Lecture Archive

"Memory of the Holocaust in Post-Communist Europe"
Joanna Michlic, HBI Director, Brandeis University

May 2, 2013

"The Poetics of Impudence and Intimacy in the Age of Pushkin"
Joe Peschio, Associate Professor of Russian, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

April 25, 2013

"Electoral Poliltics in Russia"
Robert Moser, Professor of Political Science, University of Texas at Austin

April 11, 2013

"The Dream of Craftsmanship: Change and Continuity in the Engineering Profession in Post-Soviet Azerbaijan"
Leyla Sayfutdinova, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey

April 4, 2013

"Poor, Poorer, Bulgarian: Public Perceptions of Poverty in Post-communist Bulgaria"
Boriana Nikolova, Post-Doctoral Fellow in Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

March 7, 2013

"My Grandparents’ Kaunas: Searching for the 1920’s in the 21st Century"
Nancy Heingartner, CREECA Outreach Coordinator, UW-Madison

February 28, 2013

CREECA Spring Faculty Panel: "Multidisciplinary Organizations in a Disciplinary World"
Judith Deutsch Kornblatt, Manon van de Water, & Yoshiko M. Herrera, UW-Madison

February 21, 2013

"Obstacles and Pathways to Conducting Research for Health in Eastern Europe"
David L. Nordstrom, Professor of Occupational and Environmental Safety and Health, UW-Whitewater

February 14, 2013

"Tocqueville in Moscow: From Servitude to Liberty?"
Anna Paretskaya, Honorary Fellow and Lecturer, Department of Sociology, UW-Madison

December 6, 2012

"Does Reform Prevent Rebellion? Evidence from Russia's Emancipation of the Serfs"
Scott Gehlbach, Professor of Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison

November 29, 2012

"Soviet Poetry and the Greek Left: Giannes Ritsos as Translator and Reader of Blok, Mayakovsky, Ehrenburg, and Esenin"
Christopher Livanos, Professor of Comparative Literature, University of Wisconsin-Madison

November 8, 2012

"City of Concrete and Felt: Negotiating Cultural Hybridity in Mongolia's Capital of Ulaanbaatar"
Alexander Diener, Professor of Geography, University of Kansas

November 1, 2012

Funding for this activity was provided by the Council of American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC) through a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York.

"Russian Politics: The Paradox of a Weak State"
Marie Mendras, Professor of Political Science, Paris School of International Affairs, Sciences Po University

October 11, 2012

"Russia's Urban Industrial Land: A Story of Gradual Reform"
William Pyle, Associate Professor of Economics, Middlebury College

September 27, 2012

"Divided Historical Memory among Youth in Estonia: Ethnic, Socioeconomic, Linguistic, and Political Sources of Ideational Cleavage"
Ted Gerber, Professor of Sociology, UW-Madison

September 20, 2012

"Make Your Voice Heard: Communism in the High School Curriculum, 1958-1968"
Campbell Scribner, Graduate Student in History and Education, UW-Madison

September 13, 2012

"Uyghur Neighborhoods and Nationalisms in Kazakhstan"
Sean Roberts, PhD, Director of the International Development Studies Program and Associate Professor of Practice at George Washington University

August 7, 2012

"Ibrahim Altynsarin and His Influence on Late 19th Century Kazakh Education"
Omar Mohamad, Graduate Student in Languages and Cultures of Asia, UW-Madison

July 3, 2012

"Islam in Kazakhstan"
Uli Schamiloglu, Professor of Languages and Cultures of Asia, UW-Madison

July 3, 2012

"Konakka Baraiyk: Music in Kazakh Hosting"
Nathan Snodgrass, Masters Student in Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies

June 26, 2012

"Building Welfare States for the Young Generation in Postcommunist Europe: The Politics of Family Policy in Hungary, Poland, and Romania"
Tomasz Inglot: Professor of Government, Minnesota State University-Mankato

April 19, 2012

"Translating Polish Literature into English: a History"
Michael Mikos: Professor of Foreign Languages and Literature, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

April 12, 2012

"The Wawel Incident of 1937: Church, State, and Nation in Interwar Poland"
Neal Pease: Professor of History, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

March 29, 2012

"Multidrug-Resistant Tuberculosis in Tajikistan"
Erin Peck and Jillian Landeck: Medical Students at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health

March 22, 2012

"Political Participation in Russia and Indonesia"
Danielle Lussier: Assistant Professor of Political Science at Grinnell College

March 15, 2012

CREECA Faculty Roundtable: Russian Presidential Elections

Featuring CREECA Faculty Members:

Yoshiko M. Herrera, Professor of Political Science at UW-Madison and Director of CREECA

Alexander Dolinin, Professor of Slavic Languages and Literature at UW-Madison

David M. McDonald, Professor of History at UW-Madison

Robert Kaiser, Professor of Geography at UW-Madison

For the handout on Russian politics: click here

March 8, 2012

"A Minute for Reflection: Soviet Television Game Shows, 1960s-1980s"
Christine Evans: Assistant Professor of History at UW-Milwaukee

