The CEUS Department NewsletterFaculty, Student, and Alumni news

Editor: Marianne Kamp, Associate Professor, CEUS

Sections: Faculty News, Student News, Alumni News, Fundraising

The lengthy hiatus of the CEUS newsletter is over. Here’s a quick version of CEUS history since the last issue of the newsletter. CEUS became part of the newly formed School of Global and International Studies (now the Hamilton Lugar School) in 2014, moving out of Goodbody Hall and into a new building conveniently located a few meters from Wells Library. CEUS added undergraduate major and minor programs to our better known graduate programs. And of course there have been retirements, new hires, graduations.

The year of Covid forced us to join the digital age at high speed. Faculty members have been teaching on Zoom and also offering a few small in-person classes. The third floor, where our offices are and our students traditionally congregate, has been nearly silent. No international visitors have graced CEUS with their presence, and all of our invited lectures have been virtual, enabling us to enjoy all sorts of academic riches, but depriving us of the opportunities to expand our scholarly networks through casual conversations and over shared food. However, talks sponsored by the department have attracted far larger audiences than we could dream of when events are live and in person. Zoomland knows no boundaries.

Faculty News

Professor Devin DeWeese retired in December 2019. Aziza Shanazarova, who studied with him and earned her PhD in 2019, hosted a recognition event that took advantage of our technologically interconnected world. Scholars from around the world, including many of DeWeese’s colleagues from Uzbekistan and his students, sent in videos that celebrated his many achievements.

Assistant Professor Kate Graber’s book, Mixed Messages: Mediating Native Belonging in Asian Russia, was published in 2020 by Cornell University Press, and Kate has been busy with book talks. Here is Kate’s talk for Columbia University’s Harriman Institute https://harriman.columbia.edu/event/virtual-event-kathryn-e-graber and her book talk as a podcast for “The Slavic Connexion.” https://www.slavxradio.com/graber

Elisa Rasanen published an article that draws on her experience in teaching Finnish in CEUS, using collaborative chats and blended learning pedagogies that are especially relevant for teaching that adapts to Covid circumstances. Räsänen, E. & Muhonen, A. “Moi moi! Te olette siistejä!”: Chattailyä, itsestä kertomista ja yhteisöllisyyttä pohjoisamerikkalaisissa suomen ohjelmissa. (”Bye bye! You are cool!” Chatting, sharing about oneself and community building in North American Finnish programs.) In Latomaa, S. & Lauranto, Y. (edit.) 2020 p. 82-96. https://helda.helsinki.fi/handle/10138/317706

Jamsheed Choksy has been dividing his time between working on pre-Islamic Iran topics, considering the state of area studies, and speaking to current issues. His article “Friendship in Pre-Islamic Iranian Writings,” appears in Friendship in Islamic Ethics and World Politics. https://www.press.umich.edu/11300847/friendship_in_islamic_ethics_and_world_politics In November 2020, he spoke to the Naval Postgraduate College in one of his many recent public talks: “Beyond the JCPOA: Iran and the US.”

Lazlo Borhi investigates the hidden relationship between D-Day, Hungary’s secret attempt to change sides in WWII, the German occupation of Hungary and the Holocaust, in “The Allies, Secret Talks and the German Invasion of Hungary, 1943-1944” in Hungarian Studies Review http://hungarianstudies.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/HSR-Vol-46-47-2019-2020.pdf

Michael Brose and his colleague Su Min published a chapter on Muslim halal commerce in China, “Pedagogy as Marketing: Halal E-Commerce in Yunnan,” in a volume entitled Ethnographies of Islam in China. https://uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/ethnographies-of-islam-in-china/

A chapter by Chris Beckwith, “Vihāras in the Kushan Empire” came out in The Limits of Empire in Ancient Afghanistan: Rule and Resistance in the Hindu Kush, circa 600 bce – 600 ce. https://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de/titel_6606.ahtml

Marianne Kamp’s article on oral history, “Oral History: American Schools of Thought, and an American’s Research in Uzbekistan,” was published in O’zbekiston Tarixi, 2020/3: 126-136. In May she gave a Zoom talk based on oral histories of collectivization in Uzbekistan, for the American University of Central Asia’s Anthropology Club: “If they didn’t pay, why would anyone have worked?”

Gulnisa Nazarova gave an interview on Uyghur language for Uyghur National TV.

Gyorgy Kara published an article racing the Mongol and Tibetan sources of some of the quatrains of the Ordos Prince Sagang’s maxims written for his clansmen. “On some sources of Sagang Sechen’s Teachings (1662)” in Acta Orient. Hung. 73 (2020), 605-617. https://akjournals.com/view/journals/062/062-overview.xml

Transeurasian languages are well known for ambiguous verb+verb sequences. Öner Özçelik authored a chapter on ambiguous verb sequences in Turkic languages, presenting a phonological analysis: Özçelik, Öner. 2020. “A formal phonological and acoustic analysis of verb sequences in Turkic languages”, 223-233 in a volume on ambiguous verb sequences: https://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de/title_6513.ahtml

Toivo Raun served as the external examiner for a Ph.D defense at the University of Helsinki for Elina Pallasvirta. The title of her dissertation is Transatlanttinen fennougristiikka: Suomalais-Yhdysvaltalaiset suhteet ja tieteenalan kehitys toisesta maailmasodasta 1960-luvulle (Transatlantic Finno-Ugristics: Finnish-American Relations in the Field of Finno-Ugric Linguistics from the Second World War to the 1960s).

