Shoshana Keller

Shoshana Keller is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Russian and Eurasian History at Hamilton College, where she has been teaching since her 1995 appointment. She directs the Middle East/Islamicate Worlds Studies program and holds affiliations with the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies as well as the Central Eurasian Studies Society.

• Education
  • Ph.D. and M.A. in History from Indiana University
  • B.A. in History from Carleton College

Her research focuses on Soviet Central Asian history, particularly the USSR's multi-national statecraft, religious suppression policies, and the intersection of labor systems with national identity formation. She explores themes like:

• Historical narrative construction in post-colonial education systems
• Manual labor economics in Khrushchev-era Uzbekistan
• Modern childhood as a nation-building tool in Soviet Central Asia
• Geospatial mapping of Kazakhstani migration patterns

Her publications reveal trends in Soviet colonial governance, cultural erasure, and resilience of local identities, with keywords spanning History, Migration Studies, Religious Suppression, and Economic Sociology.

Scientific Awards

• Dean’s Scholarly Year Achievement Award (2021)
• Class of 1963 Faculty Fellowship (Summer 2020)
• IREX Short-term Travel Grant (Alternate, Spring 2011)
• Social Science Research Council Fellowship (2005–09)

Keller has advised honors theses on topics ranging from postwar pronatalism in the USSR to immigrant Russian churches in America. She also served as Principal Investigator for the "Histories of Central Asia" teaching resource tool and created open-access lecture materials on Central Asian history.