The "Post" and the "Past" in Central Asia's Future" Conference

The "Post" and the "Past" in Central Asia's Future" Conference

14-15 March 2014,

Hosted by Cambridge Central Asia Forum & Centre for Development
Studies University of Cambridge, UK 

Call for Papers:

We are delighted to announce a call for papers for a conference titled The "Post" and the "Past" in Central Asia's Future. We welcome contributions from scholars working on Central Asia, Inner Asia, the Caucuses and contiguous Asian and
European regions Individual academic disciplines have specific designs for choosing methodologies and time frames and consequently generate specific perspectives on research problems. The application of these many and varied
perspectives in a given geographical region can result in a bewildering array of understandings regarding practices or events. The extensive literature generated on Central Asia across a number of disciplines shows considerable evidence of the difficulties involved in identifying the relations between continuous and discontinuous factors operating in the region. The continuities and discontinuities identified by each academic discipline result in a specific configuration of Central Asia and when
taken together in a multi-disciplinary framework may generate a more holistic understanding of the historical and contemporary trajectory of the region. Such a multi-disciplinary approach would be based on a reconfiguration of the particular forms of defining, dealing with and even instituting differences, distinctions and borders, within both the objects and method of study. The individual papers and panels will examine the implications of continuities and discontinuities within the spheres of
literature, religion, education, politics, society and economy to investigate the manner in which the ready translations in academic
disciplines map onto the more perplexing movements such as those between tradition and modernity, nationalism and cosmopolitanism, industrialisation and the environment, the market and the state and the citizen and the nation.