Ali Igmen | California State University Long Beach (original) (raw)
Books by Ali Igmen
Papers by Ali Igmen
American Ethnologist, 2013
This chapter explores the endeavors of Kyrgyz citizens to create a space for their indigenous cul... more This chapter explores the endeavors of Kyrgyz citizens to create a space for their indigenous culture within the official Soviet framework. The article is concerned about the liminal space that incorporated pre-Islamic, nomadic aesthetics such as reverence for the environment and indigenous spirituality, and the promotion of tolerance. It relies on oral interviews, biographies and other archival sources, and artistic expression and performances to traces and analyze the endeavors of Kyrgyz citizens to create a space for their indigenous culture within the official Soviet framework. During and after the 1950s, there emerged a liminal space that incorporated pre-Islamic, nomadic aesthetics such as reverence for the environment and indigenous spirituality. Kyrgyz writers, actors, directors and other artists of the Soviet Union worked hard at devising strategies to maintain their traditional ways without challenging the gradually transpiring Soviet norms. Ultimately, they contributed to
The American Historical Review, Oct 1, 2014
Slavic Review, 2020
The final chapter, on how the Europeanized elites colonized the provinces, is in many ways the mo... more The final chapter, on how the Europeanized elites colonized the provinces, is in many ways the most interesting, as it includes innovative attention to place and how the elites in many ways ignored or rejected its specificities, preferring to create a European archipelago of estates in the provinces, surrounded by unredeemed Russian reality. It would be useful to bring in more on the earlier development of regional identity, as it would strengthen the argument. As I and others have argued, non-noble regions such as the Russian North and Siberia had the strongest forms of regional identity from at least the seventeenth centuries, and nobles who were posted there tended to work to erase those identities in favor of a homogenized European sense of place. Indeed, the dominance of the nobility was antithetical to the creation of a regional identity throughout the nineteenth century, with Ukraine providing an interesting counterexample outside the scope of the book. The authors’ idea of a “deterritorialized lifestyle” (207) usefully captures the way the elites would act the same wherever they went, as if part of a traveling theater. The conclusion notes that interiority, not income, is the key to understanding the process of Europeanization in Russia during this time, since the economy was more resistant to change than were the souls of Russian nobles. The authors suggest that the identity of Russian nobles was metropolitan, not regional, and that places were seen as placeless because the elite believed them to be fundamentally malleable. Further, although the elite was Europeanized, no cohesive nation emerged from that process, which only deepened the divide between the nobility and the other estates. The book provides an important intervention in the literature. There are a few cases where citations are not found in the bibliography and places in the writing that show some infelicities of style, but the focus on emotion and place is an insightful one.
Kritika, 2019
Baken Kydykeeva [1923-93]). All four performed in Kyrgyz film, theater, and opera throughout the ... more Baken Kydykeeva [1923-93]). All four performed in Kyrgyz film, theater, and opera throughout the second half of the Soviet period and into the beginning of the post-Soviet era as well, until the last one, Kümüshalieva, passed away in 2007. I have discussed these four trailblazing women performers elsewhere. Survivors of dekulakization, collectivization, the Stalinist purges, and the Great Patriotic War (1941-45), they belonged to a second generation of theater professionals that followed a handful of first-generation Kyrgyz mentors who either came from Moscow or Leningrad or had been sent to study theater in those cities. Kümüshalieva, Kuiukova, and Kydykeeva went on to have long stage and film careers, while Kiyizbaeva became the leading opera singer and teacher of Soviet Kirgizia. 3 This article examines the oral history interviews I conducted in Kyrgyzstan between 2006 and 2017 with a range of theater professionalsactors, directors, producers-as well as family members connected to these four women, all of whom I call narrators, as part of the research I am doing for a collective biography of the group. 4 These four talented individuals represented strength, defiance, conformity, and maternal mentorship simultaneously and sporadically, depending on a particular moment in their histories. 5 I argue that the remembrances of these women expose the instability of memories, which tend to mutate because the narrators present the past, not only as facts but also as feelings and nostalgia. My goal here is to explore the ways in which people remember and convey the past, especially when they talk about individuals they held in great esteem. It quickly became apparent during the interviews that the respect for these women was not just personal but also official: that is, they were not just remembered by their everyday admirers but were upheld as models by the Soviet and post-Soviet state. The narrators I interviewed were able to construct identities for the "daughters of Tököldösh" and other people they admired, offering both "facts" about their lives and their own emotions to the presentation of those "facts." Indeed, one of the distinctive characteristics of the interviews was their intertwining of fact and emotion. These interviews reflected the
University of Pittsburgh Press eBooks, May 31, 2022
Canadian Slavonic papers, Jan 2, 2020
Central Asian affairs, Dec 30, 2017
International Journal of Middle East Studies, Aug 1, 2008
Chapter 5, “Islamic Criminal Law Today,” consists of short overviews of contemporary criminal law... more Chapter 5, “Islamic Criminal Law Today,” consists of short overviews of contemporary criminal laws in Saudi Arabia, Libya, Pakistan, Iran, Sudan, and northern Nigeria. Peters explains that Saudi Arabia is an example of the uninterrupted application of Islamic criminal law and that the other countries covered involve the reintroduction of Islamic criminal law. These are useful summaries and go into much more detail than what can be found in country reports from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. At the end of Chapter 5, Peters enters into a short discussion of how “the Shari↪a criminal law as applied today is in conflict with human rights standards” (pp. 174–75). The issues of human rights and Islamic law are too complex to be treated thoroughly in the final pages of this work that focuses elsewhere, and as a result this part seems abbreviated and disconnected from the rest of the book. Scholars interested in Islamic law and its application should definitely read Peters’s Crime and Punishment in Islamic Law. We still have much work to do in this field, and this book gives us precious material to think about when formulating methodologies for future law in action studies.
Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and The Middle East, 2012
This article analyzes the lives of four stage personalities whose lives, career paths, and achiev... more This article analyzes the lives of four stage personalities whose lives, career paths, and achievements connect us to the cultural makeup of Soviet Kyrgyzstan during the second half of the twentieth century. The stories of Sabira Kumushalieva, Saira Kiyizbaeva, Baken Kydykeeva, and Darkul Kuiukova take us back to an era when Kyrgyz women first took charge of their lives in a public forum. These “four daughters of Tököldösh” established the modern conventions of Kyrgyz stage and film. They helped construct idealized models for Kyrgyz women and fashioned a new Kyrgyz identity that redefined the meaning of “Sovietness.”
Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2004.This dissertation is concerned with the ongoing p... more Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2004.This dissertation is concerned with the ongoing process of fashioning new possibilities for what it meant to be Kyrgyz during the 1920s and 1930s; it analyzes this dynamic development through the prism of clubs. This study examines the discourse in the language of official documents on Soviet club activities and celebrations, such as the Cultural Olympiads, in the expressed sentiments of several Kyrgyz intellectuals, such as actress Sabira Kumushaliyeva, and in the early fiction of author Chingiz Aitmatov. These artists and intellectuals, who greatly influenced Kyrgyz culture during the second half of the twentieth century, help us frame questions of gender, power and public performance. The narratives of these artists and intellectuals, who first experienced Soviet culture in Houses of Culture, underscore the story that this study draws out of the official government documents. The main method of this dissertation is the analysis of the Soviet discourse of cultural development, conveyed by Soviet institutions such as clubs and Soviet intellectuals in Kirghizia or Kyrgyzstan. It argues that Kyrgyz people who were involved in the cultural activities of the Houses of Culture, Stalinist festivals, Soviet theater, and literature helped make a new Kyrgyz community. Through public performances and artistic expressions, they negotiated Kyrgyzness within the limitations of Soviet citizenship. It suggests that club officials and national talents asserted Kyrgyz culture onto the official Soviet concept of "culturedness." This study shows that in the 1920s and 1930s, club administrators, theater professionals and Olympiad organizers were encouraged to showcase the ethnic features of their nationalities in the clubs and Stalinist celebrations. These Kyrgyz elites accepted this responsibility and learned to play their ethnicity. They learned to speak the language of the cultural revolution with a Kyrgyz accent. Their national narrative portrayed Kyrgyzness wrapped in a Soviet cloak
Reconstructing the House of Culture
Central Asian Survey, 2013
Creating Culture in (Post) Socialist Central Asia, 2020
This chapter explores the endeavors of Kyrgyz citizens to create a space for their indigenous cul... more This chapter explores the endeavors of Kyrgyz citizens to create a space for their indigenous culture within the official Soviet framework. The article is concerned about the liminal space that incorporated pre-Islamic, nomadic aesthetics such as reverence for the environment and indigenous spirituality, and the promotion of tolerance. It relies on oral interviews, biographies and other archival sources, and artistic expression and performances to traces and analyze the endeavors of Kyrgyz citizens to create a space for their indigenous culture within the official Soviet framework. During and after the 1950s, there emerged a liminal space that incorporated pre-Islamic, nomadic aesthetics such as reverence for the environment and indigenous spirituality. Kyrgyz writers, actors, directors and other artists of the Soviet Union worked hard at devising strategies to maintain their traditional ways without challenging the gradually transpiring Soviet norms. Ultimately, they contributed to
Creating Culture in (Post) Socialist Central Asia, 2020
Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2004.This dissertation is concerned with the ongoing p... more Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2004.This dissertation is concerned with the ongoing process of fashioning new possibilities for what it meant to be Kyrgyz during the 1920s and 1930s; it analyzes this dynamic development through the prism of clubs. This study examines the discourse in the language of official documents on Soviet club activities and celebrations, such as the Cultural Olympiads, in the expressed sentiments of several Kyrgyz intellectuals, such as actress Sabira Kumushaliyeva, and in the early fiction of author Chingiz Aitmatov. These artists and intellectuals, who greatly influenced Kyrgyz culture during the second half of the twentieth century, help us frame questions of gender, power and public performance. The narratives of these artists and intellectuals, who first experienced Soviet culture in Houses of Culture, underscore the story that this study draws out of the official government documents. The main method of this dissertation is the analysis of the Soviet discourse of cultural development, conveyed by Soviet institutions such as clubs and Soviet intellectuals in Kirghizia or Kyrgyzstan. It argues that Kyrgyz people who were involved in the cultural activities of the Houses of Culture, Stalinist festivals, Soviet theater, and literature helped make a new Kyrgyz community. Through public performances and artistic expressions, they negotiated Kyrgyzness within the limitations of Soviet citizenship. It suggests that club officials and national talents asserted Kyrgyz culture onto the official Soviet concept of "culturedness." This study shows that in the 1920s and 1930s, club administrators, theater professionals and Olympiad organizers were encouraged to showcase the ethnic features of their nationalities in the clubs and Stalinist celebrations. These Kyrgyz elites accepted this responsibility and learned to play their ethnicity. They learned to speak the language of the cultural revolution with a Kyrgyz accent. Their national narrative portrayed Kyrgyzness wrapped in a Soviet cloak
American Ethnologist, 2013
This chapter explores the endeavors of Kyrgyz citizens to create a space for their indigenous cul... more This chapter explores the endeavors of Kyrgyz citizens to create a space for their indigenous culture within the official Soviet framework. The article is concerned about the liminal space that incorporated pre-Islamic, nomadic aesthetics such as reverence for the environment and indigenous spirituality, and the promotion of tolerance. It relies on oral interviews, biographies and other archival sources, and artistic expression and performances to traces and analyze the endeavors of Kyrgyz citizens to create a space for their indigenous culture within the official Soviet framework. During and after the 1950s, there emerged a liminal space that incorporated pre-Islamic, nomadic aesthetics such as reverence for the environment and indigenous spirituality. Kyrgyz writers, actors, directors and other artists of the Soviet Union worked hard at devising strategies to maintain their traditional ways without challenging the gradually transpiring Soviet norms. Ultimately, they contributed to
The American Historical Review, Oct 1, 2014
Slavic Review, 2020
The final chapter, on how the Europeanized elites colonized the provinces, is in many ways the mo... more The final chapter, on how the Europeanized elites colonized the provinces, is in many ways the most interesting, as it includes innovative attention to place and how the elites in many ways ignored or rejected its specificities, preferring to create a European archipelago of estates in the provinces, surrounded by unredeemed Russian reality. It would be useful to bring in more on the earlier development of regional identity, as it would strengthen the argument. As I and others have argued, non-noble regions such as the Russian North and Siberia had the strongest forms of regional identity from at least the seventeenth centuries, and nobles who were posted there tended to work to erase those identities in favor of a homogenized European sense of place. Indeed, the dominance of the nobility was antithetical to the creation of a regional identity throughout the nineteenth century, with Ukraine providing an interesting counterexample outside the scope of the book. The authors’ idea of a “deterritorialized lifestyle” (207) usefully captures the way the elites would act the same wherever they went, as if part of a traveling theater. The conclusion notes that interiority, not income, is the key to understanding the process of Europeanization in Russia during this time, since the economy was more resistant to change than were the souls of Russian nobles. The authors suggest that the identity of Russian nobles was metropolitan, not regional, and that places were seen as placeless because the elite believed them to be fundamentally malleable. Further, although the elite was Europeanized, no cohesive nation emerged from that process, which only deepened the divide between the nobility and the other estates. The book provides an important intervention in the literature. There are a few cases where citations are not found in the bibliography and places in the writing that show some infelicities of style, but the focus on emotion and place is an insightful one.
