Time: 29 April 2015 (Wednesday)
Place: Hall #2, New Academic Building, KIMEP University
Language: English

Peer Teschendorf, Friedrich Ebert Foundation
“Broadcast to kill: the effects of media in times of war”

George Reuckert, KIMEP University
“Dr. Strangelove Returns. Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Internet”

Jiri Melich, KIMEP University
“Politics of the changing narratives towards the West in Putin’s Russia”

Registration required! Please email: shynar.zeinolla@kimep.kz

Speaker biographies:

Peer Teschendorf is Regional Director for Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan of the German NGO Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) since 2012. After studies in Germany and Leeds he finished university with a masters degree in communication studies, politics and economics. He joined FES to work in the Africa department of FES in Berlin, and later joined the Moscow office.

Dr. George Rueckert is Assistant Professor at the Language Center of KIMEP University. He became interested in translation as a child of the Cold War, growing up at US diplomatic posts on both sides of the Iron Curtain, including in Prague, Czechoslovakia and Leningrad, USSR. He earned a BA in English and an MA in Creative Writing (Fiction) before taking on a PhD in Comparative Literature at the University of Washington in Seattle. His doctoral dissertation was a critical biography of the great Russian poet, educator, and translator Vasily Zhukovsky (1783-1852). Dr. Rueckert worked for the European Union in Seattle and then taught for almost six years in Germany before coming to KIMEP in 2011.

Dr. Jiri Melich is Associate Professor at the Department of International Relations and Regional Studies, KIMEP University. He received his PhDs from the Charles University (Prague) in 1979 and Carleton University (Ottawa) in 1999. He has done research and published in the areas of comparative politics, political theory, and global politics, with focus on the transformation and integration processes in the post-communist Eastern Europe and the European Union.