Monday, May 10, 2010

My Publication Record While at the American University of Central Asia

Since starting work at AUCA I have had six scholarly publications published. They are listed below in the order of their publication. Given my high course work load of between three and five classes a semester I believe this is a fairly good record. It is almost certainly better than anybody else working at the university. I will have more on this last point later.

J. Otto Pohl., “Deportierte in der Sowjetunion im und nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg” trans. Jochen Oltmer in Klaus J. Bade, Pieter C. Emmer, Leo Lucassen and Jochen Oltmer, eds., _Enzyklopadie Migration in Europa: Vom 17 Jahrhundret bis zur Gegenwart_ (Paderborn, Germany: Ferdinand Schonigh Verlag, 2007).

This is an article summarizing the deportation and return of various nationalities in the USSR during and after World War II. It was published as part of an extensive academic encyclopedia on migration in Europe since the 17th century.

J. Otto Pohl, “A Caste of Helot Labourers: Special Settlers and the Cultivation of Cotton in Soviet Central Asia: 1944-1956” in Deniz Kandiyoti, ed., _The Cotton Sector in Central Asia: Economic Policy and Development Challenges_, (London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 2007).

This article was published as part of a book on the role of cotton in the economies of the various Central Asian states. The book grew out of a conference organized by Deniz Kandiyoti at the School of Oriental and African Studies in 2005. The conference brought together academics, independent scholars, and people working for a variety of NGOs and international financial institutions such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank.

J. Otto Pohl, “Loss, Retention, and Reacquisition of Social Capital by Special Settlers in the USSR, 1941-1961” in Cynthia Buckley, Blair Ruble, and Erin Trouth Hofmann, eds., _Migration, Homeland and Belonging in Eurasia_ (Washington DC: Woodrow Wilson Center and Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins Universtiy Press, 2008).

This book was published as part of a project by the Kennan Center in Washington DC to integrate current scholarship on migration in Eurasia. It involved two workshops in 2004 and 2005. Despite only coming out in print in December 2008 it has already garnered a number of positive reviews from prominent scholars in the field. I have quoted two of them below.

“This is a highly relevant book for scholars, policy makers, and government institutions, offering a glimpse at the myriad cross-country issues that emerge regarding the problems and opportunities associated with the movement of people across borders." - Kathleen Kuehnast, United States Institute of Peace

"This is an interesting book which brings a range of new and interesting case studies into view. There are only a handful of books on this subject and arguably none have the breadth of scope that this collection offers." - Hilary Pilkington, University of Warwick

At nearly the same time I had a chapter published in a collection of essays on German diasporas published by Wilfrid Laurier University Press in Canada.

J. Otto Pohl, “Suffering in a Province of Asia: The Russian-German Diaspora in Kazakhstan” in Mathias Schulze, James M. Skidmore, David G. John, Grit Liebscher, and Sebastian Siebel-Achenbach, eds., _Germanic Diasporic Experiences: Identity, Migration, and Loss_ (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2008).

This book grew out of an international conference hosted by the Waterloo Center for German Studies in 2006. It too has already garnered a number of positive reviews from prominent scholars despite being published in December 2008. I have quoted one of them below.

“Thirty-nine brief but lively, evocative essays testify to the universal human experience of exile. The editors of this fascinating, wide-ranging collection have chosen their title well, as ‘diasporic experiences’ neatly sidesteps the thorny question of what constitutes a diaspora as such.” – Renate Bridenthal, Brooklyn College, City University of New York, _Journal of World History_

I also had two peer reviewed journal articles published in 2009.

J. Otto Pohl, “Volk auf dem Weg: Transnational Migration of the Russian-Germans from 1763 to Present Day,” _Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism_, vol. 9, no. 2, 2009.

J. Otto Pohl, Eric J. Schmaltz and Ronald J. Vossler, “‘In our Hearts we Felt the Sentence of Death:’ Ethnic German Recollections of Mass Violence in the USSR, 1928-1948,” _Journal of Genocide Research_, vol. 11, nos. 2-3. June-September 2009.

3 comments:

daquail said...

Your blog came up in a search for documents on the Palestinian exodus of ‘48, and your tone, as well as your location, encouraged me to read your back entries. I followed with sympathy and growing respect your progress, PhD, pride in publication and dismay at no job offers, Arizona, serenity, posthole digging, petulance at academia’s preference for TA experience over scholarship,curricular musings, then finally AUCA and real curricula. Your discovered success as a teacher,your wholehearted immersion in work, your outrage at plagiarism, were all, I thought, and think,evidence of a thoroughgoing honesty of intellect and purpose. In your blog I read as sincere moral statements what others might read as antisemitism. Clearly your expertise in the forced political displacement of peoples informs your views on the Israelis and Palestinians. I have a lifetime of loyalty to Israel and relief in its existence, yet I wonder now how long its posture vis a vis the Arab world can be maintained. Please believe therefore that the following is a genuine question: what would you have the Israelis do now, and what do you believe the consequences would be?

J. Otto Pohl said...

daquail:

Thank you very much for your kind note and well thought out question. Unfortunately, as is apparent from recent blog posts here, I am currently occupied with trying to get a new job. Hence I do not have the time now to give your question the proper response it deserves. I will say that I did discuss possible solutions to the Palestinian-Israeli confilict in my Politics of the Middle East class. But, to be absolutely honest given the current realities I do not think there will be any near term solution.

daquail said...

Thanks anyway. The best of luck with a new job.