This workshop revisits the academic compartmentalization that has characterized studies of Central Eurasia by re-imagining this region as an experientially interconnected sphere of commonalities and convergences transcending national borders and conventional disciplinary boundaries. The organizers envision a novel topography of nineteenth and twentieth century Central Eurasia as a distinct space at once Islamic and Asian. Such a configuration opens up new possibilities for conceptualizing the region as an integral participant in a broader landscape incorporating the Middle East, South Asia, China, and Russia. In bringing together a variety of scholars with different expertise in the study of Central Asia, this workshop revisits longstanding scholarly boundaries and explores how Central Asian Studies can offer unique contributions to broader debates in the humanities and social sciences.

1. PROGRAM
Interrogating Change: Central Asia between Timelessness and Mutability
Hamilton Hall Room 569, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, October 17, 2014
9:00­9:
30am Breakfast and Coffee
9:30­9:
45am Welcome and Introduction
Kevin Schwartz and Eren Tasar
9:45­10:
30am Keynote Address
Robert Crews, Stanford University
10:30­10:
45am Coffee Break
10:45­12:
00pm Panel I: The Persianate Sphere,
Chair: Carl Ernst, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
“Abd al­Qâdir
Bîdil and the Writing of Persianate Literary History in Central Asia and Beyond”
Kevin Schwartz, University of Maryland, College Park
“Abdulhaĭ Mujaxarfī and the Afterlives of Pre­Soviet
Tajik Literature”
Benjamin Gatling, Duke University
12:00­1:
00pm Lunch
1:00­2:
15pm Panel II: Environmental History
Chair: Eren Tasar, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
“Irrigation Systems as Hybrid Knowledge Spaces: Rethinking Colonial Relationships in Central
Asia Under Russian Rule”
Maya Peterson, University of California, Santa Cruz
“Can You Get to Socialism By Camel?: The Fate of Pastoral Nomadism in Soviet Kazakhstan,
1925­1928”
Sarah Cameron, University of Maryland, College Park
2:15­2:
45pm Coffee Break
2:45­4:
00pm Panel III: Academic and Bureaucratic Approaches to Islam
Chair: Mustafa Tuna, Duke University
“Constructing a Timeless Tradition: The Role of Jadīdist Rhetoric in Framing the Unstudied
Religious Past of Central Asia”
Devin DeWeese, Indiana University
“Bureaucratic Ethnographies of Central Asian Islam”
Eren Tasar, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
4:00­4:
15 Closing Remarks