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Project Description

The project brings together an international, interdisciplinary team of researchers at the University of Leeds (United Kingdom) and the University of Regensburg (Germany), as well as research partners from the region, in order to collaboratively examine cultural and political shifts in the countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia where Islam is a dominant religion, taking Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan as principal case studies. In particular, the project is concerned with how discourses around religion and faith, on the one hand, and gender and sexuality, on the other, played a role in these countries’ negotiations of nationhood and global citizenship in the last quarter of the twentieth century. The project is jointly funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC, UK) and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, Germany).

The project looks at the major geopolitical and cultural transformations of this period from the perspective of these countries, enriching our understanding of transnational histories. Spanning the disciplines of Art History, Cultural Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, History, International Relations, Literary Studies, and Media Studies, this pioneering research analyses political, legal, and media discourses alongside artistic and literary manifestations of ‘transitions’ in Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan. The term ‘transitions’ signifies two interconnected processes: (1) political and cultural re-orientations that occurred in the context of shifting centres of power; and (2) artistic re-imaginings of cultural heritage and creation of new or revised practices, communities and institutions.

The project recognises that religion and secularism play an important role in the production of frameworks of belonging; however, the project considers Islam predominantly in cultural terms. It approaches the notion of ‘Muslim Republics’ through a critical lens as a discursive construct, whilst celebrating the cultural diversity of Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan. Whilst these cases have been selected, the project does not draw comparisons between these two countries, but instead considers transregional and international political, legal, cultural, literary and artistic exchanges with multiple actors in the region, such as Iran, the Russian Federation and Türkiye, and beyond the region, such as the West. Moreover, the two countries are thought of not in ethnic and national terms exclusively, but also as arenas of intersection of global political and cultural flows. This approach allows the team to review critically the colonial-era concepts of ‘the Caucasus’, ‘Central Asia’, ‘the Russian near abroad’ and ‘the Turkic world’, and to test the theoretical potentialities of de-colonial geo-cultural affiliations such as SWANA (‘Southwest Asia and North Africa’).

The project runs from February 2025 to January 2028. An international conference will take place on October 22-24, 2026, in Regensburg, Germany. Please click here to see the Call for Papers in English.

Please click here to access the Call for Papers in Azerbaijani.

NOTE: This project description will be updated regularly to reflect any changes in the focus of our research as we continue to engage with different stakeholders in Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan.

If you wish to explore the project's pages on the website of the University of Regensburg, you can follow this link. 

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Team

Jack Broughton

Jack Broughton is the Project Coordinator of ‘Transitions: Examining Changing Regimes of Sexuality in Post-Soviet Muslim Republics’. He is responsible for the day-to-day administration of the project, management of research data, as well as communication with our partners and stakeholders. Jack completed his MA in Multilingualism and Regionality at the University of Regensburg, where he developed his interest in the intersection between linguistic diversity and social identity into a focus on regional, minority and migration languages in the public space, as well as the politics of language in post-conflict societies. Prior to joining Transitions, he worked in the administration of DIMAS (Department for Interdisciplinary and Multiscalar Area Studies). During his Master's studies, Jack also served as academic assistant in seeFField, an Area Studies initiative to strengthen Southeast European Studies in Regensburg, and at the Bohemicum, the University of Regensburg’s Centre for German-Czech Studies.

Andrew Delatolla

Andrew Delatolla is Associate Professor in Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Leeds. Prior to joining the University of Leeds, Andrew was Assistant Professor of International Relations and Chair of the LGBTQIA+ Caucus at the International Studies Association. His research examines the consequences of colonialism and empire on the politics of race and sexuality in the Middle East. It considers race and sexuality as foundational aspects for political exclusion, activism, and components in the development of socio-economic hierarchies with ongoing effects on statehood, national identity, and conflict. His research is interdisciplinary engaging with discussions in International Relations, Sociology, and History. He has contributed to discussions in news media, including national and international newspapers and BBC radio programs. He is the author of the monograph Civilization and the Making of the State in Lebanon and Syria (2021, Palgrave) and co-editor of the Queer Conflict Research (2024, Bristol University Press).

Olga Doletskaya

Olga Doletskaya (they/she) is a Research Associate at the School of Languages, Cultures and Societies at the University of Leeds, specialising in kinship and family-making across borders. Olga’s PhD, titled Queer Russian Parents: Building Support Networks, Navigating Risks, “Doing Family”, and Crossing Borders, focused on how LGBTQ+ parents have and raise children in the hostile and authoritarian context of the contemporary Russian Federation. Olga’s previous research focused on parenting through the lens of assisted reproduction, focusing on the experiences of commercial surrogates in Russia. Olga has previously worked as a curator and archivist across different mediums, from film festivals to exhibitions, to digital accessibility of museum collections. Within the framework of the AHRC–DFG project Transitions, her research and curatorial practice will be applied to the topics of gender, sexuality, identity and belonging. Outside of research, Olga is responsible for conference and fieldwork organisation, as well as engagement with external organisations, networks, and cultural partners.

