Adrienne Edgar

Adrienne Edgar is a Professor in the Department of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She specializes in Soviet and Central Asian history, with a focus on nationality, race, and gender. She holds a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley (1999) and advises graduate students in Russian/Soviet and Central Asian studies. Her work bridges imperial and postcolonial frameworks, examining nation-building processes and interethnic relations in the USSR.

Her research interests include borderlands studies, oral history methodologies, and the intersection of genealogy with political identity. Recent projects explore the cultural history of Soviet domestic spaces and transnational genealogical narratives. She currently serves on editorial boards for Kritika and Central Asian Studies, and has held fellowships at the Karl Jaspers Center (Heidelberg) and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

Teaching includes courses on modern Europe, Russian history, and comparative historical methods. Her 2022 book Intermarriage and the Friendship of Peoples won multiple prizes, analyzing ethnic mixing policies in Soviet Central Asia. She regularly contributes to public discussions on decolonizing historical narratives and Soviet legacies in Eurasia.