Tag: Central Asia
Happy International Women’s Day and Conference Dedicated to International Women’s Day!
In many of the world, we enthusiastically celebrate International Women’s Day. We were not aware then of Valentine’s Day and scamming of flower prices then. While the questions surrounding diverse values, gender identities, and contemporary politics are complicated, it is important to note that for many in the world, the basic human rights that we take for granted in the United States are beyond reach. I have been asked today to post a courtesy conference that is not affiliated with our library in which I will participate as a member of the organizing committee in my private capacity. The conference is dedicated to women of contemporary Afghanistan.
The conference will occur tomorrow, March 9th, from 9 am PST through 12 noon. The website for the conference is Afghan Women Speak: Voices from within and beyond. The conference is FREE and OPEN to all with prior registration.

Trial of Afghan Central Press at UC Berkeley Library
We have set up a thirty-day trial of Afghan Central Press at UC Berkeley Library beginning November 15, 2022.
The vendor description is as follows,
“The Afghan Central Press collection brings together four national, Kabul-based publications of Afghanistan whose long runs and prominence provide a concentrated vantage point for understanding developments in Afghanistan for much of the twentieth century. The English-language Kabul Times is presented alongside Pushto publications Anīs (انیس, Companion), Hewād (هیواد, Homeland), and Iṣlāḥ (اصلاح, Reform).”
The collection provides full-text access to over fifty thousand individual issues in Dari (Persian), Pushto, and English languages.
The Afghan Central Press collection is hosted on Eastview’s Global Press Archive platform.
[Webinar-UC Berkeley Library] Afghanistan: One Year Later!
We invite you to attend a ninety-minute Afghanistan-related webinar sponsored by multiple Area and International Studies-related centers and Institutes (CMES, ISAS, ISEEES, IEAS) and the library at UC Berkeley.
Title of the webinar: Afghanistan: One Year Later!
Date: August 16, 2022
Day: Tuesday
Time:
11:30 am to 1 pm PDT
1:30 pm to 3 pm CDT
2:30 pm to 4 pm EDT
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7:30 pm to 9 pm UK time
11:00 to midnight Kabul time
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Registration
The webinar is free and open to all with prior registration: http://ucberk.li/3r3
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Speakers
- PROFESSOR CARTER MALKASIAN, PH.D., Chair, Defense Analysis Department, Naval Postgraduate School
- PROFESSOR SHER JAN AHMADZAI, Director of the Center for Afghanistan Studies, University of Nebraska at Omaha
- PROFESSOR DIPALI MUKHOPADHYAY, PH.D., Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota
- PROFESSOR SHAH MAHMOUD HANIFI, PH.D., Department of History, James Madison University
- Moderator: Dr. Liladhar R. Pendse, Librarian, UC Berkeley
A special note of gratitude to the Library’s Communications Team, Professors Asad Q. Ahmed of Middle Eastern Languages & Cultures, Wali Ahmadi of Middle Eastern Languages & Cultures, and Munis Faruqui of Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies, Central Asia Working Group at the IEAS.
Announcing a launch of new quarterly webinar series!-Save the Date, March 18, 2021
This event is the first quarterly event in a four-part series entitled “Connecting and collecting to empower.” The series will focus on libraries and library collections from different regions of the globe to highlight the collections, print, and electronic resources from often “forgotten” or “exoticized” parts of our world. No library is an island and as curators, we are often interconnected. It is a known fact that today academic libraries can no longer serve as an archive of all that was printed from a specific region. This series is geared towards students, faculty, and researchers, and the presenters in these webinars will be faculty, academic librarians, curators, researchers, and doctoral students. Each presenter will present how the library’s collections have aided them in their academic pursuits. What were some of the challenges they had to face when they were looking for specific resources and how and if the librarians helped them overcome them?
First Webinar: The Other Asia: Central Asia and Library Collections (Spring 2021)
This 90 minutes webinar is dedicated to various library sources in Central Asia. Often, just like the Great Game in the 19th century, Central Asian Studies library collections are contested and relegated between the North American librarians for East European/ Eurasian Studies and Middle Eastern/ Near Eastern Studies. The US State Department, on the other hand, has attributed Central Asia alongside South Asia. Thus collecting Central Asian materials marks extensive collaboration among various librarians. The speakers at this webinar will speak to their efforts in collaborating to build a sustainable collection at their institutions. In this meeting, they will discuss some of the strategies they have used to develop research-level collections and collaborate with their colleagues in Central Asia. They will also focus on some open access resources.
This zoom event is free and open to all with prior registration here.
Thursday, March 18, 202111 am-12:30 PST/ 1 pm-2:30 EST
Opening Remarks: Professor David W. Roland-Holst, Agricultural and Resource Economics, UC Berkeley
Speakers:
Mr. Andy Spencer, Librarian, Middle Eastern & Central Asian Studies Librarian, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Dr. Akram Habibulla, Librarian for Middle Eastern, Islamic, and Central Eurasian Studies, Indiana University
Dr. Shah Mahmoud Hanifi, Professor of History and the founding coordinator of the Middle Eastern Communities and Migrations minor, James Madison University
Emily Laskin, Ph.D. Candidate Slavic Languages and Literatures, UC Berkeley
Organizer: Dr. Liladhar R. Pendse, UC Berkeley
Welcome to Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies Blog!
On the eve of “old” Russian New Year, I would like to extend a warm welcome to all who are interested in exploring with us both print and e-culture of the Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies collections. Often, we are questioned what Eurasia is? While there are multiple answers to the nuanced question, I will focus on Eurasian from the perspective of the often “forgotten” part of Asia- the Caucasus and Central Asia. An article on Russian culture in Luxembourg Times provides information on Russian Christmas. A brief overview of the Old and New Russian New Year is provided here.
While the New Year is here upon many in Russia, we must continue with our teaching and research under constraints imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. I leave you to explore openly accessible books of the Institut Vostokovedeniia RAN (1818- ). The Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The about section of the IV RAN‘s website provides information on the institute’s history and mission. The section of publications has basic bibliographic information on the items and provides access through the PDF. Happy Exploring!
Below is the landing page of one of the books with PDF access.
For example, if one clicks on the PDF icon as shown in the image, one can access the full-text of Istoricheskie, kulʹturnye, mezhnat︠s︡ionalʹnye, religioznye i politicheskie svi︠a︡zi Kryma so Sredizemnomorskim regionom i stranami Vostoka : IV mezhdunarodnai︠a︡ nauchnai︠a︡ konferent︠s︡ii︠a︡ (Sevastopolʹ, 6-10 okti︠a︡bri︠a︡ 2020 g.) : materialy konferent︠s︡ii, as shown below:
Until the next time, keep exploring!
Resource: Middle East and Central Asian Studies
The Library has recently acquired the Middle East and Central Asian Studies database, which includes more than 740,000 records of journal and newspaper articles, books, and other research publications on the culture and politics of the Middle East, Central Asia, and North Africa.