The safety of our community is our top priority. We have decided to cancel all of our Spring lectures and non-academic programs on the advice of University officials and public health experts. We hope to reschedule this lecture when normal campus operations resume.
Can the Rich and Powerful Make Society Better? A Central Asian Case to Consider with Dr. Morgan Liu
Recent scholarly attention to the rich and powerful (“elites”) calls for a new look at how and why they exercise power. Elites accomplish various kinds of “weather-making” within their contexts, such as creating or shaping social relations, local economies, and political possibilities. This study is about the kinds of politics needed to shape social reality and the possibilities and limits of what they could accomplish. The case here concerns a political entrepreneur’s claim to act for the communal good by building a suite of interconnected urban institutions. Under this patron as a result, a discriminated community flourished in a Central Asian city under politically adverse circumstances for 20 years. Case is taken from the city of Jalalabat, Kyrgyzstan during the first two decades of this ex-Soviet Central Asian republic’s independence.
Spring 2020 NELC/Humanities Scholars Lecture Series
Each semester, the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, in partnership with the OSU Humanities Scholars Program, hosts a lecture series on topics of broad interest to students and the OSU community. The Spring 2020 Lecture Series will include talks scheduled for March 18, March 25, & April 1.
