Transitions: Examining Changing Regimes of Sexuality in Post-Soviet Muslim Republics

Jack Broughton is the Project Coordinator of ‘Transitions: Examining Changing Regimes of Sexuality in Post-Soviet Muslim Republics’. He is responsible for the day-to-day administration of the project, management of research data, as well as communication with our partners and stakeholders. Jack completed his MA in Multilingualism and Regionality at the University of Regensburg, where he developed his interest in the intersection between linguistic diversity and social identity into a focus on regional, minority and migration languages in the public space, as well as the politics of language in post-conflict societies. Prior to joining Transitions, he worked in the administration of DIMAS (Department for Interdisciplinary and Multiscalar Area Studies). During his MA studies, Jack also served as academic assistant in seeFField, an Area Studies initiative to strengthen Southeast European Studies in Regensburg, and at the Bohemicum, the University of Regensburg’s Centre for German-Czech Studies.

Andrew Delatolla is Associate Professor in Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Leeds. Prior to joining the University of Leeds, Andrew was Assistant Professor of International Relations and Chair of the LGBTQIA+ Caucus at the International Studies Association. His research examines the consequences of colonialism and empire on the politics of race and sexuality in the Middle East. It considers race and sexuality as foundational aspects for political exclusion, activism, and components in the development of socio-economic hierarchies with ongoing effects on statehood, national identity, and conflict. His research is interdisciplinary engaging with discussions in International Relations, Sociology, and History. He has contributed to discussions in news media, including national and international newspapers and BBC radio programs. He is the author of the monograph Civilization and the Making of the State in Lebanon and Syria (2021, Palgrave) and co-editor of Queer Conflict Research (2024, Bristol University Press).

Tatiana Klepikova is a Literary and Cultural Studies scholar. She is interested in transnational connections between minoritized cultures, especially, from the perspectives of gender and sexuality, performance and art, and memory. Her research focuses on socialist and post-socialist contexts and has covered questions on the topics of subversive literary imaginaries, LGBTQ+ theater histories, feminist movements, transitional justice, and digital cultures. She has written extensively on contemporary queer cultures in Eastern Europe and has also co-edited several interdisciplinary volumes on late socialism, digital subjectivities, and queer politics after the Cold War. Deeply committed to facilitating cultural dialogue across societies, she has also engaged in several projects of literary and academic translation. Beyond her work of the Transitions project, she leads a research group on queer literatures and cultures under socialism at the University of Regensburg and co-chairs an interdisciplinary network on non-hegemonic remembrance. 

Timothy Nunan is Professor for Transregional Cultures of Knowledge in the Department of Interdisciplinary and Multiscalar Area Studies (DIMAS) at the University of Regensburg. His work bridges area studies and global history, focusing on the former Soviet Union and the Middle East. He has published on socialist internationalism and USSR-Afghanistan ties (Humanitarian Invasion: Global Development in Cold War Afghanistan, 2016) and on Shi’a Islamism and decolonization (Believing Globally: Islamist Internationalism Between the Cold War and Decolonization, forthcoming). As co-PI of "Transitions," he is excited to turn his focus to themes like gender and sexuality. Within the project, Nunan is especially interested in examining the impact of perestroika and glasnost' on the Muslim-majority republics of the Soviet Union, as well as the interaction between local actors and external players like the Islamic Republic of Iran and Turkey. More broadly, Nunan seeks to rethink paradigms of area studies and frameworks for understanding the transition from the Cold War to post-Cold War world.

Vlad Strukov’s research is on visual cultures in global settings, with emphasis on contemporary art and film. Related areas of enquiry are digital cultures and queer cultures. Across these fields, he addresses theoretical questions of visibility, visuality and materiality, as well as (anti-)identity and post-representation. His work draws on Jacques Derrida’s philosophy, and more recently on Derrida’s engagement with Sufism. Vlad is active as editor and curator, shaping debates through exhibitions, publications and networks that connect artists and scholars across the Global East and Global South. His publications include books on contemporary cinema (Edinburgh UP), popular geopolitics (Routledge), memory and securitization (Palgrave), and others. His forthcoming publication is a volume on streaming and film cultures. He is Professor of Film and Visual Culture, University of Leeds, and Visiting Professor of Contemporary Art and Curating, Ca-Foscari University, Venice. He is the founding director of Leeds Centre for Global Queer Cultures and Politics. 

Gözde Yazıcı Cörüt is a researcher in the Department of Interdisciplinary and Multiscalar Area Studies at the University of Regensburg, specialising in transimperial and transnational histories of Eurasia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Her longstanding interest in bringing the Ottoman and Russian empires into dialogue crystallised in her involvement in the Transottomanica research project, which led to her first monograph, Loyalty and Citizenship: Ottoman Perspectives on its Russian Border Region (1878–1914). Within the framework of the AHRC–DFG project Transitions, her research examines cultural production in the late Soviet and early post-independence periods in Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan through a gendered lens, foregrounding moral ambivalence and marginal subjectivities as key to the negotiation of social and political transformation. She also focuses on cultural and intellectual entanglements across Turkey, exploring how ideas, narratives, and aesthetic practices circulate, acquire new political meanings, and are articulated, contested, or adapted in relation to state-driven political agendas, particularly through gendered forms of representation.