Kritika, 2019
Baken Kydykeeva [1923-93]). All four performed in Kyrgyz film, theater, and opera throughout the ... more Baken Kydykeeva [1923-93]). All four performed in Kyrgyz film, theater, and opera throughout the second half of the Soviet period and into the beginning of the post-Soviet era as well, until the last one, Kümüshalieva, passed away in 2007. I have discussed these four trailblazing women performers elsewhere. Survivors of dekulakization, collectivization, the Stalinist purges, and the Great Patriotic War (1941-45), they belonged to a second generation of theater professionals that followed a handful of first-generation Kyrgyz mentors who either came from Moscow or Leningrad or had been sent to study theater in those cities. Kümüshalieva, Kuiukova, and Kydykeeva went on to have long stage and film careers, while Kiyizbaeva became the leading opera singer and teacher of Soviet Kirgizia. 3 This article examines the oral history interviews I conducted in Kyrgyzstan between 2006 and 2017 with a range of theater professionalsactors, directors, producers-as well as family members connected to these four women, all of whom I call narrators, as part of the research I am doing for a collective biography of the group. 4 These four talented individuals represented strength, defiance, conformity, and maternal mentorship simultaneously and sporadically, depending on a particular moment in their histories. 5 I argue that the remembrances of these women expose the instability of memories, which tend to mutate because the narrators present the past, not only as facts but also as feelings and nostalgia. My goal here is to explore the ways in which people remember and convey the past, especially when they talk about individuals they held in great esteem. It quickly became apparent during the interviews that the respect for these women was not just personal but also official: that is, they were not just remembered by their everyday admirers but were upheld as models by the Soviet and post-Soviet state. The narrators I interviewed were able to construct identities for the "daughters of Tököldösh" and other people they admired, offering both "facts" about their lives and their own emotions to the presentation of those "facts." Indeed, one of the distinctive characteristics of the interviews was their intertwining of fact and emotion. These interviews reflected the
University of Pittsburgh Press eBooks, May 31, 2022
Canadian Slavonic papers, Jan 2, 2020
Central Asian affairs, Dec 30, 2017
International Journal of Middle East Studies, Aug 1, 2008
Chapter 5, “Islamic Criminal Law Today,” consists of short overviews of contemporary criminal law... more Chapter 5, “Islamic Criminal Law Today,” consists of short overviews of contemporary criminal laws in Saudi Arabia, Libya, Pakistan, Iran, Sudan, and northern Nigeria. Peters explains that Saudi Arabia is an example of the uninterrupted application of Islamic criminal law and that the other countries covered involve the reintroduction of Islamic criminal law. These are useful summaries and go into much more detail than what can be found in country reports from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. At the end of Chapter 5, Peters enters into a short discussion of how “the Shari↪a criminal law as applied today is in conflict with human rights standards” (pp. 174–75). The issues of human rights and Islamic law are too complex to be treated thoroughly in the final pages of this work that focuses elsewhere, and as a result this part seems abbreviated and disconnected from the rest of the book. Scholars interested in Islamic law and its application should definitely read Peters’s Crime and Punishment in Islamic Law. We still have much work to do in this field, and this book gives us precious material to think about when formulating methodologies for future law in action studies.
Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and The Middle East, 2012
This article analyzes the lives of four stage personalities whose lives, career paths, and achiev... more This article analyzes the lives of four stage personalities whose lives, career paths, and achievements connect us to the cultural makeup of Soviet Kyrgyzstan during the second half of the twentieth century. The stories of Sabira Kumushalieva, Saira Kiyizbaeva, Baken Kydykeeva, and Darkul Kuiukova take us back to an era when Kyrgyz women first took charge of their lives in a public forum. These “four daughters of Tököldösh” established the modern conventions of Kyrgyz stage and film. They helped construct idealized models for Kyrgyz women and fashioned a new Kyrgyz identity that redefined the meaning of “Sovietness.”
Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2004.This dissertation is concerned with the ongoing p... more Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2004.This dissertation is concerned with the ongoing process of fashioning new possibilities for what it meant to be Kyrgyz during the 1920s and 1930s; it analyzes this dynamic development through the prism of clubs. This study examines the discourse in the language of official documents on Soviet club activities and celebrations, such as the Cultural Olympiads, in the expressed sentiments of several Kyrgyz intellectuals, such as actress Sabira Kumushaliyeva, and in the early fiction of author Chingiz Aitmatov. These artists and intellectuals, who greatly influenced Kyrgyz culture during the second half of the twentieth century, help us frame questions of gender, power and public performance. The narratives of these artists and intellectuals, who first experienced Soviet culture in Houses of Culture, underscore the story that this study draws out of the official government documents. The main method of this dissertation is the analysis of the Soviet discourse of cultural development, conveyed by Soviet institutions such as clubs and Soviet intellectuals in Kirghizia or Kyrgyzstan. It argues that Kyrgyz people who were involved in the cultural activities of the Houses of Culture, Stalinist festivals, Soviet theater, and literature helped make a new Kyrgyz community. Through public performances and artistic expressions, they negotiated Kyrgyzness within the limitations of Soviet citizenship. It suggests that club officials and national talents asserted Kyrgyz culture onto the official Soviet concept of "culturedness." This study shows that in the 1920s and 1930s, club administrators, theater professionals and Olympiad organizers were encouraged to showcase the ethnic features of their nationalities in the clubs and Stalinist celebrations. These Kyrgyz elites accepted this responsibility and learned to play their ethnicity. They learned to speak the language of the cultural revolution with a Kyrgyz accent. Their national narrative portrayed Kyrgyzness wrapped in a Soviet cloak
Reconstructing the House of Culture
Central Asian Survey, 2013
Creating Culture in (Post) Socialist Central Asia, 2020
This chapter explores the endeavors of Kyrgyz citizens to create a space for their indigenous cul... more This chapter explores the endeavors of Kyrgyz citizens to create a space for their indigenous culture within the official Soviet framework. The article is concerned about the liminal space that incorporated pre-Islamic, nomadic aesthetics such as reverence for the environment and indigenous spirituality, and the promotion of tolerance. It relies on oral interviews, biographies and other archival sources, and artistic expression and performances to traces and analyze the endeavors of Kyrgyz citizens to create a space for their indigenous culture within the official Soviet framework. During and after the 1950s, there emerged a liminal space that incorporated pre-Islamic, nomadic aesthetics such as reverence for the environment and indigenous spirituality. Kyrgyz writers, actors, directors and other artists of the Soviet Union worked hard at devising strategies to maintain their traditional ways without challenging the gradually transpiring Soviet norms. Ultimately, they contributed to
Creating Culture in (Post) Socialist Central Asia, 2020
Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2004.This dissertation is concerned with the ongoing p... more Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2004.This dissertation is concerned with the ongoing process of fashioning new possibilities for what it meant to be Kyrgyz during the 1920s and 1930s; it analyzes this dynamic development through the prism of clubs. This study examines the discourse in the language of official documents on Soviet club activities and celebrations, such as the Cultural Olympiads, in the expressed sentiments of several Kyrgyz intellectuals, such as actress Sabira Kumushaliyeva, and in the early fiction of author Chingiz Aitmatov. These artists and intellectuals, who greatly influenced Kyrgyz culture during the second half of the twentieth century, help us frame questions of gender, power and public performance. The narratives of these artists and intellectuals, who first experienced Soviet culture in Houses of Culture, underscore the story that this study draws out of the official government documents. The main method of this dissertation is the analysis of the Soviet discourse of cultural development, conveyed by Soviet institutions such as clubs and Soviet intellectuals in Kirghizia or Kyrgyzstan. It argues that Kyrgyz people who were involved in the cultural activities of the Houses of Culture, Stalinist festivals, Soviet theater, and literature helped make a new Kyrgyz community. Through public performances and artistic expressions, they negotiated Kyrgyzness within the limitations of Soviet citizenship. It suggests that club officials and national talents asserted Kyrgyz culture onto the official Soviet concept of "culturedness." This study shows that in the 1920s and 1930s, club administrators, theater professionals and Olympiad organizers were encouraged to showcase the ethnic features of their nationalities in the clubs and Stalinist celebrations. These Kyrgyz elites accepted this responsibility and learned to play their ethnicity. They learned to speak the language of the cultural revolution with a Kyrgyz accent. Their national narrative portrayed Kyrgyzness wrapped in a Soviet cloak
This book brings together historical and ethnographic research from Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and X... more This book brings together historical and ethnographic research from Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Xianjiang, in order to explore how individuals and communities work to create and maintain forms of 'culture' in contexts of ideological repression and erasure. Across Inner Central Asia, in both China and the Soviet Union, while ethnic culture was on one hand lauded and promoted, it was simultaneously folklorized in the face of broader projects of socialist modernity. How do intellectuals, cultural organisers, and performers work to negotiate their own forms and understandings of cultural meaning within the institutions and frameworks of a long twentieth century? How does scholarly attention to cultural production, tradition, and performance help to inform our understanding of (ethnic) nations not given, but as coming into being?