October 2025 – Sigur Center for Asian Studies

A graphic with the time, date, and location of the event plus a picture of the speakers

[10/16/2025] Status Update: Human Rights in Xinjiang

October 13, 2025October 21, 2025Archives & RecordingsLeave a Comment

Thursday, October 16th, 2025

12:00 PM – 1:00 PM ET

Chung-Wen Shih Asian Studies Conference Room

Suite 503, Elliott School of International Affairs

1957 E Street NW Washington, D.C. 20052

On October 1, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a new statement expressing concern over continued human rights abuses in Xinjiang, China. OHCHR specifically cited cultural oppression and imprisonment of scholars. Yet Xinjiang has dropped out of the Western news cycle—so what’s actually going on? This just-in-time-talk offers expert perspectives on the OHCHR statement and an update on the Uyghur region of Xinjiang or East Turkestan.

Speaker:

Dr. Elise Anderson is a practitioner and scholar whose work focuses on Uyghur communities in the People’s Republic of China and across global diaspora communities. Dr. Anderson is widely recognized as an expert on Uyghur issues, having spent nearly the past two decades in close engagement on the topic, including a long stint living and conducting research in the Uyghur Region from 2012 to 2016. She has wide-ranging professional experience working in human rights and rule of law research, human rights advocacy, international development programming, academic and nonprofit grant-writing, university teaching, and editing. She is based in Washington, DC, where she works in a variety of consulting capacities and holds affiliations as a Professorial Lecturer in the Elliott School and Nonresident Visiting Scholar in the Sigur Center for Asian Studies at the George Washington University; Nonresident Senior Fellow at the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy; and Developmental Editor for Stray Cats Ink.

Dr. Anderson is an experienced speaker who has given dozens of talks and lectures at universities and other institutions, testified before the Canadian House of Commons and Uyghur Tribunal, and interpreted between Uyghur and English before the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Her commentary on the Uyghur crisis has appeared in a number of major media outlets, and her research has been published in both scholarly and public-facing journals. She is also a trained vocalist, musician, and dancer who has formally studied classic Uyghur music (among other idioms). She earned dual Ph.D. degrees in Central Eurasian Studies and Ethnomusicology from Indiana University-Bloomington. She is an alumna of the Fulbright U.S. Student Program and Fulbright-Hays and was a National Finalist for the White House Fellowship in 2022.

Discussant:

Sean Roberts, pictured in professional attire

Sean R. Roberts is a Professor in the Practice of International Affairs and Dean of Undergraduate Studies at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. He received his MA in Visual Anthropology (2001) and his PhD in Cultural Anthropology (2003) from the University of Southern California. Both during the completion of his PhD and following graduation, he worked for a total of 7 years for the United States Agency for International Development in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, managing democracy, governance, and human rights programs in the five Central Asian Republics. He also taught for two years as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Europe, Eurasian, and Russian Studies before coming to the Elliott School in 2008. Academically, he has written extensively on the Uyghur people of China and Central Asia about whom he wrote his dissertation, and his 2020 book The War on the Uyghurs (Princeton University Press) was recognized by the journal Foreign Affairs as one of their “best of books” for 2021. He also continues to do analytical work for development organizations, particularly in the former Soviet Union. He is frequently consulted by development organizations on issues related to governance, democratization, human rights, and the rights of ethnic minorities and indigenous peoples, and he comments on current events in the media related both to the situation of the Uyghur people in China and to political developments in Central Asia. Dr. Roberts teaches core classes in the IDS program as well as two seminars open to all students: “Indigenous Peoples, Ethnic Minorities, and Development” and “The Belt and Road Initiative: China’s Approach to International Development.”

A graphic with the event title, location, date, and speaker photos

[11/13/2025] NBAS: “Narratives of Sino-Middle Eastern Futures”

October 10, 2025October 10, 2025Upcoming EventsLeave a Comment

Thursday, November 13th, 2025

5:00 PM – 6:00 PM ET

Online Via Zoom

RSVP

Narratives of Sino-Middle Eastern Futures attempts to discern the future trajectory and endpoint of Sino-Middle Eastern relations – are we on the precipice of a post-American Chinese hegemony in the region? Or are we reaching the outer limits of what is feasible within what are essentially transactional ties? Drawing on a wide range of multilingual sources from 2010 to 2023, and based on a framework of thin constructivism, the book – which will be introduced in this talk – delves into the Chinese, Saudi and Assadist Syrian elite narratives regarding the Middle Eastern regional order and China’s envisaged place within it. By centering local perspectives, it offers insights into how these actors –with diverse positionalities in the region (vis-à-vis the United States) and different national capabilities– are debating the future of China in the Middle East (and against the dominant vision of Sino-American rivalry over the region), and what the juxtaposition of their multiple narratives mean for where things are headed.

