| Date | Time | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Friday, October 17, 2014 | 12:00PM - 2:00PM | Seminar Room 108N, Munk School of Global Affairs 1 Devonshire Place |
Central Asia Lecture Series
In this project, Prof. Grant looks at the role of satirical experiment in the Caucasus region of the former Soviet Union through a focus on the journal, Molla Nesreddin, and its many afterlives in the Eurasian space that it has helped to define. It is a project that takes the reader across disciplines by connecting historical questions of literary genre to political rule, and by grounding these questions in anthropological study of the shared cultural patterns and symbolic logics that have guided normative understandings of authoritarianism, personhood, and propriety in times of great upheaval across this area.
Bruce Grant is interested in cultural history and politics as well as religion. His research focuses on former Soviet Union, Siberia, and the Caucasus. His current and recent project include a study of changing social mores in the rapidly transforming capital of Azerbaijan, Baku, from model socialist urban centre to nationalizing metropolis. He is also working on a new project on the role of satire in authoritarian settings as seen through the life and work of Celil Memmedquluzade, editor of the Azeri-language, cross-regional journal, Molla Nesreddin, which was published from 1906-1931. Professor Grant is also involved in an ongoing study of rural religious shrines in the Caucasus, with particular regard for the rich historiographies surrounding them, and the way those histories challenge conventional narratives of Caucasus social life.
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