Graduate Student Conference on Сentral Asia

Friday, April 26, 2024

4:30- 4:45 pm: Welcoming Remarks 

4:45-5:45 pm: Keynote Lecture, “Old Triumphs, Tough Truths: Central Asia's Energy Hopes” 

• Ambassador Steven Mann (retired)

Saturday, April 27, 2024

PART I: IN AND OUT OF CENTRAL ASIA: RISE OF CONNECTIVITY

9:00-10:30 am: Keynote Lecture, “Muslim Emigration From Late Tsarist and Early Soviet Central Asia” 

• Dr. Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky, University of California, Santa Barbara 

10:45 - 12:30 pm: Session 1

Chair: Dr. Nargis Kassenova, Director, Program on Central Asia, Davis Center  

Presenters:

• Aleksei Rumiantsev, Indiana University, Changes in Labor Migration Trends From Uzbekistan in the Wake of the Russian Full-Scale Aggression in Ukraine
• Yipeng Zhou, University of Michigan, (Un)Replicable Russian Factories, Quirky Asian Rocks, and “Enlightened Absolutism” in Eighteenth-Century Inner Asian Mining Zones
• Yida Jiao, John Hopkins University, The Contradiction of Clusterization: Chinese Capital in Uzbekistan's Agricultural Reform

12:00 - 12:30 pm: Special Presentation, “Digitalization in Central Asia: Promises and Pitfalls”

• Zuhra Halimova, Strategic Advisor at the Women in Digital Transformation (WinDt LLC) and Senior Advisor of the CAPS 

PART II:  STATE AND SOCIETY: A NEW SOCIAL CONTRACT?

1:30 - 3:00 pm: Session 2

Chair: Dr. Nari Shelekpayev, Yale University

Presenters:

• Nazerke Mukhlissova, Yale University, The Emergence of Central Asian Nationalisms 1916-1936: The Case of the Socialist Union Republics in the Soviet Union
• Nicholas Seay, Ohio State University, Striking With a Sword: Cotton in Soviet Tajikistan and the Development of the Integrated Control of Pests in the Soviet Union
• Khasan Redjaboev, Davis Center and University of Wisconsin-Madison, Communist Colonialism and Development: Building the State Patriarchy in Eurasia

3:15 - 5:00 pm: Session 3

Chair: Khasan Redjaboev, PhD Candidate, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Fellow, Davis Center

Presenters:

• Matteo Bonini, University of Oxford, How Constitutionalism Manifests in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan
• Akbota Karibayeva, George Washington University, Managed Successions Gone Wrong: Cases from Central Asia
• Malika Toqmadi, Davis Center and University College London, Do Western-Educated Elites Bring Change in Authoritarian Regimes?
• Emma Larson, Columbia University, The Economic Drivers of Polygyny in Post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan
• Dilnovoz Abdurazzakova, Harvard University, Childcare Expansion Policy in Uzbekistan: Working for Yourself or for Your Kids?

5:15-6:15 pm: Film Screening " Behind the Lens and Censorship" 

• Q&A with the director and producer, Olzhas Bayalbayev. Moderated by Dana Masalimova, Fellow, Davis Center, Harvard University

Sunday, April 28, 2024

PART III: INSPIRED AND INSPIRING: HYBRID IDENTITIES IN CENTRAL ASIA

9:00 - 10:45 am: Session 4

Chair: Yipeng Zhou, PhD Student, University of Michigan

Presenters:

• Nurlan Kabdylkhak, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Voices of the Faithful: Muslim Religious Institutions in Late Imperial Russia
• Daniil Kabotyanski, Indiana University, Non-Slavic Settlers, Non-Turkic Muslims: Dungan Identity in Russian and Soviet Semirech’e
• Albert Harry Shaheen, Harvard University, Quranic Diplomacy: Colonialism, the Quran of ʿUthmān, and the Liberation of the East Under Early Soviet Power
• Joshua Fernandez, Harvard University, The Power of Anchors and Flows: The Historical Impact of Reform-Era PRC Migration Law on its Multiethnic Inner Asian Frontiers
• Jake Vasishchev-Perl, New York University, Imagining Sulayman-Too: New Perspectives on Memory and Practice at a Central Asian Muslim Shrine

11:00 am - 12:30 pm: Session 5

Chair: Dr. Nari Shelekpayev, Assistant Professor, Yale University

Presenters:

• Ulbossyn Parmanova, University of Georgia, Language Maintenance in Soviet Central Asia
• Leora Eisenberg, Harvard University, Leonard Bernstein, Muslim Magomayev, Dave Brubeck, and Yalla: The Cold-War Rise of "Eastern" Music
• Sophie Lockey, UC Berkeley, Especially Post-Soviet Literature: Hamid Ismailov and Anatoliy Kim in Comparative Dimension
• Mira Kuzhakhmetova, Indiana University Bloomington, Deportation and Memory: Grateful Citizens in the Making. The Case of Kazakhstani Koreans

12:30 - 12:45 pm:  Concluding Remarks 

Dr. Nargis Kassenova, Director for Program on Central Asia, Davis Center

Questions? Please do not hesitate to contact event planner Laura A. Sargent at laura_sargent@fas.harvard.edu