Christopher J. Ward, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of History
Clayton State University

Editor-in-Chief, The Soviet and Post-Soviet Review 

christopherward[at]clayton.edu

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy in History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2002

• Visiting Scholar, Russian State University for the Humanities, 1999-2000
• Merit Scholar, International University in Moscow, 1998
• Visiting Graduate Student, Saratov State University, 1997

• Master of Arts in History, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 1996

• Bachelor of Arts in History & Political Science with High Honors, Guilford College, 1994

Teaching Experience

• Associate Professor, Department of Humanities, Clayton State University, 2009-present
• Associate Professor, Department of Social Sciences, Clayton State University, 2008-2009
• Assistant Professor, Department of Social Sciences, Clayton State University, 2004-2008
• Assistant Professor, Department of History, Ouachita Baptist University, 2002-2004
• Instructor, Department of History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2002
• Teaching Assistant, Department of History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1996-2001
• Adjunct Instructor, Department of History and Political Science, Methodist University, 1996

Book

• Brezhnev’s Folly: The Building of BAM and Late Soviet Socialism (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009; paperback, 2010).

Articles

• “Socialism in Russia and the Soviet Union.” World History Encyclopedia, Era 8: Crisis and Achievement, 1900-1945. Edited by H. Micheal Tarver. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2011.

• “A Return to the Past: Teaching Russian and Soviet History from a Eurasian Perspective.” Selected Annual Proceedings of the Florida Conference of Historians 16 (February 2009): 106-114.

• “Building Socialism?: Crime and Corruption During the Construction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline Railway.” Global Crime 8, no. 1 (February 2007): 58-79.

• “8th Century B.C.E.—Scythians Drive the Cimmerians from Central Asia.” Great Events from History: The Ancient World, Prehistory—476 C.E., April 2004, 277-79.

• “Baikal-Amur Magistral Railway (BAM)” and “Helsinki Accords.” Macmillan Encyclopedia of Russian History, December 2003.

• “Detours along the ‘Path to the Future’: Crime and Corruption during the Construction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline Railway (BAM), 1974-1984.” Acta Slavica Iaponica 20 (March 2003): 126-153.

• “Laying the Rails of ‘Fraternal Cooperation’: Soviet Citizens and Foreigners in the Construction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline Railway (BAM), 1974-1984.” Problemy slavianovedeniia 4 (2002): 286-94.

• “Selling the ‘Project of the Century’: Perceptions of the Baikal-Amur Mainline Railway (BAM) in the Soviet Press, 1974-1984.” Canadian Slavonic Papers 43, no. 1 (March 2001): 75-95.

• “BAMing It Up: Wanderings around Moscow and Lake Baikal.” Inflections 5, no. 2 (December 2000): 4.

Reviews

• Mark B. Smith, Property of Communists: The Urban Housing Program from Stalin to Khrushchev in The American Historical Review 116, No. 5 (December 2011).
• Liubov Denisova, Rural Women in the Soviet Union and Post-Soviet Russia in CHOICE 49 (September 2011).
• Paul Stronski, Tashkent: Forging a Soviet City, 1930-1966 in CHOICE 48 (June 2011).
• Frederik Coene, The Caucasus: An Introduction in CHOICE 48 (September 2010).
• Oleg V. Khlevniuk, Master of the House: Stalin and His Inner Circle in CHOICE 47 (November 2009).
• Balázs Szalontai, Kim Il Sung in the Khrushchev Era: Soviet-DPRK Relations and the Roots of North Korean Despotism, 1953-1964 in CHOICE 44 (December 2006).
• Edward A. Olsen, Korea: The Divided Nation in CHOICE 43 (July 2006).
• Joshua Rubenstein and Alexander Gribanov, eds., The KGB File of Andrei Sakharov in CHOICE 43 (May 2006).
• Reuven Amitai and Michal Biran, eds., Mongols, Turks, and Others: Eurasian Nomads and the Sedentary World in The Journal of World History 17 (March 2006), 95-97.
• Anne White, Small-Town Russia—Postcommunist Livelihoods and Identities: A Portrait of the Intelligentsia in Achit, Bednodemyanovsk and Zubtsov, 1999-2000 in Europe-Asia Studies 57 (November 2005), 1079-1080.
• Kyung Moon Hwang, Beyond Birth: Social Status in the Emergence of Modern Korea in CHOICE 43 (November 2005).
• Bradley K. Martin, Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty in CHOICE 42 (June 2005).
• David Satter, Age of Delirium: The Decline and Fall of the Soviet Union in H-Russia Digest 13 October 2004-14 October 2004 (#2004-133), http://www.h-net.org/~russia/.
• Marcia R. Ristaino, Port of Last Resort: The Diaspora Communities of Shanghai in Russian History/Histoire Russe 30 (Winter 2003): 459-60.
• Shu Guang Zhang, Economic Cold War: America’s Embargo against China and the Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1949-1963 in Russian History/Histoire Russe 30 (Winter 2003): 466-7.
• J. R. McNeill, The Human Web: A Bird’s Eye View of World History in CHOICE 41 (October 2003).
• Peter Liddle et al., eds., The Great War, 1914-1945: Volume 2—The People’s Experience in CHOICE 41 (October 2003).
• Maureen Perrie, The Cult of Ivan the Terrible in Stalin’s Russia in Europe-Asia Studies 55 (June 1, 2003): 644-5.
• Andrei Lankov, From Stalin to Kim Il Sung: The Formation of North Korea, 1945-1960 in CHOICE 40 (May 2003).
• Donald J. Raleigh, ed., Provincial Landscapes: Local Dimensions of Soviet Power, 1917-1953 in Europe-Asia Studies 55 (March 1, 2003): 315-7.
• Elena Osokina, Our Daily Bread: Socialist Distribution and the Art of Survival in Stalin’s Russia, 1927-1941 in Europe-Asia Studies 55 (January 1, 2003): 163-4.
• Michael Khodarkovsky, Russia’s Steppe Frontier: The Making of a Colonial Empire, 1500-1800 in Australian Slavonic and East European Studies 16 (2002): 240-3.
• Kazimiera J. Cottam, ed. and trans., Defending Leningrad: Women Behind Enemy Lines and On the Road to Stalingrad: Memoirs of a Woman Machine Gunner in Canadian Slavonic Papers 42 (September 2000): 378-79.
• Robert Strayer, Why Did the Soviet Union Collapse? Understanding Historical Change in The Journal of World History 11 (Fall 2000): 405-7.