March 1, 2012

"Uncommon Blood: Vampire and Nation in the Modern Age"
Tomislav Longinovic: Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, and Comparative Literature at UW-Madison

February 23, 2012

"The Ethics of Witnessing the Holocaust: Polish Writers' Diaries, 1939-1945"
Rachel F. Brenner: Professor of Hebrew and Semitic Studies, Max and Freida Weinstein-Bascom Professor of Jewish Studies at UW-Madison

February 16, 2012

For Professor Brenner's handouts: Page 1 Page 2

"Land Use Change and Biodiversity after the Collapse of the Soviet Union"
Volker Radeloff: Professor of Forest and Wildlife Ecology at UW-Madison

February 9, 2012

"Rereading Vaclav Havel's 'Power of the Powerless'"
David S. Danaher: Professor of Slavic Languages & Literature at UW-Madison

February 2, 2012
For Professor Danaher's handout that accompanied this lecture: click here

"Flying in Translation: Interpreting Olga Mukhina's Play for Performance in Austin, TX"
Graham Schmidt, Director and Founder of Breaking String Theater in Austin, TX

November 10, 2011

"Black in Ukraine"
Terrell Starr, Freelance Journalist, Fulbright Scholar in Ukraine (2009-2010)

November 3, 2011

"Baron Ungern's Mongolian Pogrom: The Genealogy of Massacre"
Willard Sunderland, Associate Professor and Department Head, History Department, University of Cincinatti

October 21, 2011

"A Three Week Slog in the 21st Century Ferghana Valley"
Timothy Jack Rowe, Graduate Student, Department of Languages and Cultures of Asia

Septemnber 29, 2011

"Theatre as Therapy in the Northern Caucasus"

Manon van de Water, professor of theatre and drama

May 5, 2011

"The Wisdom of Crowds: Some reflections on the Velvet Revolution in the Light of the Arab Awakening"

Paul Wilson, Freelance writer, editor, radio producer and translator

April 21, 2011

"Between Home and Homeland: Minority Rights and National Dilemmas across the Greek-Bulgarian Border"

Theodora Dragostinova, The Ohio State University

April 7, 2011

"How Czech Fascists, Prague Bureaucrats and the Local Police Helped the Nazis to Isolate the Jews of Bohemia and Moravia"

Benjamin Frommer, Associate Professor of History, Northwestern University

March 24, 2011

"Of Macho and Men: Russian and Latino Heroes in Contemporary Film"

Thomas Garza, University Distinguished Teaching Associate Professor and Director, Texas Language Center, University of Texas-Austin

March 10, 2011

"The Uses of Poetry: Elegy and Courtship in Nineteenth-Century Russia"

Daria Khitrova, Postdoctoral fellow, University of Chicago

March 3, 2011

"The Politics of Memory in a Divided Society: A Comparison of Post-Franco Spain and Post-Soviet Ukraine"

Oxana Shevel, PhD candidate, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Tufts University

February 17, 2011

"Decentralized Governance and Logging: An Econometric Analysis in European Russia"

Kelly Wendland, PhD candidate, Forest and Wildlife Ecology, UW-Madison

February 3, 2011

"Being Harold Pinter: A Dramatic Reading"

Directed by Andy Wiginton, Adapted and directed by Vladimir Shcherban,

and produced by Nikolai Khalezin and Natalia Kolida.

January 27, 2011

- Program (PDF)

- Free Belarus Project

- A statement from Belarus Free Theater Co-Founder Natalia Koliada

"Inspiring Official Rhetoric and Rampant Abuses in Russia"

Tanya Lokshina, Russian Researcher, Human Rights Watch

January 20, 2011

"The Politics of Smallest Things: How the 'Lazy, Cowardly, and Selfish' Changed the Soviet Union"

Anna Paretskaya, Ph.D. Candidate in Sociology, (New School for Social Research)

December 2, 2010

"Stalinist Landscapes: Politics, Identity and Nature in Socialist-Realist Art"

Mark Bassin, Center for Baltic and East European Studies (Södertörn University Stockholm)

November 15, 2010

"A Non-Participation Pact: State and Society in Russia"

Maria Lipman, (Carnegie Moscow Center)

November 11, 2010

"Grand Plans and Petty Corruption: Adapting to Market Reform in Central Asia"

Kelly McMann, Associate Professor of Political Science, (Case Western Reserve University)

September 16, 2010

"The Case of Colonel Abel: What the Prosecution of a Master Soviet Spy Teaches about American and Russian Criminal Justice"

Jeffrey Kahn, Assistant Professor of Law, (Dedman School of Law at Southern Methodist University)

October 14, 2010

“Nationalism, Myth, and Politics: Russians and Serbs in the Dissolution of the Soviet Union”

Veljko Vujacic (Oberlin College)

September 16, 2010

“'We Were Hippies Too': Youth Protest and Lithuanian Nationalism in Kaunas, 1972”

Amanda Swain (University of Washington)

August 3, 2010

“Archaic Felt and Its Tradition in Lithuania”

Vilte Kazlauskaite (Lithuania-based felt artist)

July 20, 2010

“Writing on the Threshold between Cultures”

