EVENT- Walking the Gobi Event, Globe Corner Bookstore, Harvard Square, Jan. 31

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Central Eurasian Studies at Harvard University

EVENT- Walking the Gobi Event, Globe Corner Bookstore, Harvard Square, Jan. 31

Posted by: Maya Peterson <mayaworld@gmail.com>

The Globe Corner Bookstores
Adventure Travel Lecture Series

Event Summary:

Thursday, January 31st

Helen Thayer - "Walking the Gobi"

Helen Thayer will read from "Walking the Gobi". Thayer has been named
"One of the Great Explorers of the 20th Century" by National Geographic.

Information for the Above Event:

Location: First Parish Church, Mass. Ave at Church Street, Harvard Square
Accessibility: Wheelchair Accessible
Time: 6 p.m.
Admission: Free
Reservations: 617-649-5700 x21 or events@gcb.com
Addit. Info: www.globecorner.com

Detailed Event Description:

Helen Thayer will read from "Walking the Gobi:" She'll talk about her
and her husband Bill's adventures as the first man and woman to walk
the entire length (almost 1,500 miles), east to west, of the Mongolian
Gobi Desert. They persevered as they faced Siberian winds,
accompanying sand storms, heat reaching 126 degrees, scarcity of water
and plenty of scorpions. The Thayers' time spent with the Gobi
Desert's nomads is one of many remarkable experiences described in her book.

Named "One of the Great Explorers of the 20th Century" by National
Geographic, Thayer noted that she"first heard of the Gobi as a 13 year
old growing up in New Zealand. Then the Gobi was as far away as the
moon; now at 63 the dream has come full circle."

Her previous feats are impressive. In 1988, she became the first woman
to walk and ski to either pole when she trekked solo to the Magnetic
North Pole without dog sled or snowmobile. She was the first woman and
first American to circumnavigate the Magnetic North Pole. Her amazing
adventure with her beloved companion Charlie (her Canadian Eskimo
Husky) was the basis for her first book, "Polar Dreams."

For further information, please email/call me or access our web Events
page at:

http://www.globecorner.com/events/events.html.

Harriet Carrier
The Globe Corner Bookstores
www.globecorner.com
hcarrier@gcb.com, 617-649-5700 x27t

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SPRING COURSE- The Meanings of Islam in Central Asia

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Central Eurasian Studies at Harvard University

SPRING COURSE- The Meanings of Islam in Central Asia

Posted by: John Schoeberlein <centasia@fas.harvard.edu>

Spring Term Course:

The Meanings of Islam in Central Asia
Islamic Civilizations 160
John Schoeberlein

Spring term, Wednesdays, 2:00 - 4:00 (First meeting: Wed., Jan. 30)
Room: CGIS South S-354

The course examines the changing role of Islam in Central Asia through
history from a multidisciplinary perspective. It considers the
diversity and multi-dimensionality of Islam as it influences social,
cultural, political and religious life. Themes include: Islam and
social order; Islam under Russian and Communist rule; Sufism,
modernist Islam, "fundamentalism" and other forms of belief and
practice; and the dynamic new role of Islam in the region following
independence in 1991.

The following are some of the major topics to be addressed:

1) The historical development and diversity of Islamic civilization in
Central Asia.
2) Islam under the rule of the Russian empire, the Soviet Union, and
independent states.
3) Islam and its relations to other traditions: Issues of conversion,
syncretism, and confrontation with other religious traditions and
belief systems.
4) Islam as religion and belief system: Central Asia's role in the
broader traditions, schools, orders and reform movements.
5) Islamic principles of social order: Hereditary roles, teachers,
judges, healers, Islamic principles of authority, of community, of
family relations, and of government and participation.
6) Islam as way of life: Ritual practice, other Muslim cultural
practices, principles of daily behavior, and the mixture of Muslim
ways of being with Soviet and post-Soviet ways.
7) Islam as a principle and structure of political mobilization:
Islamic opposition, state legitimacy, reform, and "fundamentalism";
Roles of Islamic movements in relation to secular, non-Islamic, or
anti-Islamic regimes.

The realm of Islam in Central Asia is currently undergoing tremendous
change with far-reaching implications for the future of the region and
beyond -- making it a fascinating topic to explore.

Please pass this information on to other who you think might be
interested in joining the course.

