SEMINAR SERIES- Oxford Society for the Caspian and Central Asia, May-June
Posted by: nariman skakov <nariman.skakov@univ.ox.ac.uk>
The Oxford Society for the Caspian and Central Asia
Central Asian Humanities Seminar
Trinity Term 2008 Sessions
Friday 23 May, 2008 at 5.00 pm (Trinity Term 2008 Week 5)
"Adam Thirlwell's 'Nigora': Locality and Representation"
By Adam Thirlwell, chaired by Dr. Jane Hiddleston (Exeter College, Oxford)
Location: Swire Seminar Room, 12 Merton Street, University College, Oxford
Adam Thirlwell is a British novelist and was a Prize Fellow of All
Souls College, Oxford. He is assistant editor of Areté, an arts
tri-quarterly. He has written for the Guardian and Le Monde, as well
as Esquire, the TLS and the LRB. In 2003 he published his first novel,
Politics - translated into 30 languages - and was included in Granta's
list of the twenty best young British novelists. His short story
"Nigora" (published in Zadie Smith's anthology The Book of Other
People and to be read at the seminar by the author) explores an émigré
Uzbek woman's sexuality and identity.
Friday 30 May, 2008 at 5.00 pm (Trinity Term 2008 Week 4)
"Alibek Mergenov's Kokpar: Kazakh Horsemen of Apocalypse at Play"
By Alibek Mergenov, chaired by Thomas Welsford (Harris Manchester
College, Oxford), discussant Nariman Skakov (University College, Oxford)
Location: Swire Seminar Room, 12 Merton Street, University College, Oxford
Alibek Mergenov, a young Kazakh sculptor, brings to Oxford his
award-winning work "Kokpar" (a photograph is attached). Kokpar is a
traditional Kazakh game played on horseback in which two teams of
players compete to carry an animal carcass into a goal. The sculpture
explores the idea of ethnicity threatened by post-modern reality.
Themes of violence, suffering, and loss are balanced by the sculptor's
penetrating wit and ability to reflect on contemporary artistic
trends. The sculpture will be on display in the seminar room and there
will be a Q&A session with the artist.
Friday 13 June, 2008 at 5.00 pm (Trinity Term 2008 Week 8)
"Traditional Overtone Music: Cultural Policy in Soviet and Post-Soviet Tuva"
By Professor Valentina Suzukei, chaired by Dr. Martin Stokes (St
John's College, Oxford)
Location: Swire Seminar Room, 12 Merton Street, University College, Oxford
Professor Suzukei is a leading authority on the Tuvan overtone
("throat") singing tradition. She co-authored Where Rivers and
Mountains Sing: Sound, Music and Nomadism in Tuva and Beyond with
Theodore Levin - a substantial contribution to ethnomusicology.
Professor Suzukei will present a short documentary (subtitled in
English) about the Tuvan musical tradition and will discuss how soviet
cultural politics focused on the cultural backwardness of non-Slavic
ethnic groups in the country. These policies "Europeanized" musical
instruments and musical repertories in an attempt to integrate Tuva
into a unified cultural front with a socialist orientation.
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