Associate Professor of History Shoshana Keller will open Hamilton's
faculty lecture series on Friday, Sept. 16, with a lecture titled
"Teaching History, Teaching the Nation: Narratives of time in the Uzbek
history curriculum." The lecture will take place at 4:10 p.m. in the
Red Pit, Kirner-Johnson, followed by a reception at Cafe Opus.
Keller explains her topic: Schools teach the history of the homeland to instill a sense of national identity, of cultural continuity through time, and of loyalty to the state. In Soviet Uzbekistan, teachers had the additional task of creating and defining a new country in front of their students, and showing children where they belonged in the flow of a new history. This meant erasing older narratives of Islamic and Eurasian nomadic time and replacing them with a secular, Soviet/European narrative. What children learned in school about Uzbek history was central to the formation of a personal sense of national identity, which was critical to the larger Soviet project of creating nations.
Sponsored by the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty.
Keller explains her topic: Schools teach the history of the homeland to instill a sense of national identity, of cultural continuity through time, and of loyalty to the state. In Soviet Uzbekistan, teachers had the additional task of creating and defining a new country in front of their students, and showing children where they belonged in the flow of a new history. This meant erasing older narratives of Islamic and Eurasian nomadic time and replacing them with a secular, Soviet/European narrative. What children learned in school about Uzbek history was central to the formation of a personal sense of national identity, which was critical to the larger Soviet project of creating nations.
Sponsored by the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty.
