Anyone is welcome to attend one or multiple panel sessions, but they are encouraged to read the paper of the session that they attend. Please contact Nick Seay (seay.27@osu.edu) for access to the paper of a given session.
Day 1 (September 12th, 2025)
8:30 - 9:00 AM - Check-In and Light Breakfast
9:00 - 10:00 AM – Session 1 • Magne, Iris, “Vaccine Diplomacy and the Political Economy of Influence: Russia, China, and the Contest for Central Asia” Discussant: Dr. James Harris (Ohio State University)
10:00 – 10:30 AM – Coffee Break
10:30 – 11:30 AM – Session 2 • Saini, Ayushi, “Beyond Infrastructure: Political Ecology and the Uneven Impacts of the BRI in Kazakhstan” Discussant: Dr. Max Woodworth (Ohio State University)
11:30 AM- 12:30 PM – Session 3 • Jeenbekova, Anara, “Crimean Tatars and Internal Migration in the Soviet Union” Discussant: Dr. David Hoffmann (Ohio State University)
12:30 - 1:30 PM – Lunch (Provided)
1:30 – 2:30 PM – Session 4 • Brown, Rikki, “Venture Capitalist Formulations and Articulations of Informality in Georgia’s Wine and Winemaking Industry” Discussant: Dr. Artemy Kalinovsky (Temple University)
2:30 – 3:30 PM – Session 5 • Hanson, Mia, “Issues of Building Communism: Occupational Safety and the Soviet Economy in Kazakhstan, 1950s-1960s” Discussant: Dr. David Hoffmann (Ohio State University)
3:30 - 4:00 PM – Break 4:00 - 5:00 PM – Session 6 • Redjaboev, Khasan, “Bound by the State: Women, Forced Labor, and Communist Colonial Legacies in Eurasia” Discussant: Dr. Artemy Kalinovsky (Temple University)
Day 2 (September 13th, 2025)
8:30 - 9:00 AM - Check-In and Light Breakfast
9:00 - 10:00 AM – Session 7 • Seay, Nicholas, “Soviet Mahinakh: Seed Selection and the Prestige of Long Fiber Cotton in Soviet Tajikistan” Discussant: Dr. Kathryn Graber (Indiana University)
10:00 – 10:30 AM – Coffee Break
10:30 – 11:30 AM – Session 8 • Zhou, Yipeng, “Commodity Against Market: The Moral Economy of Copper Pricing in Imperial Russia” Discussant: Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle (Ohio State University)
11:30 AM- 12:30 PM – Session 9 • Maier, Alexander, “The Ethics of Mobility: Economic Uncertainty and Moral Reckoning in Tajikistan’s Migrant Labor Economy” Discussant: Dr. Zarina Jurakulova (Denison University)
12:30 - 1:30 PM – Lunch (Provided)
1:30 – 2:30 PM – Session 10 • Sharipov, Shokhruz, “Women in the Uzbek SSR during the 1920s-1930s: Soviet Economic Policy and the Transformation of Female Labor in Agriculture and Industry Discussant: Dr. Kathryn Graber (Indiana University)
2:30 – 3:30 PM – Session 11 • Lacey, Kim, “Home is Where We Are” (Soviet Koreans after the Dissolution of the USSR) Discussant: Dr. Pil Ho Kim (Ohio State University)
3:30 - 4:00 PM – Break 4:00 - 5:00 PM – Session 12 • Osipov, Alexander, “Commodification of Kazakh Nature: Laws, Poachers, and Royal Hunting” Discussant: Dr. Kathryn Graber (Indiana University)
7:00 PM – Dinner, Location TBD
The CESS 2025 Graduate Workshop is grateful for support from the following sponsors:
Bourse & Bazaar Foundation
Center for Governance and Markets, University of Pittsburgh
Central Eurasian Studies Society
Department of History, Ohio State University
Department of Near Eastern and South Asian Languages and Literatures, Ohio State University
East Asian Studies Center, Ohio State University
Mershon Center, Ohio State University
