Dr Beatrice Penati PhD, FHEA

Personal Statement

I am a historian of Central Asia under Russian and Soviet rule. My specialty is the history of economic policies, taxation, agriculture, and the environment. My current projects include in particular a study of land reform, agrarian change, and political mobilisation in early Soviet Uzbekistan, and a micro-history of the exploitation of Central Asian wormwood before the revolution. Other smaller projects concern the history of water, forests, statistics, land rights, nutritional standards, and development theories.

Originally from Italy, I completed a co-directed doctorate between the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa (Italy) and the EHESS in Paris. I have then conducted research in Tashkent, at the Slavic Research Center of Hokkaido University (Japan), and I was a Newton Fellow of the British Academy at the University of Manchester. I came to Liverpool in January 2018 after four years teaching on aspects of Central Asian history at all levels (from survey to master's) at Nazarbayev University (Astana, Kazakhstan), a start-up English-medium institution that aims at supporting best practices in the local academia.

At Liverpool I teach mainly in the fields of Russian and Soviet history, with an eye at the multi-ethnic, Eurasian dimension of the empire and of the USSR. I also teach on the history of Central Asia and on various aspects of 20th century history.

I am keen to hear from prospective post-graduate students and post-docs with an interest in the economic and environmental history of Central Asia and Russia/the USSR in the 19th and 20th centuries.