Eurasian Specialty Group
American Association for Geographers
About ESG
The Eurasian Specialty Group is a diverse community of researchers, educators, and practitioners brought together by thematic interests regionally spanning Eurasia (the Caucasus, Central Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, and Russia). Member research is diverse and includes—but is not limited to—political ecology, resource and environmental management, critical geopolitics, “new” cultural geography, feminist geographies, and economic geography. Our members are located throughout the world and range from undergraduate students to professors emeriti.
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Group bylaws
Group constitution
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Session sponsorship
The Eurasian specialty group will sponsor all AAG conference sessions related to/involving Eurasia, broadly conceptualized. No advance approval is needed, but if you have questions, feel free to contact the specialty group chair.​
Board members
2024-2026
Vera Smirnova, Chair
Kansas State University, verasmirnova@ksu.edu
Kate Shields, Vice-Chair
Rhodes College, shieldsk@rhodes.edu
Vera Kuklina, Chair of Awards and past-Chair
George Washington University, kuklina@email.gwu.edu
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Ted Holland, AAG liaison to ASEEES
University of Arkansas, echollan@uark.edu
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Varvara Korkina Williams, Treasurer
Dartmouth College, varvara.korkina.williams@dartmouth.edu​
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Evangeline McGlynn, Board Member at Large
Harvard University, emcglynn@fas.harvard.edu
Elena Trubina, Board Member at Large
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, elena.trubina@gmail.com
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Semyon Drozdetskii, Student Representative
University of Victoria, Canada, sdrozdetckii@uvic.ca
Maria Monakhova, Student Representative
Arizona State University, mmonakho@asu.edu
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2022-2024 Chair - Vera Kuklina, George Washington University
2020-2022 Chair - Mikhail Blinnikov, St Cloud State University
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2018-2020 Chair - Ted Holland, University of Arkansas
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2015-2017 Chair - Jeremy Tasch, Towson University
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2013-2015 Chair - Nathaniel Trumbull, University of Connecticut
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​​​Any student, faculty member, or other scholar devoted to work on the Eurasian Regions, provided that person is an active member of the ESG, is eligible to join the Board.
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Board members will be elected by ballot submitted to the Board at the annual AAG meetings. Upon election, each member will serve a two-year term.
Student Paper Award
Student Paper Award ($500) is be made to the best undergraduate or graduate student paper. The competition is open to all student members of the AAG and/or a regional division of the AAG. Applicants do not need to be current members of Eurasian Specialty Group, however group membership is encouraged.
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Submitted papers should reflect on the broader spatial aspects of various societal processes that occur across Eurasia - historically or today. Papers could relate to Eurasia in a wider geographical sense of the term - as a region spanning Eastern European and Central Asian countries, most with post-socialist heritage, or more broadly, as a continent comprising all of Europe and Asia.
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Papers will be judged on their overall quality, creativity, and contribution to furthering the geographical understanding of Eurasia (broadly conceived). We particularly encourage work that is a) regionally well informed and b) demonstrates familiarity with the appropriate scholarly literature.
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Rules for submission:
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Papers should be submitted to the Chair of Awards by March 1st, annually.
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Papers should be single-authored, double-spaced, in 12-point font, and no more than 20 pages in length (i.e., 3,000 to 8,000 words), excluding references, tables, maps and figures, and a required abstract.
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In submitting, authors should indicate their name, institution, and level of study (BA/BS, MA/MS, PhD), as well as when and at what conference the paper was/will be presented.
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Results of the award competitions will be announced electronically, as well as by email to the awardees. Awards will be formally made at the Eurasian Specialty Group business meeting and paper titles will be published in the AAG Newsletter.
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The Eurasian Specialty Group Award Committee maintains the right to annul this year's competition should submissions not meet award guidelines or the Committee receives too few submissions to warrant a competition.
Past Award Recipients
2023-2024 - Semyon Drozdetskii,
University of Northern Iowa
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2022-2023 - Polina Syadeyskaya,
University of Northern Iowa​​​
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2020-2021 - Chelsea Cervantes de Blois, University of Minnesota and Samuel P. Nielson, University of South Carolina
Eurasian Geography Photo Contest
We are inviting all AAG members to submit photos of their fieldwork and teaching under the AAG’s annual theme, “creating spaces of possibility.”
Participants are invited to submit 1 photo of a “space of possibility” in the Eurasian region, paired with a caption (150-word max). The image and caption will be judged as a pair. Photos must have been taken by the submitter and may not have been published elsewhere. The photos will be judged by the specialty group board.
The winning photo submission will be awarded 100 dollars. The winner and runners up will be proudly displayed on ESG’s new website and given Eurasian SG swag if they are present at AAG for the awards.
Deadline: March 1, 2025
For any questions, please contact Evangeline McGlynn: emcglynn@fas.harvard.edu
About ASEEES
Established in 1948, the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) – a nonprofit, non-political, scholarly society – is the leading international organization dedicated to the advancement of knowledge about Central Asia, the Caucasus, Russia, and Eastern Europe in regional and global contexts.
ASEEES also maintains the intellectual vitality of the field by hosting an Annual Convention – an international forum wherein over 2,600 attendees (scholars, professionals, and graduate students—domestic and international) exchange new research and information face-to-face on an annual basis. In addition, ASEEES recognizes outstanding scholarship in the field by awarding prizes to works of merit. ASEEES awards nine book prizes, a dissertation prize, and a graduate essay prize.
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Geography at ASEEES
Geography has a strong presence at the annual ASEEES convention. Eurasian Specialty Group is an official affiliated organization at ASEEES and elects a liaison on a three-year basis to represent a group at the convention. Liaison proposes and organizes panels that are geography oriented and oversees the representation of the discipline at the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies at large.
Links
Thematic listservs, networks, and professional organizations:
Thematic academic journals: