CESSI Celebrates Eight Years of Learning and Exploration

Students conversing over a meal
Students socializing at a Dastarkhan-style meal organized by the Central Eurasian Studies Summer Institute (CESSI). In its eighth year of summer language instruction at UW-Madison, CESSI hosted an all-time high of 15 students. Yuan Gao (center) is a PhD student of history at Georgetown University, and Stu McLaughlin (right) recently started work in Azerbaijan with the Fulbright English Teaching Assistant program. (Photo by: Yasha Hoffman)

Zukosky presents in front of fairy tale picture
Michael Zukosky, a professor of anthropology at Eastern Washington University, tells a Kazakh folk tale at the CESSI closing ceremony. Zukosky was one of eleven Title VIII fellows at CESSI; 2018 marked the second year CESSI awarded Title VIII fellowships for graduate students, scholars, and working professionals to deepen their expertise in Eurasian languages and studies. Thanks to support from the U.S. Department of State, CESSI will continue to offer Title VIII fellowships in summer 2019. (Photo by: Yasha Hoffman)

Student and instructor examine Central Asian textiles
Mollie Arbuthnot (left), a PhD student in Russian studies at the University of Manchester, and Uzbek language instructor Umida Khikmatillaeva examine an item at the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection in the UW-Madison School of Human Ecology. After studying Uzbek at CESSI, Arbuthnot spent six weeks as a visiting researcher at the Institute of History in Tashkent. (Photo by: Kelly Iacobazzi)

Group photo of students, instructors, staff
CESSI students, instructors, and staff at the closing ceremony. 2018 was a summer of expanded access to CESSI: the institute welcomed its first international student and also introduced distance learning technology to meet the needs of a student who could not attend the program in residence. (Photo by: Yasha Hoffman)