Inner Asian and Uralic
National Resource Center

As we do every semester, this spring the Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center partnered with the Association of Central Eurasian Students (ACES) to present the ACES Brown Bag series. The Brown Bag series is an important forum in which researchers have a chance to meet to discuss ongoing projects in a setting geared towards providing constructive feedback and useful criticism. Because of the nature of the (seemingly never-ending) ongoing digital format we have adopted this academic year, we were once again able to host a wide variety of presenters, not only from Bloomington and the Midwest, but also from all over the world. Additionally, presenters came from a variety of fields and perspectives in how they approached the Inner Asian and Uralic region.

Many thanks are due to ACES vice-president Katharine Khamhaengwong for her tireless effort in putting together a wonderful series, not only this semester, but all year long.

The following speakers and presentations constituted the Spring 2021 ACES Brown Bag series:

Julian Kreidl (Indiana University), “Zoroastrianism in Eastern Iran: Linguistic Evidence from Local Languages”

Fatema Jafari (Women’s rights activist; former councilwoman, Herat Provincial Council), “Afghan Women and Two Decades of Democracy”

Eduardo Acarón-Padilla (Indiana University), “On Historians and Skillful Storytellers: The Shāhnāmeh’s World-Making and the Rhetoric of History in the Jāmiʿ al-Tawārikh and Tārīkh-i Jahāngushāyī, 13-14 Centuries”

Marissa Smith (University of California, Berkeley), “The Rural Pastoral Lives of Mongolian Industrial Miners”

Anton Ermakov (Indiana University), “A Chicken Is Not a Bird, Mongolia Is Not Abroad: Socialist Mongolia in the Soviet Imagination”

Karolina Zygmanowska (Independent Scholar), “From an Exotic Travel Destination to Home: The Birth of the Western Community in Khüriye (Urga), 1858-1911”

Once again, the Brown Bag series proved  popular with both the general public as well as faculty members from both Indiana University and institutions with which the IAUNRC collaborates on a regular basis.

We look forward to helping the series continue to be a productive arena for conversation about our region again next semester and into the future. Please keep your eyes open for event announcements.