Happy Spring and Day of the Badger from the Central Eurasian Studies Summer Institute!

Since applications for CESSI 2025 closed earlier this month, we had hoped by now to be able to confirm the courses we'll be offering this summer. Instead, we and many of our prospective students are waiting for updates on the availability of federal funding to support tuition and living stipends. We regret the continued delays but are hopeful we will be able to provide information soon.

In the meantime, there's still time to support CESSI and all of the language institutes of the Wisconsin Intensive Summer Language Institutes during today's Day of the Badger fundraising initiative. Read on for information about that and other events and upcoming opportunities.

If we can answer any questions, please contact cessi@creeca.wisc.edu.

You can make a world of difference during this year's Day of the Badger! Please consider showing your support for students studying Less Commonly Taught languages at CESSI and WISLI programs. Every gift to the Language Program Office Fund helps! Funds raised go directly toward student scholarships! Your generosity helps break down barriers and opens doors to careers in international service, research, education, and beyond. 

The Day of the Badger concludes today, April 9, at 5 pm CDT.

Saturday's 2025 Eurasian Spring Festival at the University of Wisconsin–Madison was a delightful and delicious celebration of Nauryz! More than 80 people were in attendance for presentations about Kazakh culture and Nauryz traditions, live musical and dance performances, and a buffet of Central Asian fare. CESSI 2024 alumni Avery Coleman and Sonia Kelly were among the presenters. Pictured at left, UW-Madison Kazakh instructor Gulnara Glowacki showers sweet treats on audience members including CESSI student assistant Valery Vayserberg, right. For more pictures and a video of a youth dombra performance, see www.facebook.com/CessiMadison.

We were excited to see many familiar names among the students who will be featured at the Davis Center's April 18 graduate student conference at Harvard University!

UW-Madison PhD candidate and Davis Center Fellow Khasan Redjaboev will chair the panel on "Faith, Identity, and Modernity: Soviet Experiments in Central Asia." Panelists include incoming CESSI 2025 student Emma Larson of Columbia University presenting on "Day of Abolition of Kalym in the Kazakh ASSR, 1924-1932."

The panel "Borders, Bodies, and Belonging: Forced Migration and Social Control in Soviet Central Asia" will feature presentations by Khasan -- "Bound by the State: Women, Forced Labor and Communist Colonial Legacies in Eurasia" -- and CESSI 2023 alum Ben Hales of Harvard University presenting on "Burying the Herdlord in Pastoral Xinjiang: The Cleansing of the Class Ranks in Altay, 1968-1972."

The panel "Narratives of Belonging and Survival: Identity, Memory, and Representation in Soviet and Post-Soviet Central Asia" will include incoming CESSI 2025 student Jack Leydiker of Yale University presenting "Gratitude at Gunpoint: Soviet Representations of Kazakh Veterans of the Second World War."

To view the rest of the program, click here.

Are you a U.S.-based high school or community college educator interested in deepening your understanding of the history, culture, and current events of Russia and Eurasia? Applications are now open for the 2025-2026 Engaging Eurasia Teacher Fellowship, which will be devoted to the theme “Eurasian Environments.” Over the 9-month fellowship, fellows will participate in 8 content webinars, hearing from scholars with expertise on topics such as water management, environmental change, and the impacts of colonialism and industrialization on landscapes and communities. Fellows also will meet for a weekend workshop in fall 2025. For more information and to apply by April 15, click here.

Save the dates for upcoming virtual educator workshops on "Minority Literatures of East Asia: Diversity and Difference" hosted by the National Consortium for Teaching About Asia. Workshops will be held at 6-7:30 pm EST April 22 (Uyghur), May 15 (Zainichi Korean), and June 17 (Okinawan). Educators can register for individual workshops or choose to register for the entire series. For each workshop in the series that an educator attends, they will receive a complementary book.

To learn more and register, visit their website here.

This conference on academic freedom organized by the Center for Independent Social Research and the Central Asia Program at George Washington University will be held at the Tashkent State University of Economics October 16-18, 2025. The entire conference will be conducted in English. They welcome applications for individual contributions, including the title, a brief description (up to 200 words), and a short academic biography of the presenter (approximately 100 words).

For more information, see here. To apply, click here. The application deadline is June 30, 2025.