4th Annual Graduate Student Conference on Central Asia

Fri, 01 May, 2026 at 05:30 pm to Sun, 03 May, 2026 at 12:00 pm UTC-04:00

S010 (Tsai), CGIS South Building | Cambridge

Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies
Publisher/HostDavis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies
4th Annual Graduate Student Conference on Central Asia
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Come hear outstanding young scholars present on topics as diverse as energy, child care, migration, managed successions, and much more!
About this Event

Friday, May 1, 2026
5:30- 6:00 pm: Welcoming Remarks
6-7:15 pm: Keynote Lecture
  • Dr. Sarah Cameron, Associate Professor of History at the University of Maryland, College Park, "Asia's Aral Sea"

Saturday, May 2, 2026
9:00-11:00 am: Panel I
Water and Power

Chair: , Visiting Professor, Government Department, Harvard University

Presenters:

  • Kristina Malysheva, University of Naples “L’Orientale,” “The Soviet River Turn of the Century: The Perebroska Project and the Limits of Soviet Modernization"
  • Bita Takrimi, Northwestern University, Gardens, Canals, and Cotton Fields: Persianate Environmental Thought and Soviet Power in Uzbekistan”
  • Nicholas Morrison, University of Maryland, College Park, An Artery of Socialist Development: The Irtysh-Karaganda Canal in Late Soviet Kazakhstan”
  • Nodir Ataev, Queen’s University at Kingston, “Uneven Flows of Water and Power: Local Water Inequalities in the Ak-Suu and Kozu Baglan/Khodzhabakirgan River Basins”
  • Nicholas Seay, Ohio State University, “Desert Blowback: Limits of Land and Irrigation in Late-Soviet Tajikistan”

11:15-12:30 pm: Special Presentation
  • Gavin Helf, Adjunct Professor at the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies, Georgetown University, "What Comes Next: How to Think About (and Study) Central Asia in the Next Quarter of the XXI Century"

1:30-3:30 pm: Panel II
People and Land

Chair: , A.M. Candidate in Regional Studies (REECA), Harvard University

Presenters:

  • Zhaina Meirkhan, University of Michigan, “The Forced Migrations of Kazakhs in 20th Century Eurasian Steppe and Beyond.”
  • Sylvan Perlmutter, University of Michigan, “After the Uprising: The Temirtau Events, the 'Second Virgin Lands,' and the Stratified Reincorporation of Central Kazakhstan (1953–1964)”
  • Iskandar Khodjaev, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, “The Construction of Environmental Risk in Central Asia: Media Agenda-Setting and Public Perceptions of Air Pollution in Tashkent”
  • Zhanara Almazbekova, Georgetown University, “Nationalizing Nature: Images of Landscape in the Destalinization-Era Kyrgyz Documentary Cinema”

4:00-6:00 pm: Panel III
Resource Governance

Chair: , A.M. Candidate in Regional Studies (REECA), Harvard University

Presenters:

  • Jennet Charyyeva, Middlebury Institute of International Studies, "Cooling the Atom in a Drying Region: Water Politics and Nuclear Planning in Kazakhstan”
  • Laura Kilbury, University of Massachusetts Boston, “Sacred Subsoils at the Frontier: Islamic Authority and the Governance of Gold in Greater Badakhshan”
  • Agzamkhon Niyazkhodjayev, Free University of Berlin, “Cotton, Colonization & Development in Imperial Turkestan”
  • Muling He, Columbia Law School, “Between Statute and Steppe: Ambition and Failure in Imperial Industrial Governance Across Siberia and Kazakhstan (1888–1903)”

Sunday, May 3, 2026
9-10:30 am: Panel IV
Geopolitics and Environment

Chair: , Visiting Scholar, Davis Center

Presenters:

  • Joseph Shumunov, University of Chicago, “Institutionalizing Turkic Geostrategy: Land, Political Ecology, and Policy in the Organization of Turkic States”
  • Huseyin Nurlu, University of St Andrews, “Eurasia as the Fulcrum of Global Multipolarity”
  • Yousie Kim, Yonsei University, “Energy, Expertise, and Digital Infrastructure: Knowledge-Based Environmental Power in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan"

11-11:30 am: Panel V
Infrastructure and Power

Chair: , Director of Program on Central Asia, Davis Center

  • Jiantian Guo, East China Normal University, “Bridging or Dividing? The Role of Transport Infrastructure in Kyrgyzstan’s Post-2010 Ethnic Politics”
  • Zitong Yang, Tsinghua University; Davis Center, Harvard University,“Strengthening Oil and Gas Resource Control in Eurasian States: The Political Economy of Bargaining with Western Oil Capital”

11:30 am: 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 [email protected]

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Event Venue & Nearby Stays

S010 (Tsai), CGIS South Building, 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, United States

Tickets

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