This seminar is an introduction to some dimension of the history of a nation, region, people, culture, institution, or historical phenomenon selected by the respective instructor. Students will come to understand, and develop an appreciation for: the origins and evolution of the people, cultures, and/or political, economic, and/or social institutions of a particular region(s) of the world. They may explore how human encounters shaped individual and collective identities and the political, economic, and social orders of the region/nation/communities under study. Instructors prioritize critical reading, engaged participation, and focused writing assignments.

The course will examine how the mobilization of civilians around a war effort often led to societal changes throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries. The course will cover the major conflicts of the last/current century. Instructor bio: I am a historian of Modern Europe with a regional focus on Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and Central Asia. My dissertation, Model Minority: Black Sea Germans, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union (1917-1991), focuses on a German minority from Sothern Ukraine that experienced multiple instances of forced relocations—from the Nazi occupation during WWII, evacuation to the Reich in 1943, repatriation by the victorious Red Army in 1945 and finally, a punitive exile to Soviet Central Asia. I examine the trajectory of the group to understand opportunities and challenges that diasporic communities faced in the Soviet Union as they attempted to preserve their identity and culture against the state's push for modernization and homogenization. My dissertation is a multi-linguistic project that engages with the national histories of Germany, Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, relying on research from multiple archives in each state. My interest in migration and religion led to a secondary project that explores the religious revival among the expelled communities in Central Asia that took place in the postwar period. I am particularly interested in the dissident Protestant and Catholic groups that crystallized in the 1950s, often under the leadership of former Gulag prisoners. Exiled to Central Asia during Stalin's purges, these survivors of the anti-religion campaign provided nascent religious communities with charismatic leadership and a touch of political radicalism, challenging the regime from the Soviet periphery. My research interests include questions of imperialism, colonialism, migration, nationalism, ethnic minorities, and religion in a comparative European-Soviet-Central Asian perspective. My work acknowledges the legacy of colonialism in Central Asia while emphasizing the region as a space of cultural and political encounters, which highlights the agency of its inhabitants. My teaching experience includes courses in Soviet and international history as well as writing seminars. I am eager to work with undergraduate students to cultivate their interest in history and explore the role that the discipline can play in their academic and professional trajectory.

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