For more information, contact:

Dr. John Schoeberlein \ Director
Program on Central Asia and the Caucasus
Davis Center \ Harvard University
1730 Cambridge St., Room S-320 \ Cambridge, MA 02138 \ USA
tel.: +1/617-495-4338
schoeber@fas.harvard.edu
Central Asia Program website: http://centasia.fas.harvard.edu

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EVENT- Armenian Music of Grikor Mirzaian Suni (1876-1939), Jan. 17, Ann Arbor

Distrib. by: Central-Eurasia-L - Announcement List for Central Eurasian Studies

Posted by: Gloria Caudill <gcaudill@umich.edu>

EVENT- Armenian Music of Grikor Mirzaian Suni (1876-1939), Jan. 17, Ann Arbor

Thursday, January 17, 2008
Please save this date and time 7:30 pm
for a very special, unique Armenian Event, sponsored by
the Tekeyan Cultural Association, at The Armenian Congregational Church,
26210 West 12 Mile Rd. (at Franklin Road, near Northwestern Highway,
between Northwestern and Telegraph), Southfield, Michigan 48034-1772
Church T: 248.352.0680

Our Concert of Armenian music of
Grikor Mirzaian Suni (1876-1939)
Performed by singers
Maro Partamian, mezzo-soprano and Rubik Mailian, lyric tenor
and pianist Armena Marderosian,
(wife of Grikor Suni's grandson U. Michigan Professor Ronald Grigor Suny)
with great granddaughters of the composer Grikor Mirzaian Suni
Violinist sisters Sevan Siranoush Suni, 25 and Anoush Tamar Suni, 20
Anoush Suni will also play oud

Armenian composer, musicologist, conductor, and teacher Grikor
Mirzaian Suni (1876-1939) is one of the founders of modern Armenian
music. Born east of Lake Sevan in Getabek village, he was raised in
the eastern reaches of Historic Armenia, in Shushi (now part of
Azerbaijan). Suni's music is beautiful, soulful, lively classical art
music based in Armenian folk music of his own collecting, and includes
vocal solos and duets, 4-part choral works, orchestral suites, and
instrumental pieces. His music is unique and at the same time
"Armenian", and like the music of Bach is polyphonic, contrapuntal,
and versatile, wonderful on any instruments. From a long line of
Armenian ashough singers, Mirzaian (Suni) worked with all the Armenian
masters of his time, and then at the St. Petersburg Conservatory of
Music, Mirzaian Suni studied composition with Rimsky-Korsakov. Suni
collected the songs of Armenians during his wide travels in the
Caucasus, Anatolia, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Iran, and India. World war,
revolution, and the genocide of the Ottoman Armenians caused Suni to
flee to the US in 1923, where he conducted church choirs, created
Armenian folk choruses, soloists and orchestras, in New York, Boston,
Detroit, Chicago and Philadelphia (where he settled in 1925), and
supported Armenia from afar. His son Gourgen (George) Suny picked up
his father's baton in 1939.

contact: armena1949@gmail.com See our website

www.suniproject.org to
hear 4 hours of his music, see photos, read about him, see a 2 minute
video of old Armenian men from the Armenian city of Van dancing in New
York in 1946 "Dancing Vanetsi's", and more!
The Suni Project: Music Preservation is nonprofit 501(c)3 based in Ann
Arbor, MI

Please put this concert date onto your calendars: Thursday, January
17, 2008 at 7:30 pm.

A small admission charge benefits the Tekeyan Cultural Association:
$20, $10 for students. Audience youngest is age 12.

To go to Armenian Congregational Church from Ann Arbor: Take 23 North
to 14 East to 275 North to 696 East to Telegraph Rd = 24 North (OR
take 23 North to 14 East to 96 East to Telegraph Road = 24 North) to
exit Telegraph Rd = 24 at 12 Mile Rd, go LEFT on 12 Mile Rd, almost to
Northwestern Highway to the Armenian Congregational Church.. The
church is on your right at Franklin Rd. before a bank (north side of
12 Mile Road), set back from the road, parallel to the road, with no
visible outside cross: Armenian Congregational Church 26210 West
12Mile Rd, Southfield, MI.

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PUBL.- Journal of Power Institutions in Post-Soviet Societies, PIPSS.org, Issue 6/7

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PUBL.- Journal of Power Inst. in Post-Soviet Societies, PIPSS.org, Issue 6/7

Posted by: Journal of Power Inst in Post-Soviet Soc <kozlowsk@club-internet.fr>

Dear Colleagues:

I am pleased to inform you that a new issue (6/7) of the Journal of
Power Institutions in Post-Soviet Societies (www.pipss.org) on "The
Social and Political Role of War Veterans" is now available on-line.

