Harriman Institute hosts 13th Annual World Convention of the Association for the Study of Nationalities
Friday, 18 April 2008
Reported by Camilla Louise Lyngsby
The crown jewels of the study of nationalism, ethnic conflict, and ethnic conflict resolution in the post-communist world were on display last week at Columbia University.
The Association for the Study of Nationalities (ASN) kicked off its 13th annual world convention, hosted by the Harriman Institute, on April 10, 2008. The three-day convention drew more than 500 international scholars from 40 countries, and about 40 percent of the delegates had to cross the Atlantic or the Pacific oceans before checking-in on the Upper West Side.
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Kimberly Marten, Member of the Harriman Delegation to Turkmenistan last month, Writes in the DAILY STAR that the West Should Encourage Turkmenistan's Tentative Steps
Thursday, 17 April 2008
"Turkmenistan, a country rich in natural gas and strategically located on the borders of Iran and Afghanistan, may be on the brink of transformation. By reforming its educational system and giving its citizens access to global sources of information, the country could emerge as a leader of change in post-Soviet Central Asia, setting an example of openness for other closed societies, including North Korea."
"Turkmenistan's president, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, has repeatedly and publicly announced his reformist intentions. The world needs to welcome this possibility and back his efforts."
Kimberly Marten is Professor of Political Science, Barnard College.
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Harriman Director Catharine Nepomnyashchy Co-Authors Report on Distance Learning
Thursday, 17 April 2008
Klaus Segbers of the Free University of Berlin and Catharine Nepomnyashchy have published an article on "Distance Learning: The Future of Regional Studies?" in AAASS NewsNet. The article is based on a roundtable held at the 2007 AAASS National Conference in New Orleans. Segbers is the Founding Director of East European Studies Online, run by the Center for Global Politics of Freie Universitaet Berlin; Nepomnyashchy has taught as a tutor in that program.
"It is important that we in regoinal studies view online learning as a promise rather than a threat. There is no reason to believe that traditional academic institutions will disappear, but adapt they must. The Internet is an extraordinarily powerful learning aid, and our students have already embraced it with enthusiasm. If we do not incorporate it into our own teaching as well, we will be left in the dust."
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Cornell University Press Publishes "BASE POLITICS," New Book by Alexander Cooley
Monday, 14 April 2008
"BASE POLITICS: Democratic Change and the U.S. Military Overseas" Published by Alexander Cooley, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Barnard College
In "Base Politics," Alexander Cooley examines how domestic politics in different host countries, especially in periods of democratic transition, affect the status of U.S. bases and the degree to which the U.S. military has become a part of their local and national landscapes. Drawing on exhaustive field research in different host nations across East Asia and Southern Europe, as well as the new postcommunist base hosts in the Black Sea and Central Asia, Cooley offers an original and provocative account of how and why politicians in host countries contest or accept the presence of the U.S. military on their territory.
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Ohio State University Press Publishes "The Chekhovian Intertext: Dialogue with a Classic" by Lyudmila Parts
Wednesday, 02 April 2008
Studies of the Harriman Institute has added a new title--"The Chekhovian Intertext: Dialogue with a Classic" by Lyudmila Parts--just released by Ohio State University Press.
In "The Chekhovian Intertext," Parts explores contemporary Russian writers’ intertextual engagement with Chekhov and his myth. She offers a new interpretative framework to explain the role Chekhov and other classics play in constructing and maintaining Russian national identity and the reasons for the surge in the number of intertextual engagements with the classical authors during the cultural crisis in post-perestroika Russia.
The book highlights the intersection of three distinct concepts: cultural memory, cultural myth, and intertextuality. It is precisely their interrelation that explains how intertextuality came to function as a defense mechanism of culture, a reaction of cultural memory to the threat of its disintegration.
Lyudmila Parts is Assistant Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies at McGill University. She received her Ph.D. in Russian Literature from Columbia University in 2002.
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