ENCOUNTERS AND ENTANGLEMENTS IN EURASIA AND BEYOND

Undergraduate Conference

Macalester College

April 26, 2025

Location: Kofi Annan Institute for Global Citizenship, Markim Hall

9:00-9:40 am Light Breakfast 

9:40-9:50 am Welcoming Remarks by Dr. Xin Yang and Dr. Julia Chadaga

9:50 - 11:10 am Panel 1: Center, Periphery, and Identity

•  Aliya Salikhzyanova (Claremont McKenna/Pomona College) “Negotiating Progress: Language,

Reform, and Identity in Tatar Intellectual History”

•  Viktorie Spurná (Macalester College) “Romani Studies: The Postcolonial Analysis of the

Department of Romani Studies at the Faculty of Philosophy in Charles University”

•  Orion Fisher (Carleton College) “The Theatrics of Resistance: Gendering Bodies through

Infrapolitics in Post-Soviet Central Asia”

•  John Ying (Macalester College) “Settler Colonialism with Chinese Characteristics: Making a

Case for Uyghur Genocide”

•  Dean Hu (Macalester College) “Memetic Cyborg Simulacras: Gay Men’s ‘Goddess’ of the

Chinese Internet”

11:10-11:30 am Break

11:30-12:30 pm Keynote Lecture by Dr. Jinyi Chu (on zoom)

12:30-1:30 pm Lunch

1:30-2:50 Panel 2: Labor, Family, and Everyday Life

•  Dion Aya (Macalester College) "Quotidian Nightmares: Everyday Life and Death During the Great Terror (1936-1938)"

•  Maya Wagner-Tyree (Macalester College) “Laboring for Life: How Food Dictated

Survival in the Gulag”

•  Ellis Kondrashov (Carleton College) "Performance in Public Space: The Youth, Benches, and Islamization of Almaty's Streets"

•  Lea Wang (Macalester College) “Intersectionality and the Dagongmei Dilemma:

Reexamining the Gendered Representation of Chinese Female Migrant Workers in

Literature

•  Lily Johnston (Carleton College) "The Family Plan or Lack Thereof: A Cultural Study of Post-One Child Policy China"

2:50-3:00 pm Break

3:00-3:15 pm Mini-concert featuring Miles Rakov and Wendy Zheng

3:20-4:20 Panel 3: Transcultural Encounters in Literature and Visual Arts

•  Huihui Jiang (Macalester College) “Maria Kannon: A Transcultural Icon Connecting Europe,

Asia, and Japan”

•  Ryan Moore (St. Olaf College), "Irony and the Russian Subject in Dostoevsky's 'White Nights'"

•  Bryn Archambault (Gustavus Adolphus College) “Beyond the Frame: Heaven and Earth as a

Counternarrative to U.S. Memory of the ‘Vietnam’ War”

•  Xinmeng Mi (Grinnell College) “From Objectification to Empowerment: Misogyny and its

Resistance in Online Anime Fan Community”

Reception (with tea and dessert) at Macalester’s Chinese House