Central Asia and Caucasus Working Group:
“Society, Politics and Culture of Central Asia and the Caucasus”

(See also the Central Asia and Caucasus Seminar series for more events sponsored by the Program)

Past Working Group Meetings

Listed in reverse-chronological order: 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000)

2008

• Dec. 9, Film Showing: Short Documentaries from the Soviet Era -
• Nov. 18, Eitan Plasse, “Interpreting Signs on the Silk Road: Xinjiang Ethnic Minorities' Perceptions of Post-Soviet Central Asia”
• Nov. 3, Victoria Clement, “Education and Language Policy in Turkmenistan”
• Oct. 21, Gulnora Aminova, Ph.D. candidate in NELC, “The Tale of a  Stone Doll: The 'Sleeping Prince' Motif Revisited in the Islamic Context of Female Power and Authority”
• Oct. 14, Frederick Sjoberg, “Explaining Electoral Competitiveness in Kyrgyzstan: Moving Beyond 
  the 'Clan' Hypothesis”
• Oct. 7, Kyle Marquardt, “Political Framing of Language and Language Policy in Post-Soviet 
  Azerbaijan”
• Sept. 23, Elmira Kochumkulova, “As/Ash: Kazakh and Kyrgyz Memorial Feasts”
• May 6, Natalya Kadatskaya, “The Identity of Germans as a Factor of Migration between Kazakhstan and Germany”
• Apr. 29, Asel Murzakulova, “Ideological Debate or Debate about Ideology in Post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan”
• Apr. 22, Noah Tucker, “Wives Submit to your Husbands? Religious Nationalism and Movements for Re-Traditionalization of Women's Roles from Texas to Tashkent”
• Apr. 15, Film Presentation: “Crying Sun,” Introduced and Followed by a Discussion Led by Eliza Musaeva
• Apr. 8, Jane Buchanan, “Central Asia's Migrant Workers: Exported and Exposed”
• Apr. 1, Maya Peterson, “Becoming European: Exploring and Exhibiting Central Asia in the Russian Empire, 1840s-1870s”
• Mar. 18, Mettursun Beydulla, “Economic, Political and Social Change in Deryabuyi, East Turkistan”
• Mar. 11, Martin Andrew, “Six Years On Xinjiang, Energy Security and the Transformation of the PLA”
• Feb. 26, Laura Adams, “Can We Apply Postcolonial Theory to Central Asia?”
• Feb. 19, Kyle Marquardt, “Natural Resources, Authoritarianism and Predatory Governance in Central Asia”
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2007

• Dec. 11, Gulnora Aminova, “Agha-yi Buzurg: Between Mythic Birth and Concealed Identity”
• Nov. 20, Alecia Jioeva, “Fifteen Quintessences of the Osseteness”
• Nov. 13, Anara Aldasheva, “Transformation of Kyrgyz Ethnic Identity in the Process of Labor Migration,” and Gulnara Sulaimanova, “'Kyrgyz' and 'Kirgiz': Emerging Identity Concepts in Post-Independence Kyrgyzstan”
• Nov. 6, Ben Loring, “Decolonization and the Land Reform of 1920-2 in Kyrgyzstan”
• Oct. 16, Eduard ten Houten, “The Many Careers of Khozh-Akhmed Noukhaev (Moscow Mafia to Leader in Chechnya)”
• Oct. 9, Noah Tucker, “Akrom Yo'ldashev, the Myth of Akromiya, and Islam Karimov's 'War on Terror'”
• May 16, Laura Adams, “The Politics of History and Collective Memory in Tashkent” (See Summary)
• May 8, Venerahan Torobekova, “Tribalism in Kyrgyzstan: A Case Study” (See Summary)
• May 1, Darya Lobina, “Correlation of cognitive and emotional components in ethnic identity” (See Summary)
• April 24, Nozima Kamalova, “War against Terrorism versus Human Rights: A Case Study of Uzbekistan” (See Summary)
• April 3, John Schoeberlein, “Interpreting Islam and Politics in Post-Soviet Central Asia” (See Summary)
• March 20, Catherine Drew, “The Foreign Policy of Small States: Kyrgyzstan's Foreign Policy under President Bakiyev” (See Summary)
• March 13, Noah Tucker, “Into Russian Turkistan 1872-1917: English Travel Literature and the Creation of the Russian Orient” (See Summary)
• March 6, Emil Souleimanov, “Political Implications of the (Non)recognition of Armenian Genocide” (See Summary
• Feb. 13, Eren Tasar, “Muslim Life in Central Asia, 1943-1985” (See Summary)
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2006

