A Collection of Maya K. Peterson's Works
Maya K. Peterson Memorial Fund
Book:
Pipe Dreams: Water and Empire in Central Asia (Cambridge UP, 2019).
Journal Articles:
Peterson, Maya K, “US to USSR: American Experts, Irrigation, and Cotton in Soviet Central Asia, 1929-32,” Environmental History 21, 3 (2016).
Peterson, Maya K. "Engineering Empire: Russian and Foreign Hydraulic Experts in Central Asia, 1887‑1917." Cahiers du monde russe. Special issue: “Land, soil, and people. Agricultural expertise and power (19th-20th centuries)”, 57, 1 (2016): 125-146.
Book Reviews:
Review of The Central Asian Revolt of 1916: A Collapsing Empire in the Age of War and Revolution. Eds. Aminat Chokobaeva, Cloé Drieu, and Alexander Morrison. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020. Slavic Review, Volume 80, Issue 2, Summer 2021, pp. 408 - 409.
Review of Carsten Goehrke, Lebenswelten Sibiriens: Aus Natur und Geschichte des Jenissei-Stromlandes (Zurich: Chronos Verlag, 2016), in Russian Review 78, no.4 (2019).
Robert B. Marks, Maya Peterson, Yan Gao, Donald Worster, “Zhang, The River, the Plain, and the State,“ H-Environment Roundtable Review 8, 4(2018).
Public Lectures:
"Water and Historical Landscapes: A Dialogue Between Eco-Systems." A public conversation with Fulbright-Nehru scholar Yaaminey Mubayi, moderated by Prof. Ajay Sinha. Mount Holyoke College, March 3, 2020.
"Environmental History Through the Lens of Water: Case Study: Central Asia's Aral Sea." Presentation to K-12 educators participating in the UCSC History and Civics workshop "Landscapes in History," Santa Cruz Office of Education, June 25, 2019.
"Empire and Environment in Eurasia, 1500-present." Presentation to the Berkeley Office of Resources for Area and International Studies (ORIAS) Summer Institute for Community College Educators on Environmental History. Berkeley, CA, June 2, 2017.
"Doing Research at American Universities." Presentation to Orientation session for Carnegie Research Fellows, Club Quarters San Francisco, January 15, 2016.
"Technologies of Rule: Empire, Water, and the Modernization of Central Asia." Lunchtime Colloquium, Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, Munich, Germany, July 5, 2012.
"Two Russian Revolutions: Science, Technology, and the Early Soviet State." Public outreach workshop participant: "Understanding the Soviet Space Race," Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, April 27, 2012.
"Water in Central Asia," Moscow International Rotary Club, Moscow, Russia, December 9, 2009.
Conference Presentations:
“'Our national treasure': The Appropriation of Fermented Mare's Milk in Health and Wellness Tourism." Annual meeting of the Association for the Study of Food and Society, University of Anchorage, Alaska, June 27, 2019.
"Sunshine and Mare's Milk: The Russian Steppes as Therapeutic Environment." European Society for Environmental History Biennial Conference, Tallinn, Estonia, August 24, 2019.
"Making Russian Switzerland: Marketing the Steppe through the Climate-Kumys Cure," German Historical Institute conference "Mapping diseases- monitoring health: Geographies of medicine in the Tsarist Empire and the Soviet Union," Moscow, Russia, September 20, 2019.
"The Power of Belief: Food as Medicine in the Kumys Cure from Samara to San Francisco," Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies Convention, San Francisco, CA, November 25, 2019.
"Health Tourism and Pastoralist Knowledge in the Production of 'Milk Champagne' (Kumys) in the Russian Empire and Soviet Union," Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association, Santa Clara, CA, August 4, 2018.
"Soviet Plantationocene?: Climate Change, Cotton, and the Siberian River Diversion Schemes in Central Asia," Association for Slavic, E. European and Eurasian Studies Convention, Boston, MA, December 9, 2018.
"The Climate for a Cure? Steppe Ecologies, Pastoralist Knowledge, and Health Sanatoria in the Russian Empire." European Society for Environmental History Biennial Conference 2017, Zagreb, Croatia, June 28, 2017.
"Doers and Seers: Engineers, the Material Past, and Visions of the Future in Central Asia's Arid Environments, 1840s-1940s." Annual Meeting of the American Society for Environmental History, Washington, D.C., March 20, 2015.
"Making the Island Desert: Imperialism, Irrigation, and the Long History of the Shrinking Aral Sea." 9th Water History Conference, International Water History Association, Delft, The Netherlands, June 25, 2015.
"Tuskegee in Turkestan: Black American Agronomists and the Improvement of Cotton in Stalin's Central Asia." Annual Meeting of the American Society for Environmental History, San Francisco, CA, March 15, 2014.