Tatiana Klepikova

Tatiana Klepikova is a Literary and Cultural Studies scholar. She is interested in transnational connections between minoritized cultures, especially, from the perspectives of gender and sexuality, performance and art, and memory. Her research focuses on socialist and post-socialist contexts and has covered questions on the topics of subversive literary imaginaries, LGBTQ+ theater histories, feminist movements, transitional justice, and digital cultures. She has written extensively on contemporary queer cultures in Eastern Europe and has also co-edited several interdisciplinary volumes on late socialism, digital subjectivities, and queer politics after the Cold War. Deeply committed to facilitating cultural dialogue across societies, she has also engaged in several projects of literary and academic translation. Beyond her work of the Transitions project, she leads a research group on queer literatures and cultures under socialism at the University of Regensburg and co-chairs an interdisciplinary network on non-hegemonic remembrance.

Timothy Nunan

Timothy Nunan is Professor for Transregional Cultures of Knowledge in the Department of Interdisciplinary and Multiscalar Area Studies (DIMAS) at the University of Regensburg. His work bridges area studies and global history, focusing on the former Soviet Union and the Middle East. He has published on socialist internationalism and USSR-Afghanistan ties (Humanitarian Invasion: Global Development in Cold War Afghanistan, 2016) and on Shi’a Islamism and decolonization (Believing Globally: Islamist Internationalism Between the Cold War and Decolonization, forthcoming). As co-PI of "Transitions," he is excited to turn his focus to themes like gender and sexuality. Within the project, Nunan is especially interested in examining the impact of perestroika and glasnost' on the Muslim-majority republics of the Soviet Union, as well as the interaction between local actors and external players like the Islamic Republic of Iran and Turkey. More broadly, Nunan seeks to rethink paradigms of area studies and frameworks for understanding the transition from the Cold War to post-Cold War world.

Vlad Strukov

Vlad Strukov’s research is on visual cultures in global settings, with emphasis on contemporary art and film. Related areas of enquiry are digital cultures and queer cultures. Across these fields, he addresses theoretical questions of visibility, visuality and materiality, as well as (anti-)identity and post-representation. His work draws on Jacques Derrida’s philosophy, and more recently on Derrida’s engagement with Sufism. Vlad is active as editor and curator, shaping debates through exhibitions, publications and networks that connect artists and scholars across the Global East and Global South. His publications include books on contemporary cinema (Edinburgh UP), popular geopolitics (Routledge), memory and securitization (Palgrave), and others. His forthcoming publication is a volume on streaming and film cultures. He is Professor of Film and Visual Culture, University of Leeds, and Visiting Professor of Contemporary Art and Curating, Ca-Foscari University, Venice. He is the founding director of Leeds Centre for Global Queer Cultures and Politics.

Gözde Yazıcı Cörüt

Gözde Yazıcı Cörüt is a researcher in the Department of Interdisciplinary and Multiscalar Area Studies at the University of Regensburg, specialising in transimperial and transnational histories of Eurasia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Her longstanding interest in bringing the Ottoman and Russian empires into dialogue crystallised in her involvement in the Transottomanica research project, which led to her first monograph, Loyalty and Citizenship: Ottoman Perspectives on its Russian Border Region (1878–1914). Within the framework of the AHRC–DFG project Transitions, her research examines cultural production in the late Soviet and early post-independence periods in Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan through a gendered lens, foregrounding moral ambivalence and marginal subjectivities as key to the negotiation of social and political transformation. She also focuses on cultural and intellectual entanglements across Turkey, exploring how ideas, narratives, and aesthetic practices circulate, acquire new political meanings, and are articulated, contested, or adapted in relation to state-driven political agendas, particularly through gendered forms of representation.

News

Events on Artistic Practices and (New) Museums

The Transitions team is hosting a series of events in the autumn term exploring governing cultural heritage, artistic Practices and (new) museums in Azerbaijan, Central Asian Countries and Turkic Republics. The series starts with an exhibition in Paris, and continues with two lectures at the University of Leeds, and an event at Pushkin House, in...

Events on Azerbaijan’s Arts, Cultures and Literatures

The Transitions project is excited to announce a series of events on re-conceptualising gender in Azerbaijani arts, cultures, and literatures. The three events across the UK, Germany, and the US are aimed at examining how the discourses around religion and faith, on the one hand, and gender and sexuality, on the other, have shifted historically...

Olga Doletskaya in conversation with Gözde Yazıcı Cörüt

We are delighted to introduce the newest member of the project team, Olga Doletskaya, who joins us as a Research Associate at the University of Leeds. To mark the occasion, Gözde, the Research Associate at the University of Regensburg, asked Olga a few questions about their research and their plans within the project.

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