Season’s Greetings to all well-wishers of the IAUNRC,
The center’s signature lecture series for the 2023-24 academic year, “Minorities in Central Eurasian Societies,” is proceeding ahead full steam. In September, Dr. Eden Naby of Harvard University spoke in person on “The Modern Assyrian Historical Record: An American Family Adventure.” In conjunction with her lecture, the IAUNRC and the Wells Library held a month-long exhibition of records relating to Assyrian immigration from the Lake Urmiya region of Iran to the United States of America. Associate Professor Sara Shneiderman of the University of British Columbia came to campus in October to present on “Between Ethnicity and Nationality, Practice and Performance: Tibetan and Himalayan Cultural Identities and their Transborder Expressions,” a lecture that meshed well with other Tibetan studies activities cosponsored by IAUNRC this semester. Then, during October, Associate Professor Kadri Koreinik came online from the University of Tartu to discuss “Different Paths to Revival: Estonian Võro and Seto-Speakers in Focus.” Finally, as December began, Professor Uli Schamiloglu who is chair of the Department of Kazakh Language and Turkic Studies at Nazarbayev University, edified our online audience on “The Tatar Diaspora in Central Asia.” All these lectures could be attended via Zoom, so global listeners were present. The lectures will be posted on the IAUNRC website as well so, if you missed attending, please access them electronically.
Looking ahead to the spring 2024 semester, please join us in person or virtually for more lectures on “Minorities in Central Eurasian Societies.” The second part of this series will kick off with an in-person and online lecture on the Zoroastrian minority in Iran, followed by online lectures about Hungarian culture and identity in Transylvania and Sami education in Finland, respectively, and conclude with an in-person lecture on Judeo-Persian literature. Please visit the IAUNRC website regularly for more details.
In the holiday spirit, let me call upon you to consider donating generously to IAUNRC so we can continue programming these and other stimulating and important activities for faculty, students, and the general public.
The most competent IAUNRC team—Kasia Rydel-Johnston, Heysol Buitrago, Ben Storsved, Stu McLaughlin, Mira Kuzhakhmetova, and Anton Ermakov—made this lecture series and all our other activities not just possible but highly successful. My thanks to each of them.
Happy Holidays and all the very best for 2024!
Jamsheed
Dr. Jamsheed K. Choksy
Director, Inner Asian & Uralic National Resource Center
Distinguished Professor, Department of Central Eurasian Studies
Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies