Yerevan Center for International Education (YCIE)

YCIE is delighted to announce the international conference “Unionize the Science: Agency and Infrastructures of Knowledge in Eurasia, 20th–21st Centuries.” The conference is funded and organized as part of the YCIE Co-Funded Conferences program and will be held in Yerevan, Armenia, November 5–7, 2026. The conference explores the social agency of science in socialist and post-socialist contexts, with particular attention to the institutional, material, and spatial infrastructures that shaped the production, circulation, and contestation of knowledge. Organizing Committee: Dr. Mikhail Piskunov, Dr. Timofey Rakov, and Dr. Alexander Fokin. ❗️This conference is a closed event, open to invited participants only.

In this episode, we speak with social anthropologist Agnieszka Halemba, who works at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, where she heads the Anthropology Undisciplined Research Unit. She also teaches at the University of Potsdam. Her research interests include the anthropology of religion and the anthropology of architecture. 🎧 Listen to the podcast: • Apple Podcasts • Spotify • YouTube

We are extremely excited and proud to share our new YCIE initiative: "Beyond the Abstract," a new essay series by our respected fellows. In this series, our researchers dive deeper into their papers and topics, highlighting the most compelling insights, the ideas that stayed off the page, and a closer look at their overall thought and working processes. For our inaugural essay, we present a piece by Élodie Gavrilof. As a French-Armenian researcher who grew up in Turkey, she reflects on her ongoing work examining how otherness has been constructed over the long term, specifically focusing on Turks and Azerbaijanis in Armenian narratives since 1878. Along the way, she explores biases in the social sciences, the role of autoethnography, and moving away from the older ideal of scientific objectivity. 📝 Read the full essay here!

Our public lecture calendar for this semester is officially here! Featuring an inspiring lineup of international, local, and guest speakers, YCIE invites you to explore our upcoming events and reserve your spot. 🗓 Register here! Join us to learn, share, and celebrate knowledge together!

Based on ethnographic research in the Black Sea port city of Poti, this lecture by YCIE fellow Esma Berikishvili traces the changing relationship between the city, its waterfront, and the sea across imperial, Soviet, and post-socialist periods. It focuses particularly on the transformations that followed Georgia’s Rose Revolution, when fisheries were reorganised through licensing and commercial regulation while Poti’s port was increasingly integrated into global logistical networks. Drawing on ethnographic accounts of fishing, relocation to nearby Paliastomi Lake, and the family and reciprocal networks that support coastal livelihoods, Esma Berikishvili examines how practices once embedded in everyday maritime life become classified as legitimate, informal, or illicit. 📅 October 23, 2026 ⏰ 6:00 PM (GMT+4) 📍 3 Aram Khachatryan St., Yerevan + Online Register here!

Dear friends, our website is now fully functional again after being down for a short while. We truly appreciate your patience and sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. 🧡 yerevancenter.org

The next fellow to join us in Yerevan for the 2026–2027 academic year Research Fellowship Program at YCIE is Esma Berikishvili! ⭐ Berikishvili holds a PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology from Ilia State University and a master’s degree in Sociology and Social Anthropology from Central European University (CEU). Her research offers a situated analysis of post-socialist transformation in the Black Sea region, with particular attention to infrastructure, materiality, and informal economies. Her broader interests include urban anthropology, activism, informal and everyday economic practices, port cities and maritime livelihoods, the Black Sea region, and visual anthropology.

Shortly after telescopes could see into the universe in non-visible wavelengths, starting with radio waves, the question of whether other/extraterrestrial civilizations exist became a feasible pursuit. The USSR’s top-down endorsement of the problem of Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence (CETI) stemmed from two major conferences hosted at the Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory (BAO) in Armenia in 1964 and 1971. This presentation explores CETI’s value for Armenian interdisciplinary science, including archaeoastronomy (developed by BAO’s Elma Parsamyan and Paris Herouni) and philosophy, theory of culture, and cybernetics (developed by Eduard Markarian). 🗓️ 6 PM | October 16 📍 3, A. Khachatryan St. Register here!

On October 2–3, 2026, the Yerevan Center for International Education (YCIE), together with the Groupe Sociétés, Religions, Laïcités (GSRL) — a research center of the CNRS and EPHE–PSL — and the Institut français de recherche sur l’Europe orientale, le Caucase et l’Asie du Nord (IRECA), hosted an international conference in Yerevan, titled “What Makes a Church ‘National’ in the 21st Century? Politics and Poetics of Religious Nationalism in the South Caucasus, the Balkans, and Eastern Europe.” Across the two days, we brought together scholars researching religion, nationalism, and Eastern Christianity in the South Caucasus, the Balkans, and Eastern Europe to discuss not only the relationship between churches and nation-states, but also the everyday practices through which a church becomes — and sometimes ceases to be — perceived as national. Many thanks to all our participants, chairs, and colleagues who made the conference possible!

YCIE invites paper proposals to the third annual Y-Conference. 📣 The Y-Conference brings together scholars who work in or focus on the Caucasus and Eurasia to present their latest research and discuss their ongoing projects. The theme of the third Y-Conference is EMPIRES. In times of intensifying debates on the rise of neo-imperialism(s) and the return to empire, we want to bring together cutting-edge scholarship from the humanities and social sciences for an exploration into empires and their current afterlives. Applicants must select a panel from the list of open panels. Proposals for presentations outside the listed panels are not accepted. • Deadline: November 23, 2026 • Notification of selection results: December 23, 2026 🔸 Learn more about the conference and application process. For any inquiries, please contact: conference@yerevancenter.org

7 days left to apply for the YCIE Anthropology School, “Building as a Social Practice: Design, Materiality, and Urban Transformation.” 📯 The program is designed for Master’s students, PhD candidates, and early-career professionals interested in anthropological approaches to the built environment, regardless of disciplinary background. We particularly encourage applications from anthropology, sociology, history, architecture, urban studies, art history, cultural studies, and related fields. When: April 5 – 11, 2027 Where: Yerevan, Armenia Submit your applications by October 15, 2026. 🔵 Learn more about the school and the application process.