Agate Nesaule (UW-Whitewater)

July 13, 2010

“Caught in Between: Citizenship, Identity, and Young Ethnic Russians in Estonia”

Ted Gerber (UW-Madison)

July 6, 2010

“Contesting Nature and Nation in Latvia”

Katrina Schwartz (University of Florida)

June 15, 2010

“Samizdat: Material Texts and Imagined Communities”

Ann Komaromi (University of Toronto)

May 5, 2010

“Kaleidoscopic Odessa: History and Place in Contemporary Ukraine”

Tanya Richardson (Wilfrid Laurier University)

April 29, 2010

“Islamic court in documentation and traditions: Excursus to Medieval Central Asia”

Elyor Karimov (Uzbek Academy of Sciences)

April 15, 2010

“Eurasian Security Dilemmas: Russia's Energy Statecraft and the Contours of the Great Game Redux”

Adam Stulberg (Georgia Tech University)

April 14, 2010

“Bride Abduction in Post-Soviet Central Asia: Marking a Shift Towards Patriarchy through Local Discourses of Shame and Tradition”

Cynthia Werner (Texas A&M University)

March 25, 2010

“Patriarchy, Oligarchy, and Sobornost' in the Contemporary Russian Orthodox Church”

Paul Valliere (Butler University)

March 18, 2010

“Anton Chekhov: The Ups and Downs of a Playwright's Reputation”

Laurence Senelick (Tufts University)

March 11, 2010

“The Ecclesia Militans and the Catholic Nation in Modern Poland”

Brian Porter-Szűcs (University of Michigan)

March 4, 2010

“The Life of Andrew the Fool: Poetics as the Path to Knowledge in Byzantino-Russian Tradition”

Priscilla Hunt (University of Massachusetts-Amherst)

March 3, 2010

“Developments in Russian Children's Literature after 1991: Genres, Imports, and New Russian Plots”

Andrea Lanoux (Connecticut College)

February 25, 2010

“Apocalypse, Eschatology, and Belief: The Trajectory of Religious Motifs in Gorbanevskaia's Poetry”

Allan Reid (University of New Brunswick)

February 18, 2010

“Post-Accession Hooliganism: Bulgaria and Romania in the EU”

Venelin Ganev (Miami University)

February 11, 2010

“Soviet Legacies and the Transformation of the Research University in Russia Today”

Mark Johnson (UW-Madison)

January 21, 2010

"Estonia's Bronze Night: Reconstructing the Event"

Robert Kaiser (UW-Madison)

December 10, 2009

“A Portrait of a Soviet Woman as the Citizen Soldier: Theoretical and Interpretive Challenges from the Eastern Front”

Anna Krylova (Duke University)

December 3, 2009

“Russia's Resource Curse”

Konstantin Sonin (New Economic School, Moscow)

November 19, 2009

“Prejudice and Human Rights in Russia”

Nicole Butkovich Kraus (UW-Madison)

October 29, 2009

“How Capitalism was Built: The Transformation of Eastern Europe, Russia and Central Asia”

Anders Åslund (Peterson Institute for International Economics)

October 29, 2009

“Contemporary Russian Writers: Between the Market and the Last Judgment”

Mikhail Shishkin (Russian author)

October 26, 2009

“The Dutch Connection: 'Doctor Zhivago' in The Netherlands”

Petra Couvée (Leiden University)

October 22, 2009

“Between Dawn and the Wind: A Poetry Reading by Anna Frajlich”

Anna Frajlich (Columbia University)

October 15, 2009

“One Homeland or Two: The Nationalization and Transnationalization of Mongolia's Kazakhs”

Alexander Diener (Pepperdine University)

October 8, 2009

“Banned Films: Soviet Cinema under Stalin and the Failure of Power”

Maria Belodubrovskaya (UW-Madison)

October 1, 2009

“The Rise of Gazprom: Profits and Politics”

Rawi Abdelal (Harvard Business School)

September 24, 2009

“Music of the Hungarian-Speaking Roma”

A lecture-demonstration by Parno Graszt, a traditional Roma ensemble from northeast Hungary

September 17, 2009

"No Man’s Land: Youth Negotiating Democratization in Post-conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina"

Azra Hromadzic (University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh)

September 3, 2009

"Right-Wing Federation Schemes in East-Central Europe during WWII"

Holly Case (Cornell University)

May 7, 2009

"Freedom of Conscience in Russian Philosophical Liberalism: The Controversy over Vladimir Solov'ev"

Randall Poole (College of St. Scholastica)

April 30, 2009

"The Legal Case for Russia's Intervention in Georgia"

Nicolai N. Petro (University of Rhode Island)

April 23, 2009

"Fica, Trabi and Dyana: Little Cars that Make Us Laugh and Cry"

Marko Zivkovic (University of Alberta)

April 16, 2009

"Being 'Black' in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia: Identity, Adaptation, and Racism"

Jeff Sahadeo (Carleton University)

April 9, 2009

"Imagining a Soviet Nation? The 'History of the USSR' as a National Discourse, 1930s-1950s"