"Water for the People? Digging the Great Canals through Stalin's Central Asia, 1939-1942." 8th Water History Conference, International Water History Association, Montpellier, France, June 26, 2013.
"Karez Technologies in Turkestan." International Water Association's "Workshop on Traditional Qanats Technologies," Marrakech, Morocco, October 25, 2013.
"A Beacon to the East: Egyptian Cotton, American Engineers, and the Transformation of the Soviet Tajik Republic, 1928-1932." Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies Convention, Boston, MA, November 21, 2013.
"White Gold Fever: The Quest to Grow Cotton in Central Asia." Annual meeting of the American Historical Association, Chicago, IL, January 7, 2012.
"'Native' Rice, American Cotton, and the Struggle for Water in Central Asia under Russian Rule." Conference: "Eurasian Environments: Nature and Ecology in Eurasian History, "Columbus, OH, September 16, 2011.
"Foreign Expertise, Local Practice: Hierarchies of Knowledge in the Russian Irrigation of Central Asia." Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies Convention, Washington, D.C., November 18, 2011.
2010 Conference presentation: "Soviet Man versus Machine: Mass Labor and the Construction of the Great Canals in Central Asia, 1939-42." American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies Convention, Los Angeles, CA, November 21, 2010.
"Crossing Boundaries: Nomadic Responses to Political and Ecological Change in Semirech'e, 1905-1917." Annual conference of the Central Eurasian Studies Society, Lansing, MI, October 30, 2010.
"The Padishah of the Hungry Steppe: Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich Romanov and Slavic Migration to Turkestan at the Turn of the Twentieth Century." 2nd Regional Conference of the Central Eurasian Studies Society, Ankara, Turkey, July 30, 2010.
"Negotiating Empire in the Land of Seven Rivers: Environmental Change and Social Conflict in Russia's Central Asian Borderland, 1905-1917." Regional Conference on Social Conflict and Environmental Change in Comparative and Historical Perspective, Yale University, April 17, 2010.
"Redistribution, Resettlement, Resistance: The Irrigation of Russian Turkestan's Chu River Valley, 1910-1918." Annual Conference of the American Society for Environmental History, Portland, Oregon, March 11, 2010.
"Constructing Modernity? Vakhshstroi and the Making of Soviet Tajikistan, 1929-39." Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, San Diego California, January 10, 2010, and the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies Convention, Boston, MA, November 12, 2009.
"Becoming European: Exploring and Exhibiting Central Asia in the Russian Empire, 1840s- 1870s." 1st Regional Conference of the Central Eurasian Studies Society, Lake Issyk Kul, Kyrgyzstan.
Works Presented at Professional Meetings:
2017 Roundtable participant: "Digital Resources and Creative Projects: Ideas for Teaching Russian and Soviet History." Presentation for the roundtable on "New Ideas for Teaching Russian and Soviet History," Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies Convention, Chicago, IL, November 11, 2017. 2014
Roundtable participant: "Materiality and Infrastructure in Russian Turkestan and Soviet Central Asia." Presentation for the interdisciplinary roundtable on "Material Politics: Infrastructure and Energy as New Perspectives on Central Asia." Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies Convention, San Antonio, TX, November 21, 2014.
2012 Roundtable Participant: "Environmental history of the Russian Empire/USSR," European Society for Environmental History Summer School, August 28, 2012.
Invited Campus Talks:
"Pipe Dreams: Water and Empire in Central Asia's Aral Sea Basin." Stanford University, January 17, 2020.
"Pipe Dreams: Water and Empire in Central Asia's Aral Sea Basin." University of California, Riverside, February 20, 2020.
"Curative Climate: The Steppe as a Place of Healing." Fourth Annual Desert Workshop in Russian History. UC Riverside, February 22, 2020.
"Curative climates: the Soviet steppe as a place of healing." International Conference: "The Soviet Steppe - Culture, Environment, Economics and Politics," University of Fribourg, Switzerland, February 16, 2019.
"Rivers to the Sea? Eurasian River Diversion Schemes and the Fate of the Aral Sea." Paper presented at the International Symposium in the Humanities "Modern Rivers of Eurasia: Potential, Control, Change," University of Pittsburgh, February 24, 2018.
"Water in Soviet Central Asia: A Research Journey," in History/Near Eastern Studies 340, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, April 2, 2018.
"Hope Springs Eternal? The Persistence of Siberian River Diversion Schemes in Russia and Central Asia, 1868-2018," Russian and Soviet History Workshop, Ann Arbor, MI, April 2, 2018.
"Russia in the Irrigation Age: Cotton and Empire in Central Asia's Aral Sea Basin," Modern and East European History Research Colloquium, Albert-Ludwigs-Universitat, Freiburg, Germany, November 20, 2018.
