Faculty Teaching Central Asia-Related Courses

Harvard University has several dozen faculty who regularly teach courses related to Central Asian studies.  The following are only those who have taught current or past courses sponsored by the Program on Central Asia and the Caucasus.

Instructors of Current Program Courses

Laura L. Adams Laura Adams is Lecturer in Sociology and Preceptor in the Freshmen Writing Program at Harvard.  Previously, she has been visiting faculty at Princeton and Georgetown universities.  In 2003-04, she taught History and Culture of the Islamic Peoples of the Former Soviet Union, sponsored by the Program on Central Asia and the Caucasus.  Laura Adams is a sociologist researching cultural production, globalization and the politics of culture, especially in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.

John Schoeberlein

John Schoeberlein is Director of the Program on Central Asia and the Caucasus at Harvard University, which he was instrumental in founding in 1993.  He received his Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from Harvard University.  His research focuses on identity, ethnicity, gender, nationality, and community organization among the Islamic peoples of Central Asia and neighboring regions.  He has taught courses in the anthropology, history and politics of the region as Lecturer on Central Asian Studies at Harvard University since 1993.  His current projects include a study of the impact of national state formation in Central Asia on identity, investigation of the community level institutions which effect the potential development of violent inter-communal conflict in the region, and research on means of promoting community-level participation in economic reform.  (For additional information, see: more information).

Thomas Simons

Thomas W. Simons, Jr. is Director of the Program on Eurasia in Transition at Harvard's Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies and Provost's Visiting Professor at Cornell. He was Ambassador to Poland (1990-1993) and Pakistan (1996-1998). He holds a B.A. (magna cum laude) from Yale (1958) and an M.A. and Ph.D. (1959 and 1963) from Harvard, specializing in West and Central European history. His interests include contemporary post-Soviet affairs, modern and contemporary Islam, and South and Southwest Asia.

Instructors of Program-Sponsored Courses in Previous Years

Gulnora Aminova

Gulnora Aminova is an instructor of Uzbek and Tajik. She has been teaching at Harvard since 1995 under the auspices of the Harvard Program on Central Asia and the Caucasus and the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. She received a degree in philology from Samarqand State University in Samarqand, Uzbekistan. In 2000 she received a MA in the REECA program at Harvard, and is currently working toward her PhD in Inner Asian and Altaic Studies.

Edward L. Keenan

Edward Keenan is Professor of History and Director of the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection.  For many years, he was co-chair of the Program on Central Asia and the Caucasus, and in 1996-97, he co-taught Topics in the History of Central Asia: Proseminar.  In addition to his major focus on mediaeval Russia, Professor Keenan has a long history of study and extensive expertise in the cultures of Central Asia, the Caucasus, Iran, etc.

Beatrice F. Manz

Beatrice Forbes Manz is Associate Professor of History at Tufts University and has been Visiting Faculty in the Dept. of History at Harvard University.  Her research has focused on the Timurid Dynasty in Central Asia.  Her major interests lie in the structure of nomad society, nomad-sedentary relations, and the political dynamics of plural society.  In 1995-96, she taught History of Central Asia to the Russian Conquest, sponsored by the Program on Central Asia and the Caucasus.

Firouzeh Mostashari Firouzeh Mostashari was Visiting Assistant Professor during 1998-99, when she taught History and Culture of the Islamic Peoples of the Former Soviet Union, sponsored by the Program on Central Asia and the Caucasus.  She received her Ph.D. in History from Princeton University and her major focus is on Azerbaijan, with research focusing on "On the Frontiers of Empire: Azerbaijan under Russian Imperial Rule, 1828-1917."