Ukraine loomed large over the 2015 Northwest Regional Conference on Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies. The plenary session focused on East-West Relations During and After the Ukraine Conflict, while the session immediately following addressed the ongoing Conflict in Ukraine.

There was once a time when diplomats could enter smoke-filled rooms and partition half of Europe between their rulers before finishing their cigars. In the 21st century, conflict and diplomacy are far more immediate and challenging. Our campus is smoke-free, but the Ellison Center for Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies gathered a panel of four experts in one room to discuss real-world options to resolve this conflict approximately one year following the annexation of Crimea. Moderated by Professor Scott Radnitz, the panel brought together experts on finance, culture, and politics to discuss the future, “Ukraine and Russia: Is There Any Way Out?”

The Soyuz Symposium, an intimate conference designed to connect contemporary scholars working the fields of socialism and post-socialism, was hosted by the Ellison Center on the final weekend of February 2015. This event brought together more than two-dozen scholars from numerous disciplines to share their work on the history, social politics, and lived experiences of socialism and post-socialism throughout the European, Central Asian, and East Asian regions. The theme of this year’s Symposium was “Shifting Territories: Historical Legacies and Social Change.” Conference participants tackled these concepts by presenting their research in six panels over a period of two days.

With the memory of the Charlie Hebdo shooting still raw, the BBC ran a story about a daring satirical magazine that ran from 1906 until 1931 in Azerbaijan. The next day, Soyuz Symposium attendees, UW students, faculty and community members, gathered in Kane Hall to hear New York University’s Anthropology Professor Bruce Grant talk about the 100-year-old publication, Molla Nasreddin, and its founder, Jalil Mammadguluzadeh.

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