You will find below the table of contents.

Sincerely,

Elisabeth Sieca-Kozlowski
Chief Editor


Issue 6/7 - 2007 – The Social and Political Role of War Veterans

Introduction by Elisabeth Sieca-Kozlowski (6/7 issue editor)

The Social and Political Role of War Veterans - Articles

Pavel Petrovich Shcherbinin
The Peculiarities of Social Welfare for Military Service Veterans in
the Russian Empire, 18th through early 20th Centuries (in Russian)

Natalia Danilova
Veterans' Policy in Russia: a Puzzle of Creation

Amandine Regamey
La 6e compagnie : les interprétations d'une défaite russe en
Tchétchénie [The 6th Company: debates around a Russian military defeat
in Chechnya]

The Social and Political Role of War Veterans – Conversation

Interview of Tanya Lokshina, President of the Demos center, conducted
by Olga Filippova, Moscow, 11 May 2007

Defence Reform in Central Asia

Erica Marat
State-Propagated Narratives about a National Defender in Central Asian States

Document on Power Ministries

Julian Cooper
The Funding of the Power Agencies of the Russian State

Book Reviews (7 titles)

Zhanna Kormina, Rituals of Departure to the Military Service in Late
Imperial Russia, Moscow: NLO publishing house, 2005, 376 pages.
(reviewed by: Konstantin Vannikov)

Olga Litvak, Conscription and the Search for Modern Russian Jewry,
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006, 273 pages.
(reviewed by: Theodore R. Weeks)

Roger R. Reese, Red Commanders: A Social History of the Soviet Army
Officer Corps, 1918-1991, Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2005,
315 pages.
(reviewed by: Dale Herspring)

Valerii Anisimkov, Russia in the mirror of prison criminal traditions,
Sankt-Petersburg: Iuridicheskii Center Press, 2003, 204 pages.
(reviewed by: Anton Oleynik)

John B. Dunlop, The 2002 Dubrovka and 2004 Beslan Hostage Crises. A
Critique of Russian Counter-Terrorism. With a foreword by Donald N.
Jensen. Stuttgart: Ibidem-Verlag, 2006, 166 pages.
(reviewed by: Amandine Regamey)

Hana Cervinkova, Playing Soldiers in Bohemia: An Ethnography of NATO
Membership. Prague Studies in Sociocultural Anthropology 4, 2006, 161 pages.
(reviewed by: Marybeth Peterson Ulrich)

Helena Carreiras, Gender and the Military. Women in the Armed Forces
of Western Democracies, London: Routledge (Cass Military Studies),
2006, 262 pages.
(reviewed by: Vincent Porteret)

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JOB- IWGIA Russia Project Coordinator on Indigenous Affairs

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JOB- IWGIA Russia Project Coordinator on Indigenous Affairs

Posted by: Lola García-Alix <position@iwgia.org>

Russia Project Coordinator

The International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA) is seeking
a Russia Project Coordinator to take up appointment as soon as
possible, and invites applications from suitably qualified persons.
This is a two-years contract position with the possibility of an
extension. The project coordinator will be employed for a minimum of
30 hours a week.

Duties and responsibilities:
The Russia Project Coordinator will have the following duties and
responsibilities:
* Implementation of projects in Russia
* Monitoring, evaluation and project support
* Analysis and project development
* Reporting on the Russia project to IWGIA's committees and board
* Fund raising

The Russia Project Coordinator position is based in IWGIA's secretariat
in Copenhagen but regular travel to the project areas is required.

Qualification and skills required:
* A degree in social science
* Working experience from Russia and knowledge of Russian conditions
* Knowledge of indigenous peoples' issues in Russia
* Experience of project administration, coordination and reporting
* Experience in fund raising
* Excellent communication skills in both spoken and written Russian
and English
* Strong organizational and interpersonal skills
* Analytical ability

The Project Coordinator must be able to take part in IWGIA's other
activities, in cooperation with IWGIA's director, the other
coordinators and the administrative staff.

Submission of Applications:
Applications for this position will only be accepted in electronic
format. The letter of application and CV must be in English.
Applications should be sent to IWGIA's director, Lola García-Alix at
position@iwgia.org

Further information about IWGIA, can be found at www.iwgia.org. For
informal inquiries, please contact Lola García-Alix at (+45) 35 27 05 10
or Kathrin Wessendorf at (+45) 35 27 05 02

Application Deadline: 28 January at 12 noon.

