Dr. Snezhana Atanova received her PhD in 2020 from the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations (INALCO/ Sorbonne Paris Cité, Paris, France). Dr. Atanova studies different aspects of material culture and cultural heritage in Central Asia. Much of her research centers around the role that material culture plays in the formation of communities, the relationship between religion/ideology and material culture. Among her additional interests are French-speaking travelers’ accounts on Central Asia of 19 th -early 20 th centuries, as they contain ethnographical data about the region.

Prior to her arrival at NU, she was a researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow). Since 2021 Dr. Atanova has been an associate researcher at the French Institute for Central Asian Studies (IFEAC). Her research was supported by Carnegie Fellowship in 2017, IFEAC AMI Fellowship in 2018 and Central Asia-Azerbaijan Program Fellowship in 2019, and Carl Holenstein Fellowship in 2020. Currently Dr. Atannova is completing the translation of two French-speaking travelers’ accounts – Henri Moser and Napoléon Ney.

“Prikladnoi orientalizm” frankoiazychnykh travelogov o Tsentral’noi Azii [The “Applied Orientalism” of French Travelogues on Central Asia], 2022. In : Etnograficheskoe obozrenie 3, pp. 124–141.

Gendering of Nation Branding in Kyrgyzstan: Kurmanjan Datka: Queen of the Mountains, 2022. In: Laboratorium: Russian Review of Social Research. 13, 3, pp. 88–110.

“Imagined Community” and Turkmen Artisanry: a Day in the Altyn Asyr bazaar, 2021. In: Bulletin of IICAS, 31, pp. 84-99.

“Fight for the Liberation of the Women of the East!” Soviet carpets and posters for the emancipation of Central Asian women in 1920-1930, 2021. In: Siberian Historical Research-Sibirskie Istoricheskie Issledovaniya, 3, pp. 140-170.

Turkmenskoe serebro i sovetskie tanki: pomochsh Turkmenii frontu vo vremia Velikoj

Otechestvennoj vojny. [Turkmen silver and Soviet tanks: Turkmenistan’s assistance to the front during the Great Patriotic War], 2021. In: Neslomlennyj narod. Lipkin, Agaian (eds), pp. 428-436.

Turkmenistan: Plebiscite of a Nation of Artisans, 2019. In: Central Asia Fellows Papers, 215, pp. 1-13.

Life and Sacrality, 2019. In: HALI, 200, pp. 147-151