Anchoring the Black Sea: Conversations about Contingency

The Black Sea is being recreated by war and oil. The destruction of the Kakhovka Dam caught the world’s attention, but a continual barrage of attacks on industrial sites has wreaked havoc on stretches of coastline. Militarization has destroyed marshlands and seaweed forests. Naval mines threaten improvised shipping corridors. Oil spills and toxic runoff endanger marine ecosystems from the Danube to the Don. War has displaced over ten million people, with unfathomable consequences on the local economies, infrastructure, and social fabric.

What does it take to understand a region in which the relentless upheaval is both terrestrial and maritime? Which strategies promise insight in these conditions? Do our perspectives and analyses shift when we anchor our understanding of the region in the sea itself?

Join us for an afternoon of conversations hosted by the Black Sea Lab. Student research reports, expert roundtables, and a micro-exhibit will generate new questions and identify new possibilities for studying the Black Sea and in the geopolitical and environmental context of the 21st century.

1:00 pm - Welcome and Introductions

1:15 pm - Roundtable on Contingency, the Black Sea, and Eurasian Studies

2:15 pm - Student Research Reports

3:00pm - Reflections on the Black Sea Frames

3:15 pm - Coffee Break

3:30 pm - Roundtable on the Black Sea through the Lens of Area Studies

4:30 pm - The Incremental Sea: Map Project Launch

4:45 pm - Reception

Event Speakers:

Kelly O’Neill: Director, Imperiia Project, Davis Center

Natia Chankvetadze: Director, Program on Georgian Studies, Davis Center

Nargis Kassenova: Director, Program on Central Asia, Davis Center

Mark Kramer: Director, Cold War Studies Project, Davis Center

Irina Busygina: Lead Researcher, Post-Soviet Reforms Initiative

Paul Vădan: Coordinator, Imperiia Project, Davis Center

Allison Hart: Coordinator, Program on Georgian Studies, Davis Center

Nadia Boyadjieva: Visiting Scholar, Center Associate, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

Markus Vaher: Graduate Student Associate, REECA

Anastasiia Pereverten: Graduate Student Associate, REECA

Olive Coles: Innovation Fellow, Davis Center

Julian Gonzales-Poirier: Innovation Fellow, Davis Center

Jesse Howell, Associate Director of Research Initiatives

Natia Gamkrelidze, Postdoctoral Fellow, International Security Program, The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs

Albana Shehaj, Program Manager & Seminar Chair at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies

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