you can navigate to the appropriate student fellowship; Joanna Kukielka-Blaser is OSU’s Fulbright-Hays Project Director, and is super-helpful.   For others, general info on Fulbright-Hays is here, but you have to go through your campus Fulbright Program Director if you have one.

Elected to be President of the Central Eurasian Studies Society

CESS, the Central Eurasian Studies Society, just elected me as its new President.  It is a three-year term as one of its executives:  I start in October as its President-Elect, become its President in October 2020 (when Ohio State University hosts the CESS annual conference), and its Past President in October 2021. I have seen CESS as a crucial institution in promoting a broad vision of Central Eurasian studies, where different disciplinary perspectives substantively engage each other to make fuller sense of the region’s issues, and where knowledge of this region also speaks to problems beyond it.  I would like to further these goals by serving as its President.

Global Centre for Pluralism projects in Kyrgyzstan

I was involved with Kyrgyz, Canadian, Dutch, and U.S. colleagues in two projects in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan (December 2016) by the Global Centre for Pluralism (Ottawa, Canada):

  1. Workshop with the History Commission of the President of the Kyrgyz Republic, 13 December 2016, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan
  2. “Forum on History and Memory: Toward an Inclusive Society”, 12 December 2016, American University of Central Asia, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.