Adrienne Edgar

Adrienne Edgar is Professor of Modern Russian and Central Asian History at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She holds a B.A. in Russian Language and Literature from Oberlin College, an M.A. in International Affairs and Middle East Studies from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in History from U.C. Berkeley. Adrienne’s research focuses on Central Asia and on questions of empire and nation in Soviet history. Her publications have analyzed the making of nations in the Soviet Union; the experiences of Muslim women in Soviet Central Asia; marriage, the family, and everyday life in Central Asia; and the evolution of race as a category and practice in the Soviet Union. 

Adrienne’s first book, Tribal Nation: The Making of Soviet Turkmenistan, was published by Princeton University Press in 2004. She co-edited the volume Intermarriage from Central Europe to Central Asia:  Mixed Families in the Age of Extremes (University of Nebraska Press, 2020). Adrienne’s second monograph, Intermarriage and the Friendship of Peoples: Ethnic Mixing in Soviet Central Asia (Cornell University Press, 2022) was co-winner of the Joseph Rothschild Prize in Ethnicity and Nationalism Studies. She has published articles on nationality, gender, and intermarriage in Slavic Review, Russian Review, Kritika, Ab Imperio, and Central Asian Survey; her essay on Central Asian women in pan-Islamic perspective won the annual article prize of the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians.   

Adrienne has received research grants and fellowships from the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX), the Mellon Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the Open Society Institute (Soros Foundation), and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and has held post-doctoral and visiting scholar appointments at Harvard University, McGill University, the Alexander von Humboldt University, and the University of Heidelberg.  She currently serves on the editorial boards of Central Asian Survey, Kritika, and Region. From 2016-2019, she served as member-at-large on the board of directors of ASEEES. At UCSB, Adrienne teaches a wide range of courses on Russia, modern Europe, and Central Asia and advises a number of doctoral students in Central Asian and Russian history. 

Before entering graduate school in 1993, Adrienne worked as a journalist and as an editor of World Policy Journal. As a scholar, she has participated in shaping the study of modern Central Asia, a field that was relatively neglected before 1991. In her writings and public appearances, she has advocated for the increased visibility of this field. Adrienne has collaborated with scholars from Central Asia and the Caucasus on articles, conference panels, and edited volumes. She has also promoted the study of race and racial mixing in the Soviet Union and encouraged dialogue between historians of Eurasia and scholars working on these topics in other parts of the world. Her interest in transregional and interdisciplinary dialogue is demonstrated by her participation in conferences and collective publications on race and nation around the world, global mixed race, and critical mixed-race studies. As ASEEES president, Adrienne will continue to uphold these principles of inclusivity and transregional and interdisciplinary cooperation.