About CESWG

Mission

Central Eurasian Studies Workgroup (CESWG) is a not-for-profit (nonstock) academic publisher whose mission is to advance the study of Central Eurasia as a social-scientific field. CESWG aims to publish scholarly works, including editions, transcription-transliterations, and translations of primary sources, as well as original analytical research and textbooks/readers.

In the future, CESWG will also seek to host avocational lectures and study groups and produce videos.

People

ACADEMIC ADVISORY COMMITTEE

(by alphabetical order of surname)

Virginia Aksan is Professor Emeritus of History, McMaster University, Ontario, Canada. A specialist in the Ottoman empire, her research focuses on comparative war & society, frontiers, the exchange of ideas and technology, East-West relations, and military reform. Prof. Aksan’s scholarship is represented by works such as An Ottoman Statesman in War and Peace: Ahmed Resmi Efendi, 1700–1783 (Leiden: Brill, 1995), Ottomans and Europeans: Contacts and Conflicts (Istanbul: Isis, 2004), Ottoman Wars, 1700–1870: An Empire Besieged (Hammersmith: Pearson/Longman, 2007), and Writing the Ottomans into World History (Istanbul: Isis, 2016).

Marcel Erdal is Professor Emeritus of Turcology, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, Germany, having taught a wide range of Turkic varieties to students across the globe. His research focuses on Old Turkic (including the Qarakhanid period), modern Turkish grammar, South Siberian languages, and Volga Bulgarian. Old Turkic Word Formation: A Functional Approach to the Lexicon, 2 vols. (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1991) and A Grammar of Old Turkic (Leiden: Brill, 2004) are two of the professor’s seminal works in English.

Peter Golden is Professor Emeritus of History, Turkish and Middle Eastern Studies, Rutgers University, New Jersey, US. His research focuses on medieval Eurasian philology and history, covering a wide scope of steppe nomadic peoples and their interactions with the Islamic, Byzantine, and Slavic worlds. Examples of his seminal works include An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1992) and Nomads and Their Neighbours in the Russian Steppe: Turks, Khazars and Qipchaqs (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003).

Timur Kocaoğlu is a Professor of Turkic Languages, Central Eurasian literature, Cultural History, and politics. He worked as a Central Asian research analyst at Radio Liberty in Munich, Germany (1977–1994) and has taught at several universities: Marmara University (1983–1989) and Koç University (1994–2011) in Istanbul, Turkey and Michigan State University (MSU, 2011–2021) in the United States. He also served as Associate Director of the Center for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies, and Turkic Languages Coordinator, at MSU. Prof. Kocaoğlu is the author of Karay: The Trakai Dialect (Munich: Lincon Europa, 2006), in addition to a wide range of scholarly works in Central Eurasian studies.

Şerife Yalçınkaya is Associate Professor at the Department of Turkish Language and Literature (Türk Dili ve Edebiyatı Bölümü), Literature Faculty (Edebiyat Fakültesi), Ege University, İzmir, Turkey. Her specialization is pre-modern Turkish literature (eski Türk edebiyatı), for which she is also the Head of Division (Ana Bilim Dalı Başkanı) at her department. She is the author of Nâbî’nin Nâsirliği ve Kamaniçe Fetih-nâmesi (İzmir: Kanyılmaz Matbaası, 2012), in addition to an extensive array of scholarly articles and book chapters.

RESEARCHERS & EDITORS

Nasrin Askari specializes in classical Persian literature and the history and culture of late antique and medieval Iran. She received her MA and PhD in Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations from the University of Toronto. Nasrin then served as a postdoctoral research and teaching fellow at the Department of Asian Studies, University of British Columbia and as a research fellow and translator at the Department of Modern Languages, University of Birmingham. She is the author of The Medieval Reception of the Shāhnāma as a Mirror for Princes (Leiden: Brill, 2016), in addition to multiple scholarly articles.

Lale Javanshir is our Editor-in-Chief and specializes in Ottoman Turkish literature. She hails from the Qocabeyli and speaks Azerbaijani Turkish as her mother tongue. Lale spent years in the Republic of Azerbaijian and in Turkey, where she studied Turkish Language and Literature at Gazi University. She then transferred to the University of Toronto, where she received her MA and PhD in Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations and also taught introductory through advanced Turkish. Lale enjoys hosting lessons and giving performances of traditional Azerbaijani dance.

Contact: l.javanshir.ceswg@gmail.com

Shuntu Kuang volunteers as our Associate Editor and specializes in the history of Central Asia, particularly the Timurid period. His ancestors were subjects of the Tabγach. Shuntu received a BA in Political Science and History from Williams College, and an MA in Russian, Eurasian, and Eastern European Regional Studies from the Harriman Institute, Columbia University. He then completed his PhD in Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto. And he makes a reasonably good lamb polow (pilaf).

Contact: s.kuang.ceswg@gmail.com