[PAST EVENT] The War on the Uyghurs: A talk by Professor Sean Roberts  

February 28, 2022
2pm
Location
Williamsburg Library, 515 Scotland Street, Williamsburg, VA 23185
Access & Features
  • Open to the public
Professor Sean Roberts
Professor Sean Roberts

Sean R. Roberts, visiting from George Washington University, will present a lecture based on his book, The War on the Uyghurs. The lecture is part of Williamsburg Library's photographic exhibit, Kashgar 1985, and Roberts will be introduced by W&M Professor Michael C. Hill.

Roberts is an Associate Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs and, since 2008, has been Director of the School’s International Development Studies program. Dr. Roberts is an anthropologist who has studied the Uyghur people of China and Central Asia for thirty years, writing his dissertation on the Uyghurs of the China-Kazakhstan borderlands while a PhD candidate at the University of Southern California. He has published numerous articles in academic journals and edited volumes as well as in policy-oriented and popular media publications about the Uyghurs. He is also the author of the recently published book, The War on the Uyghurs: China’s Internal Campaign Against a Muslim Minority (Princeton University Press, 2020). In addition to his research on the Uyghur people, he remains active in doing applied research on international development projects, especially regarding issues of human rights and good governance in the Eurasian region.

Michael Gibbs Hill is  Associate Chair of Faculty Affairs, Associate Professor of Chinese Studies at William & Mary. His research and teaching interests include the literary and intellectual history of China in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the history of translation, and cultural relations between China and the Middle East. He also contributes regularly as a translator. Prior to his arrival at William & Mary, Prof. Hill served as director of the Center for Asian Studies at the Walker Institute of International and Area Studies at the University of South Carolina.

About Kashgar: 1985

Thirty-seven years ago the fabled Silk Road city of Kashgar had recently been opened to Western visitors after decades of being closed. As a Fulbright Scholar at Wuhan University, Clyde Haulman had the opportunity to travel to Kashgar and Urumqi for an extended period with his wife Fredrika Teute.

The photographs by Haulman in the exhibit at Williamsburg Library provide a glimpse into what has been lost of the Old City and its Uyghur culture as a result of those changes.

The exhibit can be viewed during Williamsburg Library hours in the Theatre Gallery.









Contact

Williamsburg Library, 757.741.3300