The JSTWs offered by REEEC during the summer are an excellent opportunity to advance academically and professionally. Workshops are moderated by well-respected experts in their field, and the topics covered are on trend with current area studies research.

Visit: www.reeec.illinois.edu/srl/apply to apply!

Central Asian Sovereignty in the Face of Massive Economic Dislocation: Globalization, Labor Migration and Other Discontents Moderator: Russell Zanca, Ph.D. Northeastern Illinois University, Anthropology
In bringing together young scholars who are cognizant of and interested in labor migration as a main globalizing dynamic in Central Asia, participants will examine the question of why Central Asia has traveled down the road to antagonism and a lack of prosperity, and what innovations or mechanisms will need to arise or be put in place so that failing state models do not characterize the Central Asian states in the future.

Sources will include scholarship, institutional reports, and analytical journalism focusing on labor migration, weak and failed states, foreign aid/advice programs, international disputes, state resources management, attempts to strengthen alliances, and inter-ethnic conflict.

Space and Circulation in Russian and Eurasian Studies Moderators: John Randolph, Ph.D., University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, History and Kelly O’Neill, Ph.D., Harvard University, History
This workshop will bring together scholars from a variety of disciplines who are interested in using the analysis of spatial relationships—and of the circulation of people, things and information across our geography—to discover and interpret important problems in Russian and Eurasian studies. We will consider such topics as the potential meaning of recent literatures on space and mobility for our discipline; the variety of tools (such as Geographical Information Systems, or GIS) that scholars are using to analyze spaces and the relationships that cross them; and the question of how to frame and visualize research, in terms of space and circulation, to maximum effect.

The workshop will build from a short selection of readings and web-based materials, as a basis for common discussion. It will then revolve around presentation of participants’ ongoing research projects, focusing on the role of space and systems of circulation within them.The moderators will also present their work.