Peter Blitstein (Lawrence University)

March 26, 2009

"Growing Up in Yeltsin's Russia: The Attitudes of Pro-Kremlin Youth Toward the 1990s"

Katia Levintova (University of Wisconsin-Green Bay)

March 12, 2009

"Political Competition and Judicial Disempowerment in Ukraine"

Alexei Trochev (UW-Madison Law School)

March 5, 2009

"The Russian State in the Time of Putin"

Gerald Easter (Boston College)

February 12, 2009

"Putting Your Major to Work: Fostering International Dialogue through Exchange Programs"

Michael Kuban (U.S. Department of State)

February 5, 2009

"America's Russian Problem: A Russia Policy for the Obama Administration"

Melvin A. Goodman (Senior Fellow and Director of the National Security Program at the Center for International Policy)

January 22, 2009

"Explaining the Russian Mortality Paradox"

Michel Guillot (UW-Madison)

December 4, 2008

"Within Two Tyrannies: Soviet Academic Refugees in World War II"

Marina Sorokina (Russian Academy of Sciences Archive)

November 13, 2008

"Accidental Dissidents: Yugoslav Avant-Gardes and Socialist Realism"

Tatjana Aleksic (University of Michigan)

November 6, 2008

"Russian Drama and Theatre Today: A Time of New Transitions"

John Freedman (Journalist and Independent Theatre Critic)

October 30, 2008

"The Problems of Formation of Cultural Identity in Modern Kazakhstan"

Gulnara Dadabaeva (UW-Madison)

October 23, 2008

"One Minute to Midnight"

Michael Dobbs (Author and Journalist, The Washington Post)

October 16, 2008

"Boris Yeltsin and the Puzzle of the Hero in History"

Timothy Colton (Harvard University)

October 9, 2008

"Lay Participation in Judicial Proceedings in East Europe"

Sanja Kutnjak Ivkovic (Michigan State University)

October 2, 2008

"Customary Organizations and the Foundations of State Building in Afghanistan: The Role of 'Maliks,' 'Mullahs,' and 'Jirgas' in Local Governance"

Jennifer Brick (UW-Madison)

September 25, 2008

"Failures of Independence in Central Asia"

Russell Zanca (Northeastern Illinois University)

September 11, 2008

"Conflict in the Caucasus: A Panel Discussion about Georgia"

Featuring David McDonald, Uli Schamiloglu, and Robert Kaiser, UW-Madison; moderated by Kathryn Hendley, UW-Madison

September 9, 2008

"'Our Japanese Brothers': Anti-colonialism and Asian-ism among the Muslims of the Russian Empire"

Danielle Ross (UW-Madison)

September 4, 2008

"The Mongol Empire and Alcohol"

Thomas Allsen - College of New Jersey
April 24, 2008

"Cross Cultural Communication: Examples from Kazakh, Russian, and American English"

Maral Nurtazina - University of Wisconsin - Madison
April 17, 2008

"Increasing Vulnerability: The Homeless, Alcohol, and Mortality in Russia"

William Pridemore - Indiana University
April 3, 2008

"From Bedros Tourian to Paul Celan: L’Oeuvre au Noir"

James Russell - Harvard University
March 14, 2008

"The Treasures of Sarmation Nobility"

Anatoly Symonenko - Princeton University
March 13, 2008

"Dmitry Shostakovich and Azerbaijani Music"

Aida Huseynova - Indiana University
March 6, 2008

"Legal Connections: Litigation, Supervision, and Sovereignty in Late Imperial Russia"

Jane Burbank - New York University
February 28, 2008

"Kazakh Chinggisids and Their Lands under Russian Rule in the 19th Century"

Virginia Martin - University of Wisconsin
February 21, 2008

"The Decline to Very Low Fertility in Ukraine and Russia"

Brianna Perelli-Harris - University of Wisconsin
January 24, 2008

"Transforming Bureaucracy: Conditional Norms and the International Standardization of Statistics in Russia"

Yoshiko Herrera - University of Wisconsin
November 29, 2007

"Justice Sector Reform in a Post-Conflict Environment: A Case Study from Kosovo"

Suren Avanesyan - National Center for State Courts
November 15, 2007

"The Last Soviet Dreamer: Encounters with Leonid Potemkin"

Jochen Hellbeck - Rutgers University
November 1, 2007

"Balkanology and EUrology: Recent Developments and Future Changes"

Victor Friedman - University of Chicago
October 25, 2007

"Housing Divides: The Causes and Consequences of Housing Inequality in Russia"

Jane Zavisca - University of Arizona
October 4, 2007

"Russia's Sputnik Generation: Interviewing Soviet Baby Boomers"

Donald J. Raleigh - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
September 27, 2007

"Traditional Romani (Gypsy) Musicians and Oral Epic in the Balkans: A Comparison of Performers and Performance"

Margaret Beissinger - Princeton University
September 14, 2007

"Identity and Diversity in Romani (Gypsy) Musical Culture"

Margaret Beissinger - Princeton University
September 13, 2007

"Nikita Khrushchev: The Man and His Era"

William Taubman - Amherst College
September 6, 2007

"Turizm: Soviet Travel, Leisure, and Nation-Building in the Khrushchev Thaw"

Anne Gorsuch - University of British Columbia
May 10th, 2007

"The Russian Far East: Economic and Security Challenges and Perspectives"

Sergey Sevastyanov - Vladivostok State University
May 3rd, 2007

"Islamic Resurgence in Central Asia and the Caucasus"

Kathleen Collins - University of Minnesota
April 26th, 2007

"Belarus: Europe's Last Dictatorship or Populist State?"

