by Ilse D. Cirtautas The Seattle-Tashkent Sister City Association celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. Throughout the years, the association has followed its mission “to foster international understanding and goodwill.” The association has promoted exchanges of teachers, school children and university students, artists, exhibits and health care providers. Currently, the Sister City Association is cooperating

On Research, Relationships and Other Contradictions from the Field by Jennifer Carroll “The very existence of my research site is unethical … My university Institutional Review Board (IRB) did not prepare me for any of this.” –Jonathan Stillo, “Research Ethics in Impossibly Unethical Situations” (posted 21-Dec-2011 on the cac.ophony.org weblog) Recently, someone commented that my

by Sarah Zaides One of the greatest benefits of being a graduate student is not only the unparalleled ability to pursue your own research interests, but the (often!) funded opportunities to travel and live abroad in pursuit of those interests. Since beginning my graduate career at the University of Washington, I have spent two summers

By Glennys Young Two days after the autumn quarter started, I headed for Moscow, Russia. I went to attend an event at Moscow’s Spanish Center (Ispanskii Tsentr, or, in Spanish, the Centro Español de Moscú.) On September 29, the Center held a program to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the evacuation of nearly 3,000 Spanish

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Professor Herbert J. Ellison on October 9, 2012. Herb was a brilliant Russian historian, but also a visionary leader for the whole field and a cherished mentor to so many. In 30 years of distinguished service, Dr. Ellison left an indelible mark on the

by Laura Lucht October’s blue sky shone outside the classroom window, softened by treetops and by the haze of exhaust from Almaty’s heavy traffic. I fidgeted in a wooden seat, half-way back at the far right side of the classroom. In my black business suit, bright scarf and heeled shoes, I felt slightly out of

by Amanda Swain When I arrived in Lithuania in January 2009 for an eight month research trip, I did not imagine that I would spend 20 out of the next 36 months living in Vilnius and Kaunas. My purpose was to gather archival documents for my dissertation concerning two days of popular unrest that followed

by Natalia Martínez-Paz Naida began crying half way through her story. She was explaining how she had been forced from her home at gunpoint, the transient life that followed, the unstable postwar existence and now the return home. Searching for stability after a decade of uncertainty, Naida had come back to her home, a mid-sized

by Eric Damiana At the beginning of September, a group of eight students and one UW professor descended on Prague, Czech Republic. We stayed for three weeks, taking intensive language courses and enjoying daily cultural and academic excursions in and around Prague. The first few days were, as with any trip abroad, exhausting and trying,

By Laura A. Dean Čaka iela, a main street running through the Latvian capital of Riga, was named for the famous Latvian writer Aleksanders Čaks, but in the post-communist period it has become synonymous with something more sinister. I first crossed this street in 1999, while studying abroad at the University of Latvia through my