Greater Central Asia can be defined in a number of ways.For our
purposes the region will be essentially those portions of Central Asia
that have been influenced by Islam.The regions of Central Asia I specifically
hope we as a class will be interested in are the following: Xinjiang (China),Kirghizia,Tajikistan,
Uzbekistan,Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan,Afghanistan, Pakistan,Iran, Chechnia,
Azerbiajan, Georgia, Armenia.As the title of the course implies I am interested
in the contemporary crises in the region, but in order for the issues to
be appreciated students will have to acquire some knowledge of the history
of the region.Also, as the region has spawned a number of debates about
the way power and political dominance is exerted in Asia, students will
read some of the major works in these debates.
General Requirements
1)READING. This is a reading course. Class discussions
will focus on the readings. Exams will emphasize the readings.
There will be two kinds of readings, those that will be the focus
of class discussions, and an additional book to be chosen from a list of
monographs available in the library or, in a few cases, in my office.
The readings that will be the focus of our class activities are
listed below. You should stay on schedule and come prepared for class
discussions. (Changes in the reading schedule are very possible.
They will be announced in class; you will need to stay alert for such changes.).
As the details in the assigned readings are important, you should come
to class with the assigned readings in hand so that you can follow the
lectures and participate in the discussion. Much of the time we will
work directly from the assigned readings.
Some of the readings we will be using in class can be purchased
at the book store. Others will be available on erez.
BOOKS TO BE PURCHASED AT THE WASH U BOOK STORE:
> Nozar Alaolmolki. 2001. Life After the Soviet
Union: The Newly Independent Republics of Transcaucasus and Central Asia.
Albany: SUNY. $18.00 pp 1-161.
> Beatrice Manz [ed]. 1994. Central Asia in Historical
Perspective. Westview.
> Olivier Roy. 2000. The New Central Asia:
The Creation of Nations. New York: New York Univeristy.
READINGS AVAILABLE THROUGH EREZ, marked “*” in the schedule
below (roughly in the order they will be assigned).
> Evgenie Abdullaev. 2002. The Central Asian Nexus:
Islam and Politics. Pp.245-298. In: Boris Rumer,
Central Asia: Gathering Storm?
> Bakhtiar Babadzhanov. 2002. Islam in Uzbekistan:
From the Struggle for “Religious Purity” to Political Activism. Pp.299-330.
In: Boris Rumer, Central Asia: Gathering Storm?
> Cheryl Benard. 2004. Hizb ut Tahrir: Bolsheviks
in the Mosque. Journal of Central Asian Studies 6(1): 19-32.
> David Edwards: Before Taliban: Genealogies of the Afghan Jehad.Ch
2 Lives of the Party, pp. 25-56.
> Shireen T Hunter. 1998. Iran and Transcaucasia
in the Post-Soviet Era. Pp 98-125. In: David Minashri,
Central Asia Meets the Middle East. London: Cass.
> Robert McChesney. 1996. Central Asia.
> Shahrani, Nazif. 1994. Muslim Central Asia: Soviet
Development Legacies and Future Challenges. In, Mohiaddin Mesabahi,
ed., Central Asia and the Caucasus after the Soviet Union. Gainesville:
Unversity of Florida. Pp 56-71.
> A. Umnov. Islamic Fundamentalism, Ethnicity and State:
Tajik, Pak, Iran, Afghan pp 112-122. In: Yongjin Zhang and
Rouben Azizian, eds., Ethnic Challenges beyond Borders: Chinese and
Russian Perspectives of the Central Asian Conundrum. Oxford:
St Anthony’s.
ADDITIONAL OPTIONAL READINGS [available from me]
> HalfordJ. Mackinder “The geographical pivot of history” [from
Geographical Journal]
> The round world and the winning of the peace” [from Compass
of the World]
> Samuel P. Huntington. 1993. "The Clash of Civilizations."
Foreign affairs. 72, no. 3,
(Summer 1993): 22-49.
> Khodarkovsky, Michael. 2003. Colonial Frontiers in Eighteenth
Centruy Russia: From the North Caucasus to Central Asia. In
Marsra Siefert, ed., Extending the Borders of Russian History: Essays
in Honor of Alfred Rieber. Budapest: Central European University.
> McDonell, Gavan. 1996. The Euro-Asian Corridor.
[Part 6] In: Roy Allison, ed., Challenges for the Former Soviet Union.
Washington, D.C: Brookings Institution. Pp 307-352.
> Anthonly Hyman. 1994. Central Asia and the Middle
East: The Emerging Links. In, Mohiaddin Mesabahi, ed., Central
Asia and the Caucasus after the Soviet Union. Gainesville: Unversity
of Florida. Pp 248-267.
> Graham E. Fuller. 1998. The Impact of Central Asia
on the “New Middle East.” Pp. 212-227. In: David Minashri, Central Asia
Meets the Middle East. London: Cass.
> Hamed Naficy. 2002. Cinematic Exchange Relations:
Iran and the West. Pp 254-278. In: Nikki R. Keddi and
Rudi Matthee, Iran and the Surrounding World. Seattle: U. of Washington
> Peimani, Hooman. 2002. General Overview of the Caucasian and
the Central Asian Countries at the time of Independence. Ch2 + 3
In, Failed Transition, Bleak Future? War and Insatability in Central
Asia and the Caucasus. Westport, CT: Praeger. Pp. 7-57.
2) ATTENDANCE: You will be expected to attend every class
period and to be prepared to discuss the material assigned for that day.
Class attendance will definitely help in writing assignments and examinations.
There is virtually no chance of doing well without consistent exposure
to what happens in class.A record of attendance will be kept. To
facilitate that, you will be asked to sit in the same place every class
period. If you expect to miss class, please notify me first, or as
soon afterward as possible. If you miss more than 3 classes [unless
excused] you should not expect to earn an A or A-; if you miss more classes
than that please see me about the terms of continuing in the course.
3) CLASS PARTICIPATION. Please come to each class meeting
prepared to discuss the assignment for that day. You will be expected
to participate in discussions of the assigned readings. There will
be a number of lectures, but the success of the course will depend heavily
on your participation. Your comments on the readings are important
to me because they will help me track what you are actually getting out
of the assigned readings.
4) WRITTEN AND ORAL REPORTS ON YOUR PARTICULAR MONOGRAPHS.
As indicated above, each of you will read a book chosen from a list I will
provide. A written digest/summary [not a critique] will be due two
weeks before the end of the semester. It will be given to me in hard
copy and emailed to all the members of the class, and in the last several
class periods each of you will briefly summarize your book for the rest
of the class. The final paper will entail your writing a comparative
paper that synthesizes some major themes that you find in the several papers
provided by members of the class. Link
to list of monographs
5) EVALUATION EXERCISES: There may be more than one in-class
exams, and there will be at least one short paper during the semester,
plus the final paper which will attempt to synthesize major themes that
interest you in the reports of the members of the class. The exams
and the papers will be weighted more or less equally. There will
be no comprehensive examination. The lectures and class discussions
should help you grasp the assigned readings and prepare you for the evaluation
exercise (exam or paper). For exams I may give you a list of possible
questions to help you prepare. A tentative date for the exam is indicated
on the schedule below. |