David Marples - University of Alberta
April 19th, 2007

"Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz"

Jan Gross - Princeton University
April 12th, 2007

"Cabaret in a World War II Jewish Ghetto: Spiritual Resistance?"

Lisa Peschel - University of Minnesota
March 22nd, 2007

"Rules of the Game for Russian Entrepreneurs: How Informal Institutions Mediate Application of Dysfunctional Law"

Ella Paneyakh - University of Michigan
March 15th, 2007

"Alternatve Visions: Telling the Truth After the End of Yugoslavia"

Toma Longinovic - UW Madison
March 8th, 2007

"Dostum 'the Taliban Killer': Living With a Northern Alliance Warlord"

Brian Williams - University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth
March 1st, 2007

"How to See the World (On Someone Else's Budget)"

Stephanie Griest, Author
February 27th, 2007

"The Groundfloor of Peacebuilding: Grassroots Influence in the Balkans"

Paula Pickering, College of William and Mary
February 22nd, 2007

"Property Rights and Property Wrongs in Russia"

Timothy Frye, Columbia University
February 15th, 2007

"Bugs in Twentieth-Century Russian Literature"

Shannon Donnally Spasova, UW-Madison
February 8th, 2007

"'It's Hard to Convey': Memory, the Gulag, and Issues in Oral History"

Jehanne Gheith, Duke University
February 1st, 2007

"Chekov at the Moscow Art Theater"

Anatoly Smeliansky, Head of the Moscow Art Theatre School
January 30th, 2007

"Cauldron of Terrorism or Bowl of Kasha? New Survey Data from North Caucaus "

Ted Gerber, University of Wisconsin-Madison
September 7, 2006

"We Have Never Been German " or "What Kaliningrad Can Teach Us About Social Memory"

Olga Sezneva, University of Chicago
September 14, 2006

"Turkey's EU Path: How Long is the Journey "

Soner Cagaptay, Director of Turkish Research Program, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
September 20, 2006

"EU Accession and the Politics of Rescaling in the Estonian - Russian Borderlands"

Robert J. Kaiser, Professor of Geography, UW-Madison
September 21, 2006

"Hungarian Roma Self-Governance: Help or Hindrance?"

Robert Koulish, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Goucher College
September 28, 2006

"Why do Postcommunist Parties in New Democracies Hurt Themselves? A Model of Strategic Preemption"

Monika Nalepa, Assistant Professor of Policial Science, Rice University
October 5, 2006

"Crime and Punishment: The Remarkable Theatre of Kama Ginkas"

Manon van de Water, Associate Professor of Theatre, UW Madison
October 12, 2006

"Ferdinand Vanek is Misunderstood: Vaclav Havel's Political and Philosophical Ideas"

James Pontuso, Elliott Professor of Political Science at Hampden-Sydney College, VA
October 16, 2006

"People and Procedures: Toward the History of the Investigations of the Nazi War Crimes in the USSR"

Marina Sorokina, Senior Researcher at the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Department Head at the Russkoe Zarubezh'e Library-Foundation
October 26, 2006

"Retreat from Europe? Illiberal Populism and Homophobia in Latvia"

Katrina Schwartz is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Florida
November 2, 2006

"Representation Through Taxation: Taxability and the Political Economy of Postcommunism"

Scott Gehlbach, Assistant Professor of Political Science, UW Madison
November 9, 2006

"Judges Joining Revolutions: The Role of Courts in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan"

Alexei Trochev is a Research Associate at the Institute of Intergovernmental Relations, Queen's University (Kingston, Canada)
November 30, 2006

"Engineering Victory:  Predicting the Effects of Institutional Change on United Russia's Electoral Success in 2007"

Regina Smyth, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Indiana University.
December 7, 2006

"The Paradoxes of Mickiewicz"

Roman Koropeckyj, Associate Professor of Slavic Languages and Literature at UCLA
March 30, 2006

"National Cleansing: Retrobution against Nazi Collaborators in post-war Czechoslovakia"

Benjamin Frommer, Northwestern University
March 3, 2006

"The Politics of a Name in the Northern Caucasus: The Alan Controversy"

Victor Shnirelman, Fellow at the Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
February 24, 2006

"Researching Marginal Peoples on the Margins of Putin's Empire: An Ethnographic Reflection on Post-Soviet Life in Chukotka"

Patty Gray, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at University of Alaska-Fairbanks (UW Ph.D. 1998)
February 21, 2006

"Turkey's Relations with Italy in the Interwar Period"

Dilek Barlas, Professor of History at the University of Chicago
February 15, 2006

"Learning to Market Fruits and Vegetables in Kyrgyzstan: A Look at Private Contracting Practices"

Kelley Cormier, PhD Candidate in Development Studies at UW-Madison
December 15, 2005

"Architecture, Social History, and State Policy: The Abu Nasr Parsa Tomb at Balkh and the Gur-i Amir in Samarqand"

Robert McChesney, Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at New York University
December 7, 2005

"Training Political Reporters in Kazakhstan: a View from the Field"

Jerry Huffman, Communications Director of the Wisconsin Department of Tourism and former anchor if WPT's "Weekend"
December 5, 2005

"Dilemmas of Russian Capitalism under Czarist Rule"

Thomas C. Owen, Associate at the Davis Center for Russian Studies at Harvard University
November 21, 2005

"Judicial Politics in Putin's Russia: An Informal Dimension"

Alexei Trochev, Post-doctoral Research Associate at the Institute of Intergovernmental Relations at Queens University in Ontario
October 20, 2005

"Sex Trafficking in Russia: a Preliminary Investigation"

Lauren McCarthy, Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin - Madison
October 18, 2005

"Law, Public Policy, and Black Holes in Russia"

William B. Simons, Professor of East European Law at the Institute of East European Law and Russian Studies, University of Leiden
October 5, 2005

Poetry Reading

Sergey Gandlevsky and Philip Metres, Gandlevsky is considered by many as the most important poet living in Russia today.
October 3, 2005

"Ideology or Protest: Voting Behavior in Post-communist Eastern Europe"

Grigore Pop-Eleches, Assistant Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University
September 28, 2005

"Safrut and the Zionist Engagement with Russian Culture, 1916-1918"

Brian Horowitz, Sizeler Chair Professor and Director of Jewish Studies, Tulane University
September 20, 2005

"Balkan Connections Through Music"

Michael Kuharski, Artistic Director of Narodno! International Dancers
September 15, 2005

"A Briefing on Kyrgyzstan"

Amy Foster Rothbart, an observer in the recent Kyrgyz parliamentary elections and
Uli Schamiloglu, UW-Madison Professor - Languages and Cultures of Asia
April 5, 2005

"Miracle: A Conversation with Mark Johnson"

Mark Johnson, interviewed by Professor David McDonald
March 10, 2005

"Sport as a Cold War Battleground: The Soviet Hockey Machine"

Lecture by Robert Edelman, with responses from Al Senn and David McDonald
March 11, 2005

"The History of Azerbaijani Art"

Professor Timurchin Afandiyev, Rector of the Azerbaijan State University of Fine Arts in Baku
March 11, 2005

"Minorities in the Wars of Yugoslav Succession: A Modest Silver Lining?"

Gale Stokes, Mary Gibbs Jones Professor of History, Rice University
March 8, 2005

"Invoking the Past to Justify Present Ideologies and Politics: Worldviews and Terrorisms in Uzbekistan"

Elyor Karima, Fulbright Scholar, Historian of Medieval Islam in Central Asia
February 25, 2005

"Ukrainian Presidential Elections"

Gustav Weber
February 9, 2005

"Concept of Good and Evil in Politics"

Konstantin Zavershinsky
December 9, 2004

"Muslims: Don't Remain Unenlightened: Jadid Reformism and Education in the Soviet Uzbekistan"

Shawn Lyons
December 3, 2004

"Businessman-Candidates"

Konstantin Sonin
December 2, 2004

"Publichnoe Povedenie Pushkina"

Igor Nemirovsky
November 30, 2004

"An American in Belarus"

David Kammel, UW-Madison Professor - Biological Systems Engineering
November 16, 2004

"Russian Legal Reform: Progress or Backslide?"

Peter Maggs
November 10, 2004

"Contestation and Corruption: The Impact of Political Competition in the Post-Soviet State"

Anna Grzymala-Busse, Associate Professor of Political Science at Yale
November 4, 2004

"Managed Democracy, the Constitution, and Freedom of the Press in Putin's Russia"

Peter Krug, Herman G. Kaiser Foundation, Chair in International Law, University of Oklahoma College of Law
October 15, 2004

"Teach in on Chechnya"

Professors Robert Kaiser, Uli Schamiloglu, and Ted Gerber
September 22, 2004

"Power and Media in Modern Russia: A Story of Love and Hate"

Mikhail Fedotov
September 16, 2004

"Reflections on the Study of Leadership"

George Breslauer, PhD Candidate in Development Studies at UW-Madison
May 3, 2004

"Reflections on Between Two Empires: Ahmet Agaoglu and the New Turkey"

Holly Shissler
April 15, 2004

"Population Change in Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan: Recent Developments and Long Term Trends"

Irina Badurashvili
April 7, 2004

"Making Sense of Polish-Jewish Relations"

David Ost
March 25, 2004

"Trade Unionism in Post-Soviet Russia: The Challenge of Protecting Worker's Rights"

Irene Stevenson
March 24, 2004

"Replacing a Loss: Memories in Books and Stone"

Serguei Oushakine
March 8, 2004

"Music & War: Experiences from Former Yugoslavia"

