A dozen high school and community college educators from eleven states gathered at the University of Pittsburgh in October for the annual Engaging Eurasia Teacher Fellowship in-person workshop. The daylong workshop brought together fellows who are spending the 2024-25 academic year engaged in “Explorations of Identity in Russian & Eurasian Studies.”
The EETF is a collaboration between the Harvard University Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, the Center for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies at the Ohio State University (CSEEES), the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies at the University of Pittsburgh (REEES), and the Center for Russia, East Europe, and Central Asia at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (CREECA). Funded by a Department of Education Title VI-National Resource Center grant, the professional development program for high school and community college educators is devoted to studying the people, histories, and cultures of Eurasia.
This year’s fellowship kicked off in September with an introductory webinar on “Complex Identities in Russia and Eurasia” presented by Dr. Maia Araviashvili, an assistant professor of sociology at Ilia State University in Tbilisi, Georgia. The daylong Oct. 5 workshop, the first opportunity for this year’s fellows and EETF program staff to meet in person, was dedicated to “Global Eurasia: Place and Identity along Global Trade Networks.”
Traveling to Pittsburgh from cities in Arizona, California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Washington State, Wisconsin, and Wyoming, EETF fellows were welcomed by REEES staff hosting the workshop including Professor Nancy Condee, director of REEES, who gave opening remarks. EETF fellows and staff then spent the morning on a simulated Silk Roads Tour through some of the Cathedral of Learning’s 31 Nationality Rooms.
Together with educators who participated in this summer’s The Heart of the Silk Roads Study Tour organized by the National Consortium for Teaching About Asia (NCTA), two groups of teacher-travelers “walked” east to west or west to east along the “Silk Roads” visiting rooms from Italy to China and vice versa to explore how the trade of goods and exchange of ideas and knowledge impacted the communities living and traveling along these routes.
Welcoming travelers to “China” was Dr. Brenda Jordan, NCTA director (pictured above); to the “Dunhuang Caves” near a religious and cultural crossroads in China’s Gansu province was Dr. Margarita Delgado Creamer with the University of Pittsburgh’s Department of Religious Studies; to “Russia” was Dr. James Pickett in the Department of History; and to “Italy” was Dr. Patrick Hughes, assistant director of the NCTA. Dr. Zsuzsánna Magdó, associate director of REEES, also welcomed visitors to the Syria-Lebanon Room, which was included to debunk the theory that there was just one Silk Road route.
The rooms and stops between them served as the pretext as well as the context for these explorations. After listening to presentations at each of the stops, teachers engaged in “trade” for goods and ideas including silk cocoons, books, scrolls, horses, and even protective talismans as they left the Dunhuang Caves. The talisman provided no protection in Bandit Country, however, where travelers encountered a masked Hughes, who demanded they give up a trade item or coin to pass through toward their next destination. One unfortunate traveler also succumbed to the “Black Plague” along her journey.
During a debriefing session after lunch, teachers shared how their simulated Silk Roads excursions might translate to their schools and classrooms. Some are already teaching relevant content with units exploring head coverings of the Silk Road and dumplings of the world.
“The peripatetic Silk Road simulation was awesome. Each station was so thoughtful and thought provoking,” said Henry Wend, who teaches history and directs the Transcript Designation Program in Global Scholarship at the University School of Milwaukee and who earned his PhD in U.S. history from UW-Madison in 1995. “To have the artifacts of the various rooms helped the experience come to life. … I am definitely going to do an activity about emerging nationalism in Central Asia using stations and artifacts.”
“Particularly interesting to me was the size of many of the empires,” said Phillip Moshoyannis, an adjunct professor at Nassau Community College in Garden City, New York. “I will be taking back that knowledge along with the idea that ideas can originate in one location simultaneously as well as through cultural exchange.”
In the afternoon, educators learned about World Historical Gazetteer’s Place Collection Tool from Dr. Ruth Mostern, WHG principal investigator and project director and World History Center director. With WHC staff on hand, teachers had a chance to explore the newest functionalities of the WHG tool, which allows users to create their own collections linking records about historical places, customize research assignments for student groups, collaborate with other teacher groups, and more. The day concluded with a delicious meal of Uzbek cuisine.
“[This workshop] was really exactly what I needed to remember I am part of a community of people who are interested in Eurasia,” said Eunice Bonaparte, the Theory of Knowledge coordinator at Washington Preparatory School in Bothell, Washington. “I am the only teacher in my department, and the only person at my school with any experience or interest in Eurasia. Having a conversation about the region is basically giving a lecture. I had so many conversations during the [October] meeting that were natural and experience-rich; it felt like I had known my fellow Fellows before. I did not realize I had not laughed like that over shared experiences/common world with colleagues in a long time. I remain motivated and happy from that meeting.”
As this year’s fellowship continues through June, fellows will continue to meet online to hear from scholars discussing identity in the context of nationalism, ethnicity, migration, language, gender, religion, education, and more. Fellows will also have the opportunity to consult virtually with area studies staff who can assist with identifying resources including faculty as they develop teaching materials to take back to their classrooms and share with other educators with similar interests.
For more information about the EETF, follow this link.