This is nothing like an exhaustive list of faculty activities: expect to hear about others in the next iteration of the newsletter.

In Memory of Professor İlhan Başgöz 

Professor Başgöz, who taught generations of students Turkish folklore, oral literature, passed away on April 13, 2021, at age 99. A fuller account of his career will be published in the next edition of the newsletter. Those who knew him and studied with him are invited to send in their memories and tributes.

News about CEUS Students

With leadership from CEUS grad students Sam Robertson, Corinna Fuller, Katharine Khamhaengwong, Anton Emakov, and Ardahbek Amantur, the amazing Association of Central Eurasian Students, CEUS’s grad student organization, successfully moved the 2021 edition of their annual conference to an all online format. For details, see the ACES website: https://aces.sitehost.iu.edu/

Kenny Linden, doctoral candidate, has given numerous presentations on his dissertation, including “Zud, and Wolves: Environmental and Animal History of Collectivization in Mongolia” “at” the University of Cambridge’s renowned Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit (MIASU). https://www.miasu.socanth.cam.ac.uk/events/seminar-23-february-kenneth-linden

Joey Cleveland was awarded a Fulbright-Hays to complete his dissertation research in Mongolia in 2020-21, or when the pandemic allows. Joey’s dissertation research in Mongolia examines infrastructure breakdowns in postsocialism, focusing on the provision of hot water. His project will investigate how infrastructure such as sidewalks and public utilities—and especially their absence or breakdown—mediate political subjectivity.

Jennifer Dubeansky, doctoral candidate, co-authored an article with Jamsheed Choksy: “Ancient Iranian Stamp Seals in the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum,” in Dinars and Dirhams: Festschrift in Honor of Michael Bates. https://brill.com/view/title/59864

Emily Stranger, doctoral candidate, published an article based on her MA research: : “Iran’s Fire Ant Warfare,” Real Clear World, https://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2020/01/10/irans_fire_ant_warfare_212157.html

Mustafa Durmaz, CEUS PhD student, has recently completed authoring an ‘Introductory Kurmanji (Kurdish)’ textbook, working with CeLCAR under Öner Özçelik’s supervision.

Jessica Storey-Nagy was awarded the REEI Mellon Endowment Dissertation Write-up Fellowship for 2021-2022.

Two CEUS doctoral students finished their PhDs in 2020: Kwang Tae Lee, writing about 19th century Central Asia; and Xuan Li, on Tibet in the Reforms of the 1980s. Here’s a link to the Alumni page, where you can find the complete titles of their dissertations. https://ceus.indiana.edu/alumni/index.html

Three CEUS graduate students earned MA degrees in 2020: Keith Seeley, writing on the Kitan Liao state; Mustafa Aksu, writing about Uyghur labor, migration and cultural challenges; Shafiq Mubarak, writing about a peace deal for Afghanistan; Ismet Herdem, writing about Turkish Hezbollah.

CEUS has seen increasing numbers of undergraduate majors. Here is a list of recent graduates who completed a CEUS major, for Fall 2019, Spring 2020, and Fall 2020: Owen Adams, Alex Combs, Andrew Cotton, Max DeMar, Nikhil Jain, Ian Riley, Nick Schaffer, Jack Stewart, Quentin Swaryczewski. Students who minored in CEUS and graduated in 2020 include Rylan Deer, Kavya Gandra, Andrew Greco, and Andrew Hest.

This list may not be complete, and editor hopes that any graduate of CEUS whose name was inadvertently left out will get in touch and provide a correction. The Spring 2021 graduation list will be included in the fall edition of this newsletter.

Alumni Notes

Alumni notes in this edition of the newsletter come from comments sent to the editor by faculty members. We hope that alumni will write in and share some news about your own lives and accomplishments.

Nicole Willock (2011) published her work on Tibetan polymaths: https://cup.columbia.edu/book/lineages-of-the-literary/9780231197076

Aziza Shanazarova (2019) had her critical edition of a Central Asian Sufi woman’s story published: https://cup.columbia.edu/book/lineages-of-the-literary/9780231197076

Tim Grose’s (2014) book on the Xinjiang Class won the Central Eurasian Studies Society’s book prize: http://thecessblog.com/2020/10/author-interview-2/

Thomas Cooper (2003) is now a leading translator of Hungarian poetry and prose.

Prof. Dr. Tsuguhito Takeuchi (1951-2021) passed away in April 2021. He was an acclaimed linguist and philologist of the Tibetan language, especially Old Tibetan documents. His doctoral dissertation from Indiana University was published as a book entitled Old Tibetan Contracts from Central Asia (by Daizo Shuppan), which has been widely cited by many Tibetanists. He constructed an online database for Old Tibetan documents, cataloging wooden slips preserved in the British Library, and deciphering the documents of the Zhangzhung language. He taught English, Japanese, and Tibetan linguistics at Kinki University and at Kyoto University of Education and Kobe City University of Foreign Studies.

Fundraising

Every department at any university always tries to raise funds, and CEUS is no exception. We celebrate a recent announcement that the Tang Foundation will endow a professorship in CEUS for Silk Road Studies!

Please consider making a donation of any size to CEUS. You can do so through the IU Foundation portal for CEUS: Make a Gift (myiu.org)

Include a message that can direct your donation to one of the Department priorities, such as supporting undergraduate scholarships and study abroad, or graduate scholarships and research funds, or for a specific area, such as the Elliott Sperling memorial fund for Tibetan Studies.

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