Svanibor Pettan
February 25, 2004

"The Andijan Uprising of 1898 Reconsidered"

Komatsu Hisao
January 26, 2004

"Damage: The Construction of New Pristina ca. 1950s, the Prehistory of 'Warchitecture' in Kosovo and the Political Economy of Violence"

Andrew Herscher
December 5, 2003

"How Czech Literature Can Change Your Life"

Craig Cravens
December 4, 2003

"Culture, Politics, and Jewish Nationalism in Late Habsburg Galicia, 1883-1907"

Dr. Joshua Shanes
November 12, 2003

"Value, Relations, and Changing Bodies: Privatization and Property Rights in Kazakhstan"

Professor Catherine Alexander, Goldsmith's College, University of London
November 3, 2003

"Recent Developments in Lithuania"

John Tefft, Former U.S. Ambassador to Latvia
October 21, 2003

"Replacing a Loss: Memories in Books and Stone"

Serguei Oushakine
October 21, 2003

"Heritage Language Learning: Issues and Problems"

Dr. Olga Kagan, UCLA
October 8, 2003

"Aspect at Your Fingertips: Why What You Know about Matter Matters"

Laura Janda, Professor of Slavic Linguistics
Director of the Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
April 11, 2003

"Gender in Transition: Feminist Initiatives in Former Yugoslavia"

Vesna Kesic, Research Coordinator, Center for Women War Victims in Zagreb, Croatia
April 8, 2003

"The People of God: Catholicism and History in Poland"

Brian Porter, Assistant Professor of History, University of Michigan
March 31, 2003

"Mobilization without Preconditions? How Anti-Americanism Shapes Islamism in Central Asia"

Edward Schatz, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Southern Illinois University
March 13, 2003

"Me Bastard, You Bastard: Multiculturalism at Home and Abroad"

Russell Valentino, Associate Professor of Russian & Cinema and Comparative Literature, Director of the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, University of Iowa
March 7, 2003

"The Trinity in Eastern Orthodox Christianity"

Paul Valliere, McGregor Professor of the Humanities, Butler University
February 20, 2003

"Democratic Disillusionment and Populist Parties in East Central Europe"

Radek Markowski, Kosciuszko Visiting Fellow, Polish Academy of Sciences, Rutgers University
February 3, 2003

"The Tenacity of Cultural Stereotypes: Shcherbina's Expedition to the Kazak Steppe, 1896-1903"

Gulnar Kendirbai, Columbia University
January 24, 2003

"Settlement of the Returning Kazakh Diaspora: Viewed From Without and Within"

Alex Diener, Graduate Student, Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin-Madison
December 6, 2002

"You're Here, What's There: Untangling the Development Web in Central Asia"

Jennifer Brick, Graduate Student, Department of Political Science, UW-Madison
October 22, 2002

"From Pavlik to Pushkin: Ideological and Artistic Changes in Moscow Theatres for Young Audiences"

Manon Van de Water, Associate Professor ofTheatre and Drama, UW-Madison
October 4, 2002

"NATO and European Union Enlargement: A Lithuanian View"

Vygaudas Usackas, Lithuanian Ambassador to the United States
September 27, 2002

"Austrian Galicia: The Importance of the Austrian/Russian Border Region in the First Decades of the Twentieth Century"

Alison Frank
September 20, 2002

"Mortality in Kyrgyzstan before and after the Break-up of the Soviet Union"

Michel Guillot, UW-Madison
September 13, 2002

"Southeastern Europe and EU Enlargement: How Necessary Is It? A Greek Perspective"

Andreas Andrianopoulos
April 8, 2002

"Islam, Irredentism, and the Prospects for Stability in the Balkans"

Andreas Andrianopoulos
April 11, 2002

"Travels and Experiences of Two American Doctors in Post-Soviet Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan"

John Doyle and John Stevenson, UW-Madison Medical School
April 18, 2002

"Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse, 1970-2000"

Stephen Kotkin, Princeton University
April 16, 2002

"The Making of the Turks: Some Thoughts on Turk Origins and the Formation of the Turkic Peoples"

Peter Golden, Rutgers University
April 19, 2002

"Institutional Change and Firm Creation in East-Central Europe: An Embedded Politics Approach"

Gerald McDermott, The Wharton School
April 22, 2002

"New Religious Movements in Contemporary Russia"

Aleksandr Panchenko, Visiting Fulbright Scholar
April 22, 2002

"Ethnic Mobilization Without Prerequisites: The East European Gypsies"

Zoltan Barany, Department of Government: University of Texas, Austin
April 25, 2002

Merje Kuus, George Mason University
March 15, 2002

"The Aftermath of War: Lessons from Yugoslavia"

Svetlana Broz
March 1, 2002

Scott Levi
February 28, 2002

"Unexpected Outcomes: Integrating Russia into the Study of Comparative Politics"

Rob Moser, UT-Austin
February 22, 2002

"Jews and Polish Society: Successes and Failures of Assimilation in the 19th Century"

Ted Week, Southern Illinois University
February 15, 2002

"Preparing for an International Career"

