The Master’s Thesis Colloquium highlights research carried out by second-year students in the REECA program at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University, and the MARS-REERS program at the Harriman Institute, Columbia University. A diverse range of topics will be covered in a series of short presentations, with opportunity for audience Q & A. This event will be held in a seminar format.

Agenda

Panel I | 2:00-3:20pm

• Aruzhan Meirkhanova, Harvard University, Maintaining the “Pyramid”: Elite Management Strategies in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan
• Nikhil Jain, Columbia University, Beneath the Crescent: Pan-Nationalism, Turkism, and National Identity in Azerbaijan
• Ermin Mujezinovic, Columbia University, Why is the Serbian population public opinion in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia oriented toward Russia? 
• Muling He, Harvard University, Unifying Divided Cities: The Reforms of Urban Institutions in Soviet Uzbekistan
• Adrien Mercat, Columbia University, Claims to Autochthony in Georgian Historical Discourse
• Rachel Amran, Columbia University, Healthcare Habits in the Republic of Georgia
• Baxter Speed, Columbia University, A Hospitable Land: Russian Emigrants in Georgia
• Nora Cyra, Harvard University, Conflict Beyond Borders: Digitalization of Transnational Conflict Resolution Networks in Moldova and Georgia

Panel II | 3:40-5:00pm

• Rowan Shnir, Columbia University, Ukrainian Civil Society’s Transformation after Euromaidan
• Lili Bivings, Columbia University, Dacha as refuge: The dacha and the Russian Invasion of 2022
• Daniel Brennan, Columbia University, Ukraine, Foreign Aid and Blockchain
• Christopher Atwood, Columbia University, Ukrainian Resistance to the Russian Invasion as an Anti-Colonial Struggle
• Alex Volgyesi, Columbia University, Magyar Nationalism Made me Gay: Homosexuality and Nationalist Discources in 19th-Century Hungary
• Abigail Gipson, Harvard University, Who Sings the New Udmurt Song: Kuzebay Gerd, Culture, and Power in the Votskii Autonomous Oblast, 1917-1937
• John Leake, Harvard University, “Pushkin was a Negro”: Alexander Pushkin and Blackness in Soviet and Russian Culture