"Hope or Delusion? The Persistence of Siberian River Diversion Schemes, 1868-2018," Institut fOr Osteuropaische Geschichte und Landeskunde, Eberhard-Karls-Universitat, TObingen, Germany, November 23, 2018.
"From Subversion to Rebellion: The Uprising of 1916 in Turkestan's Chu River Valley," First Annual Desert Workshop in Russian History, University of Nevada-Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV, March 4, 2017.
" ‘And Still it Heals': Mare's Milk as Medicine, and the Mysterious yet Miraculous "Kumys Cure' in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union," UC Berkeley Russian History workshop, November 1, 2017.
"Making the Island Desert: Cotton Colonialism and the Long History of the Shrinking Aral Sea." Paul Beik Annual Lecture, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA, November 10, 2016.
"Making the Island Desert: Cotton Colonialism and the Long History of the Shrinking Aral Sea." UCSC Science and Justice Research Center, November 2, 2016.
"The Padishah of the Hungry Steppe: Irrigation and Empire in Russian Turkestan." Cultural Studies Colloquium, UC Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, January 14, 2015.
"US to USSR: American Experts, Irrigation, and Cotton in Soviet Central Asia, 1929-1932." Environments and Societies Colloquium, UC Davis, February 25, 2015.
"In the Eye of the Beholder: Vision, Technology, and the Hydraulic Landscape in Central Asia Under Russian and Soviet Rule." Paper presented at the conference "Manufacturing Landscapes: Nature and Technology in Environmental History," Renmin University, Beijing, China, May 29, 2015.
"Bringing Dead Lands to Life: Russian and Soviet Encounters with Central Asian Deserts." Paper presented at the conference "Global Deserts: Environmental History in Arid Lands," University of Arizona, Tucson, September 14, 2015.
"Making the Island Desert: The Long History of the Shrinking Aral Sea." Presentation at the College Eight Fellows' Dinner, UC Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, October 12, 2014.
"Soviet environmental history." Presentation and leading of discussion, AMES 290: Environmental Politics in Asia, The College of William and Mary, February 17, 2014.
"US to USSR: American Experts and the Irrigation of Soviet Central Asia, 1929-1932." Lecture given at the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA, February 17, 2014.
"Sea and Cities: Interdisciplinary Research in the Baltic," a conversation with Simo Laakkonen, Science and Justice Working Group, UC Santa Cruz, CA, October 15, 2014.
"Irrigation Systems as Hybrid Knowledge Spaces: Rethinking Colonial Relationships in Central Asia Under Russian Rule." Workshop: "Interrogating Change: Central Asia between Timelessness and Mutability." University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, October 17, 2014.
"Ecology, Economy, Equity: An Historical Case Study for Thinking About Sustainability in the Present." SSRC Workshop: "Challenges of Water Sustainability in Historical and Ethnographic Perspective." Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, April 28, 2013.
"Creating Russia's California: American Irrigation Experts in Turkestan, 1911-1931." Environmental Studies Seminar, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, April 22, 2013.
"Water into Gold: Russian and Soviet Visions for Transforming the Central Asian Borderlands." Lecture given at the Department of Geography, University of Fribourg, Switzerland, October 15, 2013.
"Water into Gold: Russian and Soviet Visions for Transforming the Central Asian Borderlands." Lecture given at the Geographical Institute of the Freie Universitat, Berlin, Germany, October 22, 2013.
"Engineering Empire: Russian and Foreign Hydraulic Experts in Central Asia, 1887- 1917." Conference: "Imperiale Biographien: Elitekarrieren im Habsburger, Russischen und Osmanischen Vielvolkerreich (1850-1918) [Imperial Biographies: Elite Careers in the Habsburg, Russian and Ottoman Multiethnic Empires (1850- 1918)]," Otto-Friedrich-Universitat Bamberg, Germany, July 20, 2012.
"Cosmopolitan Capitals: Tradition Meets Modernity in Urban Central Asia." Russian and Eurasian Studies 312: Silk Roads: Old and New, Mount Holyoke College, February 22, 2012.
"A Modern-Day Farhad? Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich Romanov and the Irrigation of Russian Turkestan's Hungry Steppe, 1881-1913." Inner Asian and Altaic Studies Lunchtime Lecture, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, April 4, 2012.
"Cultures of Cotton: Russian Development Schemes in Central Asia, 1905-1941." Workshop for the History of the Environment, Agriculture, Technology and Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison, October 9, 2010.
"Cities Along the Silk Road: Ancient Places, Modern Spaces." Guest lecture, Russian and Eurasian Studies 312: Silk Roads: Old and New, Mount Holyoke College, March 2, 2010.
