The Turkic World encompasses nearly 200 million people, spans a geographic space between Europe and China, and constitutes a political, cultural, and linguistic nexus linking the conventionally recognized world regions of Europe, Russia/Eurasia, the Middle East, South Asia, and East Asia. From Turkey itself in the west to Kazakhstan and China’s Xinjiang province (home of the Uyghurs) in the east, Turkic societies will play a crucial role in the economic, political, and cultural environment of the newly globalized world.
The University of Virginia’s Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures and the Center for Russian and East European Studies are therefore pleased to present a series of lectures and symposia that explore how the study of Turkic societies can foster a view of the world that is more integrated and less fragmented by traditional geo-cultural and geo-political divisions as we strive to understand the complexity of emergent global conditions.
