The REECAS NW panel on Religion and Identity featured contributions from Matthew Cotton (UW History PhD student) and Anatoliy Klots (UW Slavic Studies PhD Student) on Jewish studies topics Odessa through the prism of Isaac Babel’s prose and the post-Soviet oeuvre of filmmakers like Dmitri Astrakhan and Aleksandr Proshkin. Jennifer Webster (UW History Lecturer) rounded out the panel with a consideration of Baqshy healer women in Kyrgyzstan as a means of exploring the relationship between Islam, ethnic and gender identity, and modernization in Central Asia.

With the 2014 deadline for withdrawal from Afghanistan looming, various players and analysts are warning of the potential for spillover into Central Asia. In an August 1, 2013 article in The National Interest, Will Afghanistan Take Central Asia Down with It? Ellison Center Director Scott Radnitz and Marlene Laruelle, director of the Central Asia Program, Institute