[Bilimsel Haber] SEMINAR SERIES- Central Asia and the Caucasus Programme, SOAS, London, Fall 2009

[Gonul Pultar]

SEMINAR SERIES- Central Asia and the Caucasus Programme, SOAS, London, 
Fall '09

Posted by: Jane Savory <js64 at soas.ac.uk>




Please find listed below details of the Centre of Contemporary Central
Asia and the Caucasus seminar programme for Term 1.

The seminars are free, open to the public and no booking is required
(unless otherwise stated).  Further Information available on the Centre 
Website


Next Seminar

Date: Thursday, 22 October 2009
Time: 17.30
Title: Dangerous Divisions: Revisiting Peace-building in the Ferghana 
Valley.
Speaker: Christine Bichsel (Postdoctoral fellow, University Priority
Research Programme Asia and Europe, University of Zürich)

Venue: G50, Main Building, SOAS

Biography

Christine Bichsel holds a PhD degree in Human Geography from the
University of Berne, Switzerland (2006). She recently published a
revised and expanded version of her thesis as a book titled Conflict
Transformation in Central Asia: Irrigation Disputes in the Ferghana
Valley (2009) with Routledge. She was a visiting researcher at the
Department of Geography, National University of Singapore (2008-2009).
As of January 2009, she is a postdoctoral fellow at the University
Priority Research Programme Asia and Europe, University of Zurich, 
Switzerland.


Seminar

Date: Thursday, 5 November 2009
Time: 17.30

Title: Is the Coexistence of Post-Soviet Secularism and Islam Stable?
Speaker: John Schoeberlein (Director of the Program on Central Asia
and the Caucasus, Harvard University

Venue: G50, Main Building, SOAS

Abstract

Since the collapse of Communism, concern about the growing role of
Islam in the former Soviet Union has been focused on issues of state
security and the supposed threat of militant radicalism. Despite the
mileage that some authors have gained from hyperbolic prognoses of
Afghanistan-like scenarios, based on the equation of every expression
of mobilization related to Islam with radicalism, the Islamic
revolution shows little sign of coming even to the most unstable parts
of the post-Soviet space. A much more real issue of stability,
meanwhile, concerns the possibility for the continued coexistence of
secularism and Islam in the form that it was established during Soviet
times. Under current conditions, where elites still adhere to the
Soviet vision of secularism but they have dramatically diminished
capacity to control the Islamic orientations of the population, the
viability of both the concept of secularism and the officially
congenial forms of Islamic orientation are in doubt. This presentation
will examine the nature of these challenges and the ways that they are
playing out.

Biography

John Schoeberlein is Director of the Program on Central Asia and the
Caucasus at Harvard University. His research focuses on identity,
ethnicity, gender, nationality, religion, and community organization
among the Islamic peoples of Central Eurasia and has conducted
extensive anthropological field research in various parts of the
former Soviet Union. During 1998-99, he headed the UN Ferghana Valley
Development Programme. During 2000-2001, he was Director of the
Central Asia Project of the International Crisis Group. His current
research topics include the changing role of Islam in Central Eurasia
including issues related to radical Islamism, secular and religious
orientations, the politics of culture and national ideology, the
impact of national state formation on identity in Central Asia, the
impact of economic "reforms" on pastoralism communities, and the
changing role of Russian culture in Post-Soviet contexts.


Seminar

Date: Thursday, 26 November 2009
Time: 17.30

Title: The Origins and Evolution of State-endorsed Concept of Uzbek
National History
Speaker: Alisher Ilkhamov (Research Associate, Centre of Contemporary
Central Asia and the Caucasus & Open Society Foundation, London)

Venue: G50, Main Building, SOAS


Abstract

The adoption of the concept of national history has been one of the
pillars for the contemporary Uzbek nationhood and identity.
Interestingly, this concept was developed by some Russian historians
of the Soviet period, like Alexander Iakubovskii, Sergey Tolstov and
others, who saw national histories of smaller nations as a part of
greater, pan-Russian, and pan-Soviet, nationhood agenda aimed to
encourage patriotism and loyalty to the Soviet regime. The paper
argues that the origins of the present-day Uzbek nationalism can be
traced down to early Soviet period where it found adherents among the
new local party and academic elites.


Seminar

Date: Thursday, 3 December 2009
Time: 17.30
Title: Islam, Nation and Revolution: The Making of Central Asia's
First Communists
Speaker: Adeeb Khalid (Professor, History Department, Carleton
College, Minnesota, USA)

Venue: G50, Main Building, SOAS

Biography

Adeeb Khalid was born in Lahore, Pakistan, and educated in Canada and
the United States. He did doctoral work at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison, and has taught history at Carleton College since
1993. Khalid's research interests center on the history of the
sedentary societies of Central Asia from the time of the Russian
conquest of the 1860s to the present. He is particularly interested in
the transformations of culture and identity as a result of historical
change and the fate of Islam under Tsarist and Soviet rule. The
thematic range of Khalid's research encompasses issues of nationalism,
empire, and comparative history. He is the author of two books, The
Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform: Jadidism in Central Asia
(University of California Press, 1998), and Islam after Communism:
Religion and Politics in Central Asia (University of California Press,
2007), which won the 2008 Wayne S. Vucinich Book Prize of the American
Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies "for the most
important contribution to Russian, Eurasian, and East European studies
in any discipline of the humanities or social sciences published in
English in the United States in the previous calendar year." Khalid is
currently working on a book on Central Asia in the early Soviet period
(1917-1932).


Further Information

Website: http://www.soas.ac.uk/cccac/

Or contact Centres & Programmes Office:
Email: js64 at soas.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)20 7898 4892 /3
or Dr Bhavna Dave, Chair, Centre of Contemporary Central Asia and the 
Caucasus:
Email: bd4 at soas.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)20 7898 4734

All are Welcome (seminars are free and open to the public).  Booking
is not required unless otherwise stated.

School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London,
Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H OXG


Jane Savory
Manager, Centres and Programmes Office
Research and Enterprise Office
School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London
Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG

tel  +44 (0)20 7898 4892
fax +44 (0)20 7898 4489
email js64 at soas.ac.uk
web www.soas.ac.uk/centres/




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Studies