• Dec. 5, Sonia Chinn, “Discourse on Veiling in Contemporary Central Asian Society: Symbols of Oppression and Religious Extremism?” (See Summary)
• Nov. 28, Emil Souleimanov, “From 'Normalisation' to Chechenisation': Exploring the Roots of the Contemporary Inter-Chechen Violence” (See Summary)
• Nov. 21, Jim Critchlow, “Democratization in Uzbekistan: Factors which Could Enable an Upturn” (See Summary)
• Nov. 7, Benjamin Loring, “Sedentarization in Kyrgyzstan, 1921-41” (See Summary)
• Oct. 31, Bulat Rakhimzyanov, “The Kasim Khanate and the Kasim Tatars: One Aspect of Creating a Multinational State in Russia” (See Summary
• Oct. 17, Scott Radnitz, “Elite Networks and the 'Tulip Revolution'” (See Summary)
• Sept. 26, Noor O'Neill, “NGOs in Kyrgyzstan: Civics Education and Change” (See Summary)
• May 2, Morgan Liu, “Capturing Central Asian Complexity”
• Apr. 25, Mukaram Toktogulova, “Visions of Syncretism: The Contestation of 'Pure' Islam and Kyrgyz Folk Beliefs,” and Aida Alymbaeva, “Marrying into a Modern Kyrgyz Kin Group: Women's Changing Roles”
• Apr. 18, Dildora Abidjanova, “Central Asian Historiography: Tendencies and Perspectives”
• Apr. 11, David Montgomery, “A Phenomenological Analysis of Religion: The Habitat of Kyrgyz and Uzbek Cosmological Understanding”
• Apr. 4, Elena Campbell, “The Autocracy and the Muslim Clergy in the Russian Empire (1850s-1917)”
• Mar. 21, Susan Sypko, “Return? Homeland? Diaspora?: Interacting Identity, Political and Economic Factors and the Rootedness of Kazakh 'Diasporas'”
• Feb. 28, Niccolò Pianciola, “Decolonization in Semirech'e, 1920-22”
• Feb. 14, Sonia Chinn, “Sözanas, Ikats, and Rugs: The Construction of Gender Roles in Post-Soviet Uzbekistan via Production of Traditional Crafts”
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2005

• Dec. 13, Susan Sypko, “Muslim and Kazakh Identity in Kazakhstan”
• Dec. 6, Vera Exnerova, “Mosques, Mullahs and Transmission of Religious Knowledge in Soviet Uzbekistan (Ferghana Valley, 1950s-1980s)”
• Nov. 22, Gulnora Aminova, “Mythmaking in Women's Religious-Mystical Practice”
• Nov. 15, David Brophy, “The Origins of National Consciousness among the Uyghurs of Xinjiang”
• Oct. 25, Tsypylma Darieva, “The National Ideal and New Migrants: Encounters in Kazakhstan”
• Oct. 11, Eren Tasar, “Shrine Pilgrimage in Recent Muslim Life and History”
• May 3, Gulmira Karabalaeva, “Islam and Islamic Education in Kyrgyzstan,” and Ravshanbek Akimbai, “Interactions between Islam and Local Traditions and Popular Customs in Kyrgyzstan”
• Apr. 19, Islam in Xinjiang (See Special Guest Speaker
• Apr. 5, Eren Tasar, “The State's Conceptualization of Islam in Soviet Central Asia, 1954-64”
• Mar. 22, Susan Sypko, “Nursultan Nazarbaev's Identity Discourse and the 'Kazakhification' of Kazakhstan”
• Mar. 8, Farhod Inogambaev, “Uzbeks and Other Central Asians in the United Arab Emirates”
• Feb. 22, Erdin Beshimov, “Regime Change in Post-Soviet Georgia and Its Prospects in Kyrgyzstan”
• Feb. 8, David Brophy, “Uyghur Identity in the Soviet Union, 1917-1930”
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2004

• Dec. 7, Erdin Beshimov, “Central Asia on the Market of Morality: Reassessing Soviet Legacies and Their Influence on the 'Moral Chaos' in the Post-Soviet Period”
• Nov. 30, Benjamin Loring, “State-building in Central Asia: The Kyrgyz Experience”
• Nov. 16, Brian Williams, “Grafting Jihad to the Chechen Insurgency: Reassessing the 'Al Qaeda Link' to Chechen Terrorists”
• Nov. 2, Mukaram Toktogulova, “Islamic Revival in Kyrgyzstan”
• Oct. 26, Aida Alymbaeva, “Problems of Ethnic Identity in Kyrgyzstan: The Case of the Bishkek Neighborhood of Kelechek”
• Oct. 19, Farhod Inogambaev, “Authoritarianism, Clans and Power Brokers in Uzbekistan”
• Mar. 4, Mike Reynolds, “An Historical Perspective on Islam and Conflict in the North Caucasus”
• Feb. 26, Morgan Liu, “A Central Asian Khan for a Post-Cold War World”
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2003

