Greetings from the Central Eurasian Studies Summer Institute, where our students and instructors are already in the third week of this year's program.

June was a month of firsts -- for instructors who spent their first week in Pre-Service Orientation; for students who began their classes in Kazakh, Tajik, and Uyghur; for students and instructors who participated in an all-WISLI mixer and the CESSI cooking demonstration; and for the UW-Madison and community members who attended our first CESSI Lecture Series talk.

As CESSI moves forward, we look forward to another month full of language learning and stimulating events!

Clockwise from top left: The WISLI Student Mixer at the Memorial Union, CESSI Cooking Demonstration, Caroline Savage and Nargis Kassenova at the June 25 CESSI Lecture Series. For more event pictures and notices of upcoming events, see our Facebook page.

The CESSI 2024 Lecture Series presents Theresa Sabonis-Helf of Georgetown University. Her lecture, titled "Power, Light and Yet Another Transition: Central Asia’s Quest for Energy Security at Home and Markets Abroad," will provide insight into the particular (and sometimes peculiar) challenges Central Asian states faced in their energy systems during the first 30 years of independence. It will then turn to examine what the global transition away from fossil fuels portends for Central Asia’s future.

The July 24-25 LCTL Career Fair showcases professional paths & opportunities for students & speakers of Less Commonly Taught Languages! The July 24 Keynote Address will given by Frances Vavrus, Vice Provost and Dean of UW-Madison's International Division. For more information about the panels and July 27 Professional Development Workshop, see https://lctlcareers.wisc.edu.

The CESSI 2024 Lecture Series presents John Riordan, a career Foreign Service USAID officer. His lecture, "From Moldova to Tajikistan, from Belarus to Uzbekistan: The Formulation and Flow of National Identity from the Late Czarist Times to Today," will explore the formulation of identity over the past 150 years drawing on decades of on-the-ground work and research across all four countries. Riordan will discuss his findings on the trajectory of national identity and how it continues to shape the political discussion in each country today.

The CESSI 2024 Lecture Series presents Dr. Eric Schluessel of George Washington University. His lecture, "A Colonial Muslim History of China and the World," will explore the Tarikh-i Ḥamidi, a monument of Uyghur literature and the preeminent Muslim history of nineteenth-century Xinjiang (East Turkestan), in terms of its interaction with other Muslim and Chinese sources and as a colonial, transcultural text that advances insightful observations of Chinese power and new ideas about its workings.

Dr. Özge Samanci will share a reading and conversation on her new graphic novel Evil Eyes Sea. The public is invited to this free event to learn more about this feminist political mystery inspired by Özge's own life.

This event is sponsored by the UW Institute for Regional and International Studies-National Resource Center (IRIS-NRC), Kemal H Karpat Center for Turkish Studies, Middle Eastern and Mediterranean Language Institute (MEDLI), and Middle East Studies Program (MESP).

The Central Eurasian Studies Summer Institute was founded in 2011 by a consortium of international and area studies centers at major U.S. universities. We're grateful for the support of these current consortium member institutions: Columbia University's Harriman Institute, Harvard University's Davis Center for Russian & Eurasian Studies, Michigan State University's Asian Studies Center and Center for European, Russian, & Eurasian Studies, The Ohio State University's East Asian Studies Center and Center for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, Stanford University's Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, University of California-Berkeley's Institute of Slavic, East European, & Eurasian Studies, Institute of East Asian Studies, and Tang Center for Silk Road Studies, University of Kansas' Center for East Asian Studies and Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, University of Pittsburgh's Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies, University of Washington's Center for Global Studies and East Asia Center, and University of Wisconsin-Madison's Center for Russia, East Europe, & Central Asia and Center for East Asian Studies.