Social Science Research Council

The Social Science Research Council, in collaboration with leading American scholars and international research teams, will provide university instructors from a variety of disciplines with supplementary course material related to the greater Central Asia region. Central Asia is a region where individuals and cultures from Russia, Asia, the Middle East and elsewhere have interacted over many centuries. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the geo-political events of recent years, the countries of Central Asia have gained greater international visibility. Still, integration of the region's history has been slow to enter university classrooms. The SSRC's on-line Teaching Resource Tool (TRT) on the Histories of Central Asia will help address this deficiency.

Prepared by leading U.S. scholars, the three thematic histories of Central Asia will address the changing Central Asian landscape with regard to issues of space, beliefs, and time. The finished modules will focus specifically on changing identity, the built environment, and Islamic and Muslim movements in Central Asia.

In addition to offering university faculty complete teaching modules that can be integrated into courses as diverse as world history or geography, religious studies, gender studies, and Central Asian history, the TRT project will also provide students, instructors and scholars alike with access to related bibliographic and historiographic material that crosses the traditional area studies divides and includes sources in diverse languages such as Chinese, Kazakh, Persian, Russian, French and others. The on-line format will allow both ease of access as well as the ability to expand and update the material far into the future.