Speakers:

Dr. Andrea Ghiselli is a Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Exeter, as well as the Head of Research of the ChinaMed Project. He is also the author of Protecting China’s Interests Overseas: Securitization and Foreign Policy (Oxford University Press, 2021) and co-author of Narratives of Sino-Middle Eastern Futures: In the Eye of the Beholder. (Cambridge University Press, 2025).

Mohammed Alsudairi is Lecturer in Politics and International Relations of the Arabic Speaking World at the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, Australian National University. He is the Head of the Asian Studies Program at the King Faisal Centre for Research Studies and a recipient of an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation fellowship. His publications have appeared in The Middle East Journal, Third World Quarterly, Journal of Contemporary China, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, and Oxford University’s Journal of Islamic Studies. His most recent book, co-authored with Dr. Andrea Ghiselli, Narratives of Sino-Middle Eastern Futures, is out with Cambridge University Press (2025).

Graphic displaying the basic information about the event along with images of the two speakers

[10/22/2025] Film Screening – Thabyay: Creative Resistance in Myanmar

October 6, 2025October 23, 2025Archives & RecordingsLeave a Comment

Wednesday, October 22nd, 2025

5:15 PM – 6:45 PM ET

Room 505

Elliott School of International Affairs

1957 E Street NW Washington, D.C. 20052

What happens when non-violent leaders are pushed to support armed struggle against a brutal regime in a forgotten war?

Myanmar is one of the deadliest conflict areas in the world, yet there is little international attention paid to the ongoing brutal oppression there, and to the courageous resistance to it. Thabyay: Creative Resistance in Myanmar follows four democracy revolutionaries who are finding creative means to fight against the military junta. Some take up arms while struggling to stay true to their commitment to non-violence, while others engage in “artivism,” using music, poetry and art to bring about a peaceful, free, democratic and truly inclusive future for all people in Myanmar.

THE ARTIST

Susanna Hla Hla Soe

An elected minister in the shadow government, Naw Susanna Hla Hla Soe is a painter and advocate for women and children affected by conflict.

THE POET

Maung Saungkha

Beloved poet and renowned free speech activist, Maung Saungkha now leads the first Bamar ethnic army from the jungles of Myanmar.

THE MUSICIAN

Phoe San

Musician and composer, Phoe San harnesses the expressive power of music to support the revolution and heal trauma for those impacted by war.

THE ORGANIZER

Thet Swe Win

Human rights activist Thet Swe Win is an “artivist” organizing events for painters, poets and musicians to share the soft power of creativity in the revolution.

About the Speakers

Myra Dahgaypaw is the Senior Partnership Officer for International Justice and Accountability at the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee and a member of the US Campaign for Burma’s board of directors. For over 20 years, she has advanced U.S. Burma policy, promoted human rights and inclusive democracy, and supported the Burmese diaspora in the U.S.

Naw Lar Say Waa is a journalist, researcher, and storyteller from Burma/Myanmar’s borderlands. Her work spans journalism, research, and advocacy; amplifying voices from conflict-affected communities.

About the Moderator

Christina Fink oversees the MA in International Development Studies Program and teaches both graduate and undergraduate courses on international development.

She received her B.A. in International Relations from Stanford University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Social/Cultural Anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley.

She has combined research, teaching, and international development work throughout her career. Primarily based in mainland Southeast Asia from 1995-2010, her full-time positions and program evaluation consultancies addressed civil society capacity building in Myanmar with particular attention to gender and social inclusion, and political, economic, and social reforms. During this time, she also wrote Living Silence in Burma: Surviving Under Military Rule (Zed Books: 1st edition 2001, 2nd edition 2009) and served as a lecturer and program associate at the International Sustainable Development Studies Institute in Thailand.

In recent years she has contributed to the development of the GenderPro capacity-building and credentialing program run by GW’s Global Women’s Institute in partnership with UNICEF. She also served on the United States Institute of Peace senior study group on Myanmar which produced two reports: China’s Role in Burma’s Internal Conflicts (2018) and Anatomy of the Military Coup and Recommendations for the US Response (2022). Her latest publications have addressed the position of religious and ethnic minorities in Myanmar, anti-Muslim violence and the role of Facebook, and the many facets of civil society engagement in development in Myanmar.