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DESCRIPTION:Sören Stark will speak at the Seminar in Comparative Medieval M
 aterial Culture on Wednesday\, December 2\, 2015\, from 6 to 7:30 pm. His 
 talk is entitled “Between China\, Iran\, and Byzantium: The Türks in Inner
  Asia from the Sixth to the Eighth Century.”At Bard Graduate Center Profes
 sor Stark will investigate how the “World Empire” of the nomadic Türks\, a
 rising from the Inner Asian steppes around the middle of the sixth century
  and spanning\, during its apogee some 30 years later\, from Crimea to the
  Hindukush and to Manchuria\, remains one of the least known hegemonic pol
 ities in the history of Eurasia. In popular perception it is largely overs
 hadowed by the later Chinggisid “World Empire\,” although the Mongols owed
  much of their imperial ideology and structures of governance to the Türks
 . Like the Pax Mongolica some 700 years later\, the unification of large p
 arts of Eurasia under Türk rule considerably intensified diplomatic\, econ
 omic\, and cultural exchange across the Eurasian continent (“Silk Roads”).
  In this context much attention has been given to the role of Sogdian merc
 hants. Professor Stark’s talk will shift the focus to the nomadic Türk eli
 tes as agents of cultural communication\, transmission\, and appropriation
  in a framework of shared political culture and interstate competition bet
 ween China\, the Iranian world\, and Byzantium. In particular\, he will in
 quire how the Türks’ active participation in this exchange network and the
 ir competition with other imperial ‘players’ of their time impacted and sh
 aped their own self-representation.Sören Stark is Assistant Professor of C
 entral Asian Art and\nArchaeology at the Institute for the Study of the An
 cient World at New York\nUniversity. He specializes in the political and c
 ultural interrelations between\npastoral nomads in Central and Inner Asia 
 and their sedentary neighbors\, and\nhas produced a monograph on the archa
 eology and history of the Türks in Central\nand Inner Asia (published in 2
 008 as Die Alttürkenzeit in Mittel- und\nZentralasien. Archäologische und 
 historische Studien\, Nomaden und Sesshafte 6.\nWiesbaden: Ludwig-Reichert
 -Verlag) and a major exhibition in New York and\nWashington on the culture
  of Early Iron Age nomads in the territory of\npresent-day Kazakhstan (see
  the catalogue Nomads and Networks: The Ancient\nArt and Culture of Kazakh
 stan. Princeton/New York: Princeton University Press\n2012\, edited togeth
 er with K. Rubinson). He is currently leading an\narchaeological field pro
 ject on territorial fortifications in fourth- to\neighth-century CE Bukhar
 a (Uzbekistan). He is also (with F. Kidd) co-editor of\na handbook of Cent
 ral Asian archaeology and art now in preparation at Oxford\nUniversity Pre
 ss.
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20151202T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20151202T193000
SUMMARY:Bard Graduate Center: Between China\, Iran\, and Byzantium
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