We are happy to announce our first research fellow joining YCIE for the 2026-2027 academic year! ⭐ Gabriela Rădulescu is a historian of science and social anthropologist. Her doctoral dissertation (defended in October 2024, Technical University of Berlin), “A History of Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence (CETI): Astronautics and Radio Astronomy Across the Iron Curtain (1956-1976),” examined the political origins and history of the scientific field known today as the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). During her fellowship, she is focusing on the 1971 Soviet-American Conference on Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence, held at Byurakan.

YCIE invites applications for the International School in Architectural Anthropology, entitled “Building as a Social Practice: Design, Materiality, and Urban Transformation.” 📯 The program is designed for Master’s students, PhD candidates, and early-career professionals interested in anthropological approaches to the built environment, regardless of disciplinary background. We particularly encourage applications from anthropology, sociology, history, architecture, urban studies, art history, cultural studies, and related fields. When: April 5 – 11, 2027 Where: Yerevan, Armenia Submit your applications by October 15, 2026. 🔵 Learn more about the school and the application process! For any inquiries, please contact: s.shtyrkov@yerevancenter.org

The presentation explores the history of several Armenian families who lived in a Moscow apartment building constructed in 1904 and known above all as Mikhail Bulgakov’s first Moscow address and as the residence of Woland in The Master and Margarita. Yet the history of the building extends far beyond the writer’s biography and fictional world. The aim of the presentation is not so much to recount the biographies of these families—although this is unavoidable—as to explore the possibilities and limitations of microhistorical anthropology as an interdisciplinary approach. The sources include interviews with descendants, documents and photographs from private archives, materials from state archives, previously unknown ego-texts, as well as published fiction and documentary literature. Lecturer: Dmitriy Oparin 🗓️ September 11, 2026 🕧 6:00 PM 📍 3 Aram Khachatryan St., Yerevan + Online Register in advance!

7 days left to submit your panels for the YCIE third annual Y-Conference: EMPIRES! 📣 The Y-Conference brings together scholars who work in or focus on the Caucasus and Eurasia to present their latest research and discuss their ongoing projects. We welcome scholars from across the social sciences, humanities, and related interdisciplinary fields to submit panel session proposals. Applicants must select one of the two panel formats (closed or open panels) described in the call and submit only one proposal. Deadline: September 6, 2026 Notification of acceptance: October 6, 2026 🔸 Learn more about the conference and application process.

In the new episode of the "Now in Russian" podcast we spoke with Alexander Iskandaryan, a political scientist, Director of the Yerevan-based Caucasus Institute, and member of YCIE Board of Trustees. His areas of study are ethnopolitical conflicts, post-Communist transformations and nation building in the former USSR. He has extensively lectured and published on democracy, conflicts, formal and informal institutions in a transition setting, the building of post-Soviet identities, migration, regional integration, media development and the formation of public discourses. Listen to the #podcast 🎙 • Apple Podcasts • Spotify • YouTube

Applying a morphological lens to social and religious spaces, Mathijs Pelkmans' keynote presentation explored: • How space acquires specific forms and patterns through the interaction between missionary projections and the engagement of local populations. • The striking similarities in vision between Orthodox Christian, Evangelical, and Tablighi missions, and why these shared impulses produce such different social outcomes. • The "wave" metaphor of missionization: how missionary momentum builds up, disperses, or crashes against distinct economic and political landscapes. Watch the full presentation: https://youtu.be/9AFewejZEb0 🔸 Call for the third annual conference is now open!

Drawing on her expertise in urban culture and the politics of memory, Catriona Kelly's talk for YCIE's second annual Y-Conference: SPACES explored: • What defined "socialist" or "Soviet" spaces and whether recognizable settlement patterns existed across the territory. • The practical success of the Khrushchev and Brezhnev-era push for spatial homogeneity (including the 1955 Decree on Architectural Excesses and the 1961 secret law on statuary). • The role of space in the Soviet imaginary versus its ideological significance. Watch the full presentation: https://youtu.be/dwTHQvFnmtQ 🔸 Call for the third annual conference is now open!

From June 29 to July 8, 2026, YCIE hosted its third annual summer school across Yerevan and Gyumri. Titled “Constructing Soviet Difference: Culture and Society,” this year’s interdisciplinary program was our most competitive yet, selecting 20 exceptional students from over 120 global applications. Led by Academic Director Emma Widdis (University of Cambridge), the intensive curriculum brought together students and 13 distinguished professors from leading universities worldwide. Participants engaged in a rigorous lineup of lectures, seminars, workshops, and field visits, building on a foundational reading list to drive deep, collaborative discussions. We extend our heartfelt gratitude to Professor Widdis for her outstanding academic leadership, to the professors and to all the participants for creating such a safe, inspiring space for the open exchange of knowledge, expertise, and perspectives. Applications for our fourth summer school will open in late November / early December 2026. More photos here.

In this episode of our "Now in Russian" podcast we spoke with Valérie Pozner, a specialist in Russian and Soviet Film history. She is Research director at Thalim – (Theory and History of Modern Art and Literature), CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research), in Paris. Pozner has successively focused on the 1920s and 1930s, then the pre-revolutionary years, the World War II period, and the postwar era, with her interests ranging from social and economic issues to technical and political ones, as well as film genres and the circulation of film theories. Listen to the #podcast 🎙 • Apple Podcasts • Spotify • YouTube