Online Conference: ‘For Love Alone Is Just Reward for Love’: The Wisdom of Abai
Cambridge University Press and the Embassy of Kazakhstan in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland are pleased to invite you to an online conference
‘For Love Alone Is Just Reward for Love’: The Wisdom of Abai
23 July 2020, Thursday, 13.00-14.30
Speakers:
Jane Mann
Managing Director of Education Reform, Cambridge University Press
Erlan Idrissov
Ambassador of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Peter Rollberg
Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Research Initiatives, George Washington University
John Burnside
Winner of the T. S. Eliot Prize & the Forward Poetry Prize Fellow, Royal Society of Literature & Royal Society of Edinburgh
Rauan Kenzhekhanuly
Director, National Bureau of Translations
Anar Tanabayeva
Director of the Department for International Cooperation, Abai Kazakh National Pedagogical University
Moderator:
Annie Michailidou
Head of International Development, Education Reform, Cambridge University Press
The year 2020 marks the 175th anniversary of the birth of the greatest Kazakh poet, philosopher and enlightener Abai Kunanbaiuly. The brightest representative of the 19th century Kazakh intellectual aristocracy, Abai is widely considered the founding father of Kazakh written literature. He was also a cultural reformer and thanks to his translations of the Russian and European classics acted as a vital bridge between Kazakh, Russian and European cultures.
Later this year, Kazakhstan’s National Bureau of Translations, in partnership with Cambridge University Press, will present The Complete Works of Abai. The collection will include Abai’s poems and prose translated by the celebrated poets and academics John Burnside and Sean O’Brien.
The conference will bring together British, American, and Kazakh scholars, experts and writers who will discuss the profound influence of Abai’s heritage upon Kazakh culture, literature, worldview and national identity. The panellists’ presentations will be followed by a discussion and a Q&A session.
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Panellists’ brief bios
Professor John Burnside is a poet and writer. A former writer-in-residence at the University of Dundee, he is now Professor of English at the University of St Andrews. He has published 16 poetry collections and 16 prose books, authored TV series and radio plays. His first collection of poems, The Hoop, was published in 1988; it, and the follow-up Common Knowledge, won Scottish Arts Council Book Awards. In 2012, his collection Black Cat Bone won both the T. S. Eliot Prize and Forward Prize. He won many other prizes and awards including Scottish Arts Council Book Awards (1991, 1995), The Society of Authors’ Encore Prize (2000), Whitbread Poetry Prize (2000), Creative Scotland Award (2001), Cholmondley Award (2008), O. Henry Award (2009), Prix Madeleine Zepter (France, 2009), Petrarca Preis for Poetry (Germany, 2011) and Corine International Literature Prize (Germany, 2011). His work appears in translation in Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Turkey, the Netherlands, the People’s Republic of China, Indonesia, Croatia, Brazil and Argentina. John Burnside is also a member of the judging panel for The Man Booker Prize, (2015), The Costa Prize, The T.S. Eliot Prize and The Forward Prize. He is Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
Erlan Idrissov is the Ambassador of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Born on the 28th April, 1959 in the Karaganda Region of Kazakhstan, Ambassador Idrissov graduated from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations in 1981 and the Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR in 1992. Representing Kazakhstan as Ambassador to the United Kingdom since 2017, Ambassador Idrissov has twice been Kazakhstan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, and served for five years as the country’s Ambassador to the United States in 2007-2012. Ambassador Idrissov authored numerous articles on Kazakhstan's foreign policy and multilateral diplomacy. He speaks English, French, Urdu and Hindi.
Rauan Kenzhekhanuly is the Director at the National Bureau of Translations (NBT), and CEO at the Bilim Media Group (BMG). He graduated from Almaty State University in 2001 and in 2004 earned his MBA at the Academy of National Economy (Moscow). In 2010-2011 was a fellow at the Weatherhead Centre for International Affairs at Harvard University, where also taught the Kazakh language. Known as social entrepreneur, politician, journalist and diplomat currently he manages several educational projects focused on eLearning technologies. BMG is the biggest provider of eLearning services in Central Asia with over 7,000 schools subscribed to its BilimLand platform. NBT is one of the largest public foundations in Kazakhstan focused on translation of university level textbooks and non-fiction literature from foreign languages into Kazakh. NBT translates and distributes Kazakh literature in ten of the world’s major languages.
Jane Mann is an experienced publisher, author, editor and trainer, and is Managing Director of Education Reform at Cambridge University Press. She has worked in educational publishing for over two decades, leading many international education reform projects in publishing and capacity development. Jane has implemented and managed publishing programmes to support international and national curricula, working with ministries of education, government agencies, NGOs, donor agencies and educational organisations to design effective materials and infrastructures. She contributed to the Cambridge Approach to Textbooks, and has worked with government clients on process redesign, stakeholder engagement and best practice in resources. Jane has also worked outside the education sector, advising and consulting on regulatory frameworks, trade publishing strategy, communications and process redesign. Jane is a member of the Centre for the Study of Global Human Movement (University of Cambridge) and is also a member of the BESA Executive Council.
Annie Michailidou is Head of International Development for Education Reform at Cambridge University Press. She specialises in identifying international development opportunities to improve education equity and quality. By raising standards and giving learners the knowledge, understanding and practical skills to succeed in the modern world, she seeks to deliver economic and social transformation through bespoke education programmes worldwide. She has significant of experience overseeing business intelligence reports and projects that examine economic trends, education reforms, political risk and regulatory developments internationally. She has worked in over 30 countries across EMEA and has travelled and developed networks in over 120 countries, liaising extensively at Royalty, Head of State/Government, ministerial and C-level. As a passionate advocate of the power of education to secure enhanced prosperity and cultural change, Annie is active in initiatives to empower women and young people in emerging markets.
Professor Peter Rollberg is the Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Research Initiatives at the George Washington University. Among his English, German, and Russian publications are articles on Aleksandr Pushkin, Feodor Dostoevsky, Lev Tolstoy, and many other Russian writers. He is the author of the Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Cinema (2008, 2016). In 2014, he edited Media in Eurasia – a special issue of Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization, and in 2015, with Marlène Laruelle, The Media Landscape in Central Asia, in the same journal. He was director of the GWU Honors Program in 2001-2003, director of the GWU Film Studies Program in 2000-2010, Chair of the German and Slavic Department in 1999- 2001, and Chair of the Department of Romance, German, and Slavic Languages and Literatures in 2006-2009. From 2012-2019, Rollberg served as Director of the Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies. His areas of expertise include: history of Russian and Soviet literature and film; Georgian and Kazakh cinema; Soviet and post-Soviet media.
Dr. Anar Tanabayeva is the Director of the Department for International Cooperation of the Abai Kazakh National Pedagogical University. After graduating the Al-Farabi Kazakh National University with a degree in Oriental Studies, Dr. Tanabayeva worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan. Then moving to the private sector, she worked for international companies in Kazakhstan. She completed her PhD in Cultural Studies at the Al-Farabi Kazakh National Univeristy and has been the Director of the Department for International Cooperation of the Abai Kazakh National Pedagogical University since January 2020.