Background:I
received both my bachelor’s degree and doctorate from the University
of Chicago (1985, 1995); the first in Russian Civilization and the second
in History. At Chicago I completed a master’s thesis entitled “Labor Groups of the War Industries Committee in wartime
Russia, 1915-1917” (a discussion of war-time Menshevik politics) and
a dissertation on the construction of the Turkestano-Siberian Railroad
during Stalin’s First Five-Year plan, “Turksib: The Building of the Turkestano-Siberian Railroad and the Politics
of Production during the Cultural Revolution, 1926-1931”. My thesis advisor was Prof.
Sheila Fitzpatrick, whose influence on my work is evident. I was fortunate also to work with such scholars
as Richard Hellie and Ron Suny. Richard,
in particular, exposed me in a systematic way to the study of medieval
and Muscovite Russia (including Middle Russian!) and rigorous cliometric
analysis that I, as a historian of modern Russian social history, might
not have otherwise enjoyed. My
fellow graduate students and comrades at Chicago provided me with one
of the most stimulating academic environments to which I have ever been
exposed. I came to Emory University in 1995 where I
specialize in Modern Russian history. Research: I recently published a monograph based on both my dissertation and extensive new research entitled, Stalin’s Railroad: Turksib and Building Socialism (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001). I have additionally published on this subject in articles such as “The Making of a Kazakh Proletariat? The Unexpected Russification of Nativization Policies on the Turksib,” in Ronald Suny and Terry Martin, eds., A State of Nations: Empire and Nation-Making in the Age of Lenin and Stalin (2001); and “The Movie Turksib and Soviet Orientalism.” The Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television, Vol. 21, Number 1 (March 2001). Several side projects relating to this work are also nearing completion, including “Are We Not Workers Too: Women, Stalin’s Industrialization and the Turksib,” and “Engineering the Scientific Organization of Labor: The Fate of Taylorism on the Turksib.” The Turksib research centers on an examination of the politics of class, ethnicity, modernization and totalitarianism in Stalin’s industrialization drive. As such, it is one of the few studies of labor and industrial policy in a context of great ethnic tension of this period. Moreover, the work reexamines the formation of the Soviet engineering cadre, the emergence of Soviet industrial paternalism, and the nature of Soviet power and its attempt to “reforge” its citizens in one of the most important sites of such struggles, the great construction site. In addition to my work on Turksib, I have begun a much more ambitious study entitled, Soviet Steppe: Modernization and Genocide in Kazakhstan, 1890 to 1941. Centered on the Soviet state’s forced settlement of Kazakh nomads and the resulting chaos and tragedy these policies engendered, this work will examine the nature of the Soviet empire, coerced modernization, population policies and discuss the horrific outcome of this policy, the death of more than 1.5 million Kazakh nomads, or approximately 60% of the Kazakh population, in 1928-1934. I have already begun field research on this subject with recent trips to Almaty and Moscow thanks to an Emory University Research Council Grant. Teaching: I first began teaching at the University of Chicago and have taught at the University of Illinois at Champagn-Urbana, Columbia College in Chicago, and the University of Illinois at Chicago, as well as Emory. I greatly enjoy teaching and hope perspective students will examine my course evaluations to judge my abilities. |