Alun Thomas
Associate Professor of Eurasian Studies at University of Staffordshire. Interested in Central Asia and Russia. Branch Development Officer for Staffs UCU.
- Reposted by Alun ThomasThe book is out! www.hup.harvard.edu/books/978067...
- A PhD opportunity at Malmö University, 'with a focus on administrative law reform and authoritarian legitimation in Central Asia'. Deadline 31st Jan. If anyone's interested I can put you in touch with people at Malmö. web103.reachmee.com/ext/I005/101...
- Reposted by Alun ThomasMuch has been said about the colonial roots of anthropology. Area studies have been criticized for being an arm of US soft power. Western academia and soft power structures provided employment for those with niche interests in other places. But what happens now that it’s all crumbling?
- Honest question, not at all snarky: why don't journal editors ever send brief notes of thanks to peer reviewers? I always submit prompt and (I'd like to think) fair, thorough peer reviews, and a two-sentence email of thanks would really hit the spot sometimes.
- 'Eurasian exchanges: Central Asian nomadic pastoralists, mountain ecosystems, and market economies in the early twentieth century', by Jennifer Keating UCD [open access] www.cambridge.org/core/service...
- Reposted by Alun ThomasCongratulations to Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky, winner of the Barbara Jelavich Book Prize for Empire of Refugees: North Caucasian Muslims and the Late Ottoman State with Stanford University Press. #ASEEESPrizes See all winners: buff.ly/rh9Tt7b
- Reposted by Alun ThomasSince this wound up being a popular thread, sharing an excellent backgrounder on the elections in Kyrgyzstan from @aijanco.bsky.social in The Diplomat: thediplomat.com/2025/11/is-p...
- Reposted by Alun ThomasWe're advertising!!! www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DPK289/a...
- Incredible resource for Central Asianists, just as you'd expect from Sergei Abashin: abashin.org
- Returning to teaching materials that I devised years ago provides a vivid sense of how far we've moved. The agonising efforts I made to force students to really think about the minutiae of bias, subjectivity, (in)accuracy, in source material; it all seems so quaint in the era of Google's AI summary.
- Reposted by Alun ThomasInstead of building on Bishkek’s advantages (it was such a lush and green city, trolleybuses, new bike lanes). The authorities are going tabula rasa with the promise of a bombastic leap into the future, an attempt to imitate Almaty, Tashkent and the Gulf states all at once
- My new article has just been made available online, open access, with Urban History. It looks at how Kyrgyz pastoralists, returning to the Chui Valley after the violence of 1916, were received in their new capital city in the early Soviet period 1/2 doi.org/10.1017/S096...
- Bishkek (Frunze) was in a tough spot following the Civil War, and local authorities were loath to let herders compromise its fragile urban envionment. They did, though, and not as a sop to the ideology of national emancipation, but for reasons of economic and political pragmatism 2/2
- Manas Airport in Bishkek finally changes its IATA code from FRU (to BSZ). FRU was a legacy of the Soviet era when Bishkek was named after Mikhail Frunze, a Bolshevik revolutionary born in the city. 24.kg/english/3391...
- Earlier this year I was looking at documents about the clearing of land for the construction of the airport and its connecting road. And a little warning about the dangers of digital automation: the code change has played havoc with some flight bookings I've been making.
- Reposted by Alun ThomasThe BASEES Eurasian Regions Study Group have put together a roundtable at #ICCEES on publishing in academic journals for postgraduates and early career researchers. Come along to meet friendly editors and ask questions! You can submit questions anonymously here too: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
- Reposted by Alun ThomasHeading to #ICCEES2025 next week? We have put together a list of sessions that may be of interest to Peripheral Histories? readers here: www.peripheralhistories.co.uk/post/iccees-...
- Reposted by Alun ThomasMy forthcoming article on the Thaw in Tatarstan is now available online through The Russian Review. Thanks to colleagues and friends who helped make it possible!
- It's easy to roll your eyes at much of the research governance jargon, but 'original contribution to knowledge' does neatly encapsulate some of what we do that ChatGPT absolutely does not do.
- Reposted by Alun ThomasDelighted to contribute to this book of essays by authors around the world examining 35 of the world's pressing problems - for me it was "Is Democracy Under Threat?" Thanks to Dosym Satpayev for being the inspiration for the book. Now in bookshops in Kazakhstan + on Kaspi - buy it!
- Reposted by Alun ThomasToday's Central Asian Photo of the Day: 📷 The statue of Lenin in Osh, a city in southern Kyrgyzstan. Once the biggest Lenin in Central Asia, Kyrgyz authorities took it down this week. lifeincentralasia.picfair.com/images/02163...
- Assuming they use the interview I'll be on the BBC World Service tonight at 10pm chatting to Lyse Doucet(!) about Kyrgyzstan.
- Basically I said the statue story is about the local politics of Osh, and the big question (which I don't think I've seen answered yet?) is less why Lenin came down, but who replaces him on that plinth...
