About the Event:
This Zoom webinar will focus on the recently published volume, Dreams of Emancipation: A Transnational History of Revolutionary Russia (Academic Studies Press, 2025), edited by Dr. Norihiro Naganawa.
Bringing together the editor and contributing authors, the event will highlight new transnational perspectives on the Russian Revolution and its entanglements with empire, nationalism, and socialism. The discussion will also provide space for critical engagement with the book’s themes and their relevance for the study of the Caucasus and beyond.
Join the meeting via this link.
If you encounter any issues joining the webinar, please contact Dr. Naira Sahakyan at [email protected].
About the Speakers:
Professor Norihiro Naganawa (Hokkaido University)
Dr. Norihiro Naganawa is a professor of Central Eurasian Studies and the current director of the Slavic-Eurasian Research Center at Hokkaido University in Japan. He was a William D. Loughlin member of the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study in 2021. Drawing on the local knowledge of the Volga-Urals region, his research interests encompass Muslim communities in the former territory of the Russian Empire and the entangled history of Russia and the Middle East. His works have appeared in Slavic Review; Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History; Ab Imperio; Religion, State & Society; and the Journal of Central Asian History. His book, Islamic Russia: Empire, Religion, and Public Sphere, 1905-1917, received the 2019 Mishima Kaiun Memorial Award, given annually for a distinguished contribution to the study of Asian history.
Professor Peter Holquist (University of Pennsylvania)
Dr. Peter Holquist received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1995. After teaching at Cornell University for 10 years, he now serves as a professor in the History Department at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Making War, Forging Revolution: Russia’s Continuum of Crisis, 1914-1921 (2002) and founding editor of the journal Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History. He is currently working on a book titled “By Right of War”: The Discipline and Practice of International Law in Imperial Russia, 1868-1917.
Dr. Sarah Slye
Dr. Sarah Elizabeth Slye received her Ph.D. in history from the University of Cambridge. She serves as a lecturer at Ilia State University in Tbilisi. Her research explores the history and political thought of the Caucasus during the tumultuous years of 1917–1921, with particular attention to questions of regional unity, autonomy, and federalism.
Dr. Samuel Hirst (Bilkent University)
Dr. Samuel Hirst is an assistant professor of international relations at Bilkent University, where he has taught since 2017. He earned his Ph.D. in history from the University of Pennsylvania in 2012. His scholarly work centers on 20th-century international history, especially the interplay between Russia and Turkey.
Dr Naira Sahakyan (AUA)
Dr. Naira Sahakyan is an assistant professor of history at AUA. She earned her Ph.D. in history from the University of Amsterdam. She is the author of two monographs: Muslim Reformers and the Bolsheviks: The Case of Daghestan (Routledge, 2022) and Armenian Price of Peace: The Revolutions of 1917 and the Future of Armenia in the Perception of the Armenian Intelligentsia (Newmag, 2023, in Armenian). She explores revolutionary upheavals and the transformation of ethnoreligious nationalisms in the Caucasus.