• Dec. 16, Hisao Komatsu, “The Ferghana Project: Central Asian Area Studies with GIS”
• Dec. 2, Catherine Osgood, Documentary Film: “Victims of the Russo-Chechen Conflict”
• Nov. 18, Asbed Kotchikian, “Making Sense of the Current Crises in Georgia”
• Oct. 28, Luise Druke, “Developing National Refugee Regimes in Post-Communist Countries in Transition”
• May 6, Haila Hamad, “Political Islam in Uzbekistan”
• Apr. 29, Yasha Haddaji, “Potential Side Effects of the War in Iraq on Oil and Gas Investments in Central Asia”
• Apr. 15, Azim Malikov, “Some Observations on the Ethnic History of the Uzbeks of Samarkand Province of Uzbekistan (19-20th Centuries)”
• Mar. 18, Doug Blum, “Globalization, National Identity, and Agency: Constructing Youth Culture in the Transcaspian Region”
• Feb. 25, Mythologies of Fratricide: Civil War, Collective Memory, and Nation-Building in Tajikistan”
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2002

• Dec. 3, Vahe Boyajian, “Foreign Elements among the Baluchi Tribes”
• Nov. 19, Morgan Liu, “An Islamic Postsocialism: Political Imagination in a Central Asian City”
• Nov. 5, Naz Modirzadeh, “Reforming the Legal System in Post-War Afghanistan”
• Oct. 22, Chris Kaplonski, “Democracy Comes to Mongolia”
• Oct. 8, Asbed Kotchikian, “Where Worlds Collide: The Geopolitics of the Caucasus in a New World Order”
• April 10, Kai Wegerich, “Natural Drought or Human Made Water Scarcity in Uzbekistan?”
• Mar. 20, Raisa Varenik, “Coverage of Inter-Ethnic Relations by the Kazakhstani Press”
• Mar. 13, Gulnara Abikeyeva, “Central Asian Cinematography as an Indicator of Social and Political Vectors of Development”
• Feb. 20, Discussion led by Laada Bilaniuk: “Language, Identity and Politics”
• Feb. 6, Michael Hall, “Mythologies of Fratricide: Civil War, Collective Memory, and Nation-Building in Tajikistan”
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2001

• Dec. 12, Abdusabur Abdusamadov, “Conflict Issues in Transitional Tajikistan”
• Nov. 28, Kelly McMann, “The Civic Realm in Kyrgyzstan: The Defining Influence of Soviet Economic Legacies”
• Nov. 14, Discussion: “Current Research Conditions in Central Asia”
• Oct. 31, Haila Al-Mekaimi, “Jihad, Holy War or Peaceful Co-existence?
• Oct. 14, Miriam Lanskoy, “Chechnya 1996-1999: Why Did the Khasavyurt Peace Fail?”
• Sept. 19, Discussion: “Implications of Possible War in Afghanistan and Central Asia”
• May 2, Yuri Bossin, “Interethnic Relations in Central Asia: A Theoretical Approach”
• Apr. 25, Edward Schatz, “Relocating the Capital City: Astana, Nation Building and State Building in
  Comparative Perspective”
• Apr. 18, Film Showing: “Revenge of the Daughters-in-Law”
• Mar. 21, Sean Pollock, “Empire by Invitation: Russian Political Patronage, Frontier Diplomacy and
  Imperial Rivalries in the Caucasus, 1774-1825”
• Mar. 14, Maria Louw, “Post-Soviet Morals: A View from the Eye of the Heart”
• Feb. 28, Scott Urbom, “Local Organizations and Civil Society: Mahallas of Uzbekistan”
• Feb. 21, Blanka Hancilova, “Nagorno Karabakh: Negotiating the Self-Determination”
• Feb. 14, Nicholas Daniloff, “Developing a Free Press in Uzbekistan”
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2000

• Dec. 13, Fereydoun Safizadeh, “Iranian Azerbaijan: Local Responses to the Independent Republic of Azerbaijan”
• Dec. 6, Miriam Lanskoy, “Revealing the Futility of Power: Chechnya and the Lessons of Resistance”
• Nov. 29, Kornely Kakachia, “Groupings in CIS -- Five against Six: Russia's Policy towards the 'Near Abroad'”; Sun Zhuangzhi, “China and Central Asia in the New International Environment”
• Nov. 8, Sean Pollock, “The Power of Place: Frontier Diplomacy in South Caucasia under Catherine the Great”
• Oct. 3, Michael Hall, “Tajikistan Three Years after the Civil War”
• May 1, Kathleen Collins, “Clan Politics, Regime Convergence, and the Long-term Transition (1995-1999)”
• Apr. 24, Brenda Shaffer, “Azerbaijanis in Iran: Ethnic Politics and Collective Identity”
• Mar. 14, William Shingleton, “Uzbekistan's Transition to Authoritarianism”
• Feb. 28, Jay Dautcher, “Islam in the Mähällä: The Social Dimensions of Uighur Religious Practice”
• Feb. 7, John Schoeberlein, “Political Polarization and Social Cleavage in Central Asia: Implications for the Future”
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