Friday, April 18, 2025
4:30- 4:40 pm: Welcoming Remarks
4:45-5:45 pm: Keynote Lecture
- Dr. Marsha McGraw Olive, Professorial Lecturer, Johns Hopkins SAIS, "Strains and Potential Gains: Trump's Evolving Worldview and the Future of Central Asia"
Saturday, April 19, 2025
9:00-10:30 am: Keynote Lecture
- Dr. Artemy M. Kalinovsky, Professor, Temple University, "The Central Asian Origins of Post-Socialist Economic Reforms"
10:40 am - 12:30 pm: Panel I
Faith, Identity, and Modernity: Soviet Experiments in Central Asia
Chair: Khasan Redjaboev, PhD Candidate, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Fellow, Davis Center
Presenters:
- Sylvan Perlmutter, University of Michigan, "Making an Anti-Religious Generation in Early Soviet Kazakhstan, 1921-1933: Spectacle, Violence, and Archival Silence"
- Emma Larson, Columbia University, "Day of Abolition of Kalym in the Kazakh ASSR, 1924-1932"
- Nurlan Kabdylkhak, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, "Negotiating Faith: Soviet Religious Policy and Muslim Communities in Kazakhstan, 1920s-1930s"
- Alexandra Dennett, Harvard University, "Model Correspondent: Max Penson Photographs the Construction of Soviet Uzbekistan"
- Marina Sivak, Freie Universität Berlin, "Echoes of the Past, Visions of the Future in the Early 1930s: Modernization Discourses in Lapin and Pilnjak's Tajikistan"
12:30-1:30 pm: Artist Talk
- Farrah Karapetian, Artist, University of San Diego, Exhibition "The Things They Shared" at the Davis Center
2:30-4:00 pm: Panel II
Borders, Bodies, and Belonging: Forced Migration and Social Control in Soviet Central Asia
Chair: Dr. Rahat Sabyrbekov, Visiting Scholar, Davis Center
Presenters:
- Murid Shah Nadiri, University of Oxford, "The Ismailis Between Empires: Alliances and Loyalties in the Afghan-British-Soviet Borderlands"
- Ben Hales, Harvard University, "Burying the Herdlord in Pastoral Xinjiang: The Cleansing of the Class Ranks in Altay, 1968-1972"
- Khasan Redjaboev, University of Wisconsin–Madison, "Bound by the State: Women, Forced Labor and Communist Colonial Legacies in Eurasia"
4:30-6:20 pm: Panel III
Narratives of Belonging and Survival: Identity, Memory, and Representation in Soviet and Post-Soviet Central Asia
Chair: Malika Toqmadi, PhD Candidate, University College London; Fellow, Davis Center
Presenters:
- Jack Leydiker, Yale University, "Gratitude at Gunpoint: Soviet Representations of Kazakh Veterans of the Second World War"
- Mia Hanson, University of Pittsburgh, "Issues of 'Building Communism': Occupational Safety and the Soviet Economy at Odds in Central Asia, 1956-1969"
- Valerie Browne, Harvard University, "Accessing National Belonging in Kazakhstan: Russophone Almatyntsy and the Kazakh Language Learning Movement in the Wake of Russia's Full-Scale Invasion of Ukraine"
- Alice Volfson, Harvard University, "Penning a New World: Cross-Cultural Exchange in the Asia-Africa Writers Conferences"
Sunday, April 20, 2025
9 am -10:30 am: Panel IV
Politics, Power, and Transition: Elite Dynamics and Democratization in Central Asia"
Chair: Dr. Gulnur Makulbayeva, Visiting Scholar, Davis Center
Presenters:
- Odil Gafarov, Southern Illinois University, "China’s Global Security Initiative and Its Influence on Central Asia’s Regional Dynamics"
- Lola Peis, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Central Asia, "An Analysis of Cooperation between the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in Central Asia – Rational Choice and Neoliberal Institutionalist Perspectives"
- Nafisa Mirzojamshedzoda, University of Fribourg (Switzerland), Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development (Germany), "Environmental Change and Challenges of Irrigation Re-scaling in the Fergana Valley"
- Berik Matebay, The University of Texas at Austin, "Recommendations on Supplier and Technology Selection for Kazakhstan’s First Nuclear Power Plant"
10:30-11:30 am: Special Presentation
- Luke Mackle, Policy Analyst at OECD, "The Structural and Political Determinants of Low-Carbon Development in Eurasia: Challenges and Opportunities for Reform"
12:30-2:20 pm: Panel V
Navigating New Realities: Security, Infrastructure, and Environment in Central Asia
Chair: Dana Masalimova, Visiting Scholar, Davis Center
Presenters:
- Isabelle DeSisto, Princeton University, "Family Repression and Political Mobilization Across Regime Types"
- Ikromjon Tuhtasunov, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, "A Little Bit of Democracy Can Go a Long Way for Uzbekistan: Evidence from Participatory Budgeting"
- Miras Orazbek, Nazarbayev University, "Elite Conflict and Regime Survival in an Uncertain Geopolitical Landscape: Case of Institutional Change in Central Asia"
- Malika Toqmadi, University College London, "From Nazarbayev to Tokayev: Western-Educated Elites’ Narratives of Transition"
- Anara Jeenbekova, University of Washington, "The Revival of Turkestan as an Emerging Geopolitical Power: The Use of Rhetoric of Collective Memory by Central Asian Presidents as Part of an Organization of Turkic States"
2:20-2:30 pm: Concluding Remarks
Dr. Nargis Kassenova, Director for Program on Central Asia, Davis Center
Questions? Please do not hesitate to contact events manager Laura A. Sargent at laura_sargent@fas.harvard.edu
Accessibility
The Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University encourages persons with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities. If you anticipate needing any type of accommodation or have questions about the physical access provided, please contact us at 617-495-4037 or daviscenter@fas.harvard.edu in advance of your participation or visit. Requests for Sign Language interpreters and/or CART providers should be made at least two weeks in advance if possible. Please note that the Davis Center will make every effort to secure services but that services are subject to availability.
