Conference "The Caucasus: Driections and Disciplines"
A resource of the Center for East European and Russian/Eurasian Studies (CEERES) at the University of Chicago
Since the break-up of the Soviet Union, the study of the Caucasus across a range of fields has grown and matured, even as it has faced serious challenges, from the heavy toll exacted by violent conflicts to the wages of corruption. Despite these challenges, the study of the Caucasus is garnering new attention which suggest it is poised to inaugurate a new era in regional studies and a new series of contributions to traditional disciplines. In 2006, for example, an ambitious new initiative to found the American Research Institute of the Southern Caucasus (ARISC), an overseas scholarly center with branches in Baku, Tbilisi, and Yerevan, was inaugurated. As we look forward to this new era in the study of the Caucasus, it is critical that we take stock of the field and assess the contemporary state of knowledge.
To this end, the Center for East European and Russian/Eurasian Studies at the University of Chicago (CEERES) organized the conference "The Caucasus: Directions and Disciplines" with funding from ARISC, the Franke Institute for the Humanities, the Department of Anthropology, the Norman Wait Harris Fund, and the Social Science Research Council. This conference brought together American, West European, and Russian scholars with peers from the Caucasus Region to define the state of contemporary investigations of the Caucasus. Our goal was to outline the critical agendas which orient regional studies and provide opportunities for inter-disciplinary cross fertilization. The conference was held 17-19 May 2007 at the Franke Institute for the Humanities at the University of Chicago. Conference sessions covered specific fields (Linguistics, History, Politics, Anthropology and Sociology, Archaeology, Literature/Music/Art) and each presenter spoke in regard to either a specific area of the region, or time period, as appropriate. The idea was to allow the traditional disciplines to structure the gathering, but work toward a more inter-disciplinary mode to define agendas for future work.
The conference grew out of a sustained tradition of conferences on the Caucasus held at the University of Chicago. As home institution for the Society for the Study of the Caucasus, three conferences on the peoples and cultures of the region were held in the 1990s. ARISC (based at the University of Chicago) will work closely in helping to co-ordinate and support the conference.
Additional information is available on the original "The Caucasus: Directions and Disciplines" conference website.