Lola García-Alix
Classensgade 11 E
2100 København Ø
Danmark
Web: www.iwgia.org
Tel.: +45 35 27 05 00 Fax: +45 35 27 05 07

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CONCERTS- Alash Ensemble, Tuvan Throat Singers, Cambridge and Boston

A distribution of: Central-Asia-Harvard-List. The Announcement List for
Central Eurasian Studies at Harvard University

CONCERTS- Alash Ensemble, Tuvan Throat Singers, Cambridge and Boston

Posted by: Johanna Kovitz <joko@pangolyn.com>

ALASH, throat singers from the Central Asian Republic of Tuva, will
present a triple offering to Bostonians in January: a concert at Lily
Pad, a free lecture/performance at New England Conservatory, and for
the first time a workshop at the HeARTbeat Collective, where would-be
throat singers will have a rare opportunity to study with the masters.

Friday, January 18
Alash Concert
Lily Pad
1353 Cambridge St.
(Inman Square)
Cambridge MA 02139
8:00 p.m.
$15

Monday, January 21
Workshop in Throat Singing, taught by members of Alash
HeARTbeat Collective
35 Wyman St.
Jamaica Plain MA 02130
12:00-2:30 pm for beginners
3:30-6:00 pm for those with some experience
$30 one session, $50 two sessions
Enrollment limited; advance registration required:
email zenmassage@gmail.com

Wednesday, January 23
Alash, Music from Tuva
New England Conservatory
(performance-lecture sponsored by NEC Intercultural Institute)
Williams Hall
290 Huntington Ave.
Boston MA 02115
4:00-5:30 p.m.
Free & open to the public

Information about Alash, Tuvan throat singing, and Alash events
outside of Boston can be found at http://www.alashensemble.com

Johanna Kovitz
Boston organizer for Alash
617-782-5536
joko@pangolyn.com
www.alashensemble.com

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JOB- ACDI/VOCA Kyrgyzstan, Deputy Chief of Party/Association Specialist

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JOB- ACDI/VOCA Kyrgyzstan, Deputy Chief of Party/Association Specialist

Posted by: Almazbek Aldayarov <almazbek@camfa.kg>

For 43 years and in 145 countries, ACDI/VOCA has empowered people in
developing and transitional nations to succeed in the global economy.
Based in Washington, D.C., ACDI/VOCA is a nonprofit international
development consultancy firm that delivers technical and management
assistance in agribusiness systems, financial services, enterprise
development and community development in order to promote broad-based
economic growth and vibrant civil society. ACDI/VOCA currently has
approximately 90 projects in 40 countries and revenues of
approximately $90 million.

We are currently seeking a Deputy Chief of Party / Senior Association
Specialist based in Kyrgyzstan for immediate placement. The DCOP will
support the management of an on-going four-year project in Central
Asia (Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan). The project
focuses on expanding rural and agricultural lending services by
strengthening national microfinance associations, credit unions, and
other lenders that are willing to undertake innovative approaches to
serving agricultural and rural areas. We are looking to fill this
position as soon as possible.

Responsibilities:
* provide overall management responsibility for Component I -
Financial Sector Growth
* overall technical direction for the four Central Asian Microfinance
Associations (MFAs)
* support to MFAs to develop business plans and financial projections
* provide hands-on training and technical assistance to MFAs
* assist in various trainings, study tours and conferences.
* develop and monitor MFAs budgets
* supervise and ensure all grants management practices strictly
adhere to all conditions and requirements with USAID
* participate in all MFA assessment activities and the Action Plans
development

Qualifications:
* minimum of 3 years experience in the association development,
microfinance, and training activities is required
* regional experience is required
* demonstrated proficiency in the field of people and project
management, strategic planning and monitoring & evaluation is preferred
* familiarity with USAID procedures and policies is highly preferred
* proven track record of building relationships with associations,
governmental organizations as well as private organizations is required
* established track record of achieving results within difficult
working environments is preferred
* fluency in both English and Russian languages is required

How to Apply:

Please apply by e-mailing to Ms. Bermet Imankulova, bermet@camfa.kg

Almazbek Aldayarov
IT Specialist
CAMFA II project, ACDI\VOCA
55 Suyumbaev str., Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan
Tel. 681608, 681557
Fax 681721

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