Robert J. Kaiser
Professor of Geography
Professional Background
PhD (Geography), Columbia University, May 1988
Research Areas
Geography of nationalism; cultural politics of memory; politics of scale; power, place and identity; border studies; post-socialist space.
Current Research
Rescaling and Reterritorializing Place and Identity in the Post-Socialist Borderlands.Cultural Politics of Memory: Re-imagining the Past, Reclaiming the Future in the Estonian-Russian Borderlands
Professional Activities
- Principal investigator, NSF-funded project to Build an International Collaborative Network of Geographers and Related Specialists: the US and the Southern Tier of Post-Socialist States), August 2002 to Present (http://www.geography.wisc.edu/RCEEEweb/nsf).
- Director, Center for Russia, East Europe and Central Asia (CREECA), University of Wisconsin-Madison, Fall 2001 to Summer 2004.
- Chair, Russia, Central Eurasia and Eastern Europe (RCEEE) Specialty Group, Association of American Geographers, July 2000 to April 2003.
Selected Publications
Books
- Borders in Post-Socialist Europe, co-authored with Tassilo Herschel and Dmitry Zimin, Aldershot: Ashgate, forthcoming.
- The Russians as the New Minority in the Soviet Successor States, co-authored with Jeff Chinn. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996.
- The Geography of Nationalism in Russia and the USSR. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994.
Articles and Book Chapters
“Homeland Making and the Territorialization of National
Identity.” In Ethnonationalism in the Contemporary
World, edited by Daniele Conversi. London and NY: Routledge,
2002.- “Geography,” The Encyclopedia of Nationalism, volume 1, pp. 315-33. San Diego: Academic Press, 2001.
- “Political Geography and Nationalism in Late Imperial Russia.” In Istoriya Natsional’nykh Politicheskikh Partii Rossii, edited by A. Zevelev, pp. 65-82. Moskva: Rosspen, 1997.
- “Nationalism and Identity.” In Geography and Transition in the Post-Soviet Republics, edited by Michael Bradshaw, pp. 9-30. Chichester and New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1997.
- “Czechoslovakia: The Disintegration of a Binational State.” In Federalism. The Multiethnic Challenge, edited by Graham Smith, pp. 208-236. London: Longman, 1995.
- “Prospects for the Disintegration of the Russian Federation,” Post-Soviet Geography 36 (September 1995): 426-435.
- “Russian-Kazakh Relations in Kazakhstan,” Post-Soviet Geography 36 (May 1995): 257- 273.
- “Nationalizing the Work Force: Ethnic Restratification in the Newly Independent States,” Post-Soviet Geography 36 (February 1995): 87-111.
- “Ethnic Demography and Interstate Relations in Central Asia.” In National Identity and Ethnicity in Russia and the New States of Eurasia, volume 2 of the series "The International Politics of Eurasia". Edited by Roman Szporluk, pp. 230-265. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1994.
Courses Taught
- Geography 101: Introduction to Human Geography: Global Patterns and Processes
- Geography 318: Geography, Politics and Territoriality.
- Geography 353: Geographies of Transition in Post-Socialist Space.
- Geography 553: Eastern Europe and the FSU: Problems in Human Geography.
- Geography 918: Seminar in Political Geography: The Geography of Nationalism.
Graduate Students
Ph.D
- Kimberly Coulter. Visions of "Unity in Diversity": Territorial Appeals in Contemporary German Filmmaking. 2007 PhD
- Alexander Diener. One Homeland or Two?: Territorialization of Identity and the Repatriation Decision of the Mongolian-Kazakh Diaspora. 2003 PhD
J.
Noah Rost. Remembering the Marshal: The Politics of Place,
Memory, and National Identity in Kumrovec, Croatia.- Reece Jones. Admitted to PhD program Fall 2004.
- Adam Moore. Admitted to PhD program Fall 2003.
- Karie Pieczynski-Tayfun. Admitted to PhD program Fall 2003.
Masters
- Shonin Anacker. Star of the Steppe: Geographies of Power in Astana. 2004 MA (CREECA)
- Paul Dziemela. The Census and the Institutionalization of Border Identities: A Reevaluation of “Local” Identity in Interwar Polish Censuses. 1999 MS (Geography)
- Reece Jones. Religion and Homeland in Bengal: A Territorial Interpretation of Religious Nationalism. 2004 MS (Geography)
- Christopher Luebke. ASEAN and Displacement: The Politics of Scale across the Thai-Myanmar Border.
- Karie Pieczynski. The Voice of the Aul: Symbolic Sovereignty and National Consciousness at the Local Scale. 2003 MA (CREECA)
- Matthew Springer. Geopolitical Representations of Iran in the United States since the Hostage Crisis: The Effect of Negative Imagery on America’s Caspian Basin Energy Policy. 2003 MS (Geography)
- Damian Wampler. Religion, Place and Scale in Central Asia.
- Roberta Charpentier. Admitted to MS program Fall 2003.
Contact Information
- Robert J. Kaiser
- Department of Geography
- University of Wisconsin-Madison
- 430 Science Hall
- 550 North Park Street
- Madison, Wisconsin 53706-1404 USA
- telephone (608) 262-1904
- email rjkaise1@wisc.edu