- Oh wait I was on at 9 😅
- Reposted by Alun ThomasThe last two days have seen 2 bits of bad news in academic publishing: Oxford UP using AI copyediting, and now Amsterdam UP being gobbled up by T&F. The journal I edit, @contemplevant.bsky.social, is published by T&F, and that’s not something that can be changed in the short/medium term, but…
- Reposted by Alun ThomasWe are heading to Alaska with our latest post. Many thanks to Aglaia Gulakova for sharing her fascinating research on the history of Old Believers’ migration and resettlement www.peripheralhistories.co.uk/post/in-purs...
- I was Chair of my union branch when my university made 10% cuts in staffing and it was extremely tough. I don't have any special insight into how the sector is faring, but what I keep thinking is: in c. 10 years the press/business/civil service are going to ask for an expert in x or y... 1/2
- ...and universities will say: we don't have an expert in x or y because the postdoc who was going to be that expert was let go 10 years ago. Other countries don't have the structures to foster hugely diverse homegrown academic expertise. We are squandering our inheritance. 2/2
- *not all other countries. Plenty do.
- Reposted by Alun ThomasBASEES is delighted to announce three annual prizes recognising the contribution of those teaching Slavonic, East European and Eurasian Studies (and the languages thereof). * Early Career Excellence * Distinguished Excellence * Language Teaching Excellence Full information basees.org/teaching-exc...
- Last week we ran a workshop together with Kyrgyz scholars entitled 'Power and Space in Kyrgyzstan', kindly hosted by the OSCE Academy in Bishkek. I am very grateful to have such generous colleagues. www.osce-academy.net/en/news/full...
- Reposted by Alun ThomasHeading to Cambridge this week for the Conference on Baltic Studies in Europe? Here's a sneak peek of our 📹 documentary film 🎬 with the wonderful Maarja Merivoo-Parro and Sanita Reinsone for our panel on solidarity in the Baltics in the long 20th century! 📆 25 April 15:30 @balticstudies.bsky.social
- Суусамыр 🇰🇬
- Ала-Арча 🇰🇬
- Slightly obsessed with this little shoe repair place in central Osh.
- Reposted by Alun ThomasI've changed my Bluesky handle. It's now the same as my website: @jonathancampion.com. Take a look at the newly updated jonathancampion.com for: – Some escapism, with photographs and stories from Eurasia; – My bio / life story; – Posts about cricket, travel, camel's milk, and Uzbek wine.
- Reposted by Alun ThomasFinding your bearings in Osh, Kyrgyzstan: jonathancampion.com/2024/11/06/f...
- Beshbarmak
- Stephan Rindlisbacher and I have co-organised an event on the modern history of Kyrgyzstan at the OSCE Academy in Bishkek on the afternoon of 17th April. I am incredibly excited about this event, which will bring us together with Kyrgyz and Kazakh scholars. 1/2 www.osce-academy.net/en/events/fu...
- Building stronger bridges between British and Central Asian scholarship is a key aim for me during my time in Kyrgyzstan. If you'd like to know more, please DM me.
- From this Friday I'll be in Kyrgyzstan for fieldwork, visiting Bishkek, Osh and Talas. Would be nice to see some friendly faces if anyone else will be there too. Back to UK in early May. 🇰🇬🇬🇧
- This will be a very important book, seriously impressive scholarship, out 15th April.
- To pass the quality threshold but lose out in randomised allocation once is bad luck; to pass the quality threshold but lose out in randomised allocation twice is...?
- Reposted by Alun ThomasIn our latest post, you can learn more about the development of LGBT studies and the normalisation of queerness in Estonia. Check out Rasa Kamarauskaitė's (@balticbasees.bsky.social) interview with Estonian sexualities scholar Rebeka Põldsam www.peripheralhistories.co.uk/post/periphe...
- Today I begin an AHRC Curiosities Award project 'Staggered Decolonisation: Power and Space in Kyrgyzstan, 1924-2024'. The project follows the distribution of Kyrgyz land across the Soviet and post-Soviet eras. Stephan Rindlisbacher and I will begin working in regional Kyrgyz archives in late March.
- We'll be organising a couple of workshops, writing a journal article, and seeking more funds to build international capacity for the study of this topic. All before January 2026... incredibly daunted but excited too.
- Reposted by Alun ThomasLooks like @europe-asia.bsky.social has landed on @bsky.app. Follow our account to stay updated about online articles, the publication of new issues, and much more!
- Reposted by Alun ThomasOn 5 March, we will host an interdisciplinary workshop 'Migration, Mobilities, and Borders in Eurasia' at Manchester. We invite paper proposals on any aspect of migration & borders in Eurasia in historical or contemporary perspective. Deadline 31 January & CfP here: drive.google.com/file/d/1ETY6...
- Reposted by Alun ThomasHappy New Year! Our first post for 2025 is an author interview with @dacretu.bsky.social, whose wonderful book 'Foreign Aid and State Building in Interwar Romania: In Quest of an Ideal' was published last month. www.peripheralhistories.co.uk/post/foreign...
- Reposted by Alun ThomasOur guest-edited Baltic series draws to a close with Mann Loper's fascinating post on the establishment of national education and the development of the history school curriculum in interwar Estonia: www.peripheralhistories.co.uk/post/nationa...
