NewsNet

Issues

NewsNet is produced as a bimonthly newsletter online and in PDF format, with member and ASEEES news announcements posted online regularly.

September 2025 Issue

In the September issue, Stephen E. Hanson assesses the impact of recent political changes on regional studies. Marianne Kamp describes the advantages and challenges of oral history as part of our ongoing Spotlight on Central Asian Studies. Benjamin Arenstein traces the fate of post-Soviet Jewish libraries, while Connor Doak uses a recent novel to rethink teaching queer positionality to students of Russian Studies.

ASEEES announces the 2025 Board of Directors Election results and the 2025 Prize recipients along with key information about the 57th Annual Convention, the Cohen-Tucker Dissertation Fellowship Program, Fall 2025 programming—and more!

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Articles in This Issue

September 17, 2025

The Fate of Regional Studies under Patrimonial Rule

By Stephen E. Hanson

This crisis is qualitatively different from any we have faced as scholars since the invention of modern area studies associations in the aftermath of World War II...
September 17, 2025

Oral History in Central Asia

By Marianne Kamp

For more than three decades, I have had the good fortune of interviewing many people in Uzbekistan about their Soviet-period lives. My historian colleagues in Central Asia used to be […]
September 17, 2025

The Post-Soviet Inheritance of Jewish Libraries

By Benjamin Arenstein

By the Marjanishvili Metro Stop in Tbilisi, Georgia, bevies of used-book buyers, collectors and enthusiasts commune daily amongst kiosks laden with antiquarian tomes. Stacked haphazardly across dozens of aluminum tables, […]
September 17, 2025

Dancing with Deviants, or, Writing Queer Russia

By Connor Doak

Paul David Gould’s recent novel Last Dance at the Discotheque for Deviants (2023) is set in the heady days of Moscow’s nascent gay scene of the 1990s. The title alludes […]