John Bengel
February 14, 2002

"Politics, Society, and Reform in Russia: Perspectives from the Yablonko Party"

Alexander Kobrinski, Professor of Russian Literature, Herzen State Pedagogical University, St. Petersburg, Russia
December 10, 2001

"Continuing and Higher Education in the Republic of Belarus: Problems and Perspectives"

Larsya Tryhubava, Department Head for Adult Education
Minsk State Linguistics University
December 3, 2001

"The Music and Culture of the Laz People"

Birol Topaloglu
November 12, 2001

"Russian, Central Asian and Turkish Reaction to September 11: Impressions From an International Conference"

Kemal Karpat, Professor, Department of History
November 2, 2001

"The Refugee Problem in Azerbaijan and Azerbaijan's Role in the Caucasus"

Elin Suleymanov, First Secretary/Press Officer
Embassy of the Republic of Azerbaijan
October 29, 2001

"Vote Once More for My Husband, Please: Construction and Deconstruction of Lies in Yugoslavia (Case Studies from the Domain of the Visual)"

Mileta Prodanovic, Mr. Prodanovic is one of the founders of the "Belgrade circle - association of the independent intellectuals" in 1991 and of the "Writers Forum" - the society of independent authors in Belgrade, in 1999.
October 26, 2001

"Central Asia Ten Years After"

Anatoly Khazanov, Professor of Anthropology, UW-Madison
October 13, 2001

"Juries and the Reform of Inquisitorial Justice: Russia's New Jury Law in
Comparative Perspective"

Stephen Thaman, Professor of Law,
St. Louis University
April 30, 2001

"The Making of an Underclass in Transitional Societies: The Roma Ghetto-Poor in Central Europe"

Ivan Szelenyi, Professor of Sociology,
Yale University
April 27, 2001

"The Sudeten Question in Czechoslovakia, 1930-8: A Reappraisal"

Mark Cornwall, Professor of History
University of Dundee
University of Toronto
April 23, 2001

"The Balkans after Milosevic"

Jacques Rupnik, Director of Research at Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales in Paris
April 12, 2001

"The Return of Europe: the Countries of East-Central Europe and their Journey to the EU"

Jacques Rupnik, Director of Research at Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales in Paris
April 11, 2001

"Rewriting the Red Calendar: Holidays for a New Russia"

Kelly Smith, Visiting Professor of Government
Georgetown University
April 6, 2001

"Diversity of Poetical Monotone -- A Poetry Reading"

From authors Mayakovsky, Severjanin, Pasternak, Sasha Chernyj, Vosnesenskij, Brodsky, Vyssotsky, Erdman, and Okudzhava

Veniamin Smekhov
April 5, 2001

"New Russia: Sex and Television"

Yelena Khanga, Host of the most controversial and popular television
show in Russia "About It"
April 3, 2001

"Mass Support for Ethnonationalism in Russia: A Reappraisal"

Donna Bahry, Professor of Political Science
Vanderbilt University
March 26, 2001

"For Each Enemy, Another Trial: Scripting Confession in the Stalinist Show Trials"

Julie Cassiday, Assistant Professor of Russian
Williams College
March 21, 2001

"The Place of Place in Democratic Transition”"

Valerie Bunce, Professor of Government,
Cornell University
March 9, 2001

"Remembering Without Commemoration: East European Roma and the Romani Holocaust"

Michael Stewart, Senior Lecturer of Anthropology,
University College, London
March 1, 2001

"The Evolution of ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ in Russian Film from Perestroika to Putin"

Benjamin Rifkin, Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures,
UW-Madison
February 28, 2001

"Postsocialist Portfolios: Network Strategies in the Shadow of the State"

David Stark, Chair, and Arnold A. Saltzman Professor of Sociology and International Affairs,
Columbia University
December 1, 2000

"Surviving Capitalism in Northern Russia: A Gendered Analysis"

Michael Burawoy, Professor of Sociology
University of California, Berkeley
November 17, 2000

"Russia in 2000: A Political Interlude"

Marietta Chudakova, Professor of Literature
Institute of Literature, Moscow
November 14, 2000

"Political, Economic and Legal Institutions: Evidence from Russia's Regions"

Tim Frye, Professor of Political Science,
Ohio State University
November 13, 2000

Roundtable:
"After the Yugoslav Elections: Hope for the New Balkans"

Featured participants:
Lynda Kellam (Department of Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Tomislav Longinovic (Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Jason Wittenberg (Assistant Professor of Political Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison)
October 30, 2000

"Feminist Discourse East-West"

Ewa Hauser, Director, Center for Polish and Central European Studies,
Professor of Political Science
University of Rochester
October 27, 2000

"Organisational Farm Choice in Balkan Transition"

Rachel Wheeler, Development Studies
University of Wisconsin-Madison
October 6, 2000

"A Pleiad of Russian-Jewish Composers"

Izaly Zemtsovsky, International Ethnomusicologist
September 26, 2000

"Why Force Could Not Have Saved the USSR: Rethinking the Mobilization/Coercion Relationship"

Mark Beissinger, Professor of Political Science
University of Wisconsin-Madison
September 25, 2000