Conference Presentations

• “‘The Small Peoples of the North Must Adapt’: Indigenous Siberians and the Construction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline Railway,” Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Environmental History, April 2011, Phoenix, Arizona
• “To Divert or Not to Divert?: The Sibaral Debate,” Presented at the Annual Convention of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, November 2010, Los Angeles, California
• “Pandora’s Box Reopened: The Birth, Death, and Rebirth of Sibaral,” Presented at the Annual Conference of the American Society for Environmental History, March 2010, Portland, Oregon
• “Pandora’s Box Reopened?: The Death and Rebirth of Sibaral,” Presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies Annual Meeting, November 2009, Boston, Massachusetts
• “Rockin’ Down the Mainline: Rock Music during the Construction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline Railway (BAM), 1974-1984,” Presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies Annual Meeting, November 2008, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• “A Return to the Past: Teaching Russian and Soviet History from a Eurasian Perspective,” Presented at the Southern Conference on Slavic Studies Annual Conference, March 2008, Atlanta, Georgia
• “A Return to the Past: Teaching Russian and Soviet History from a Eurasian Perspective,” Presented at the Florida Conference of Historians Annual Meeting, February 2008, Jacksonville, Florida
• “Siberia in the Russian Media, 1991 and Beyond,” Presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies Annual Meeting, November 2007, New Orleans, Louisiana
• “‘Wayward Youth’ versus the ‘Defenders of Public Order’: Youth Discontent and Young People’s Militias during Construction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline Railway (BAM), 1974-1984,” Presented at the Georgia Association of Historians Annual Meeting, April 2007, Milledgeville, Georgia
• “Educating Marginalized Communities: An American Perspective,” Presented at the Women’s Empowerment through Adult Education Workshop, CHM College, December 2006, Ulhasnagar, India
• “Troubled Waters: The Siberian Rivers Diversion Project, Then and Now” Presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies Annual Meeting, November 2006, Washington, District of Columbia
• “Komsomol and Kollektivnost’: Youth Culture during Construction of the Baikal-Amur Railway (BAM), 1974-1984” Presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies Annual Meeting, November 2005, Salt Lake City, Utah 
• “Out of the Long, Cold Winter: Siberia since 1991” Presented at the Southern Conference on Slavic Studies Annual Conference, April 2005, Nashville, Tennessee
• “A Return to the Past: Teaching Russian and Soviet History from a Eurasian Perspective” Presented at the Georgia Association of Historians Annual Meeting, April 2005, Columbus, Georgia
• “Beyond the Great Wall: Integrating Study & Scholarship in China in the Classroom” Presented at the Georgia Consortium for International Studies and the University System of Georgia Office of International Education's Incorporating Faculty Seminars and Teaching Abroad into the Curriculum Symposium, March 2005, Morrow, Georgia
• “‘The Small Peoples of the North Must Adapt’: Siberian Aboriginals and the Construction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline Railway (BAM), 1974-1984” Presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies Annual Meeting, December 2004, Boston, Massachusetts
• “Acclaim and Disdain: Foreign Perceptions of the May Fourth Movement of 1919” Presented at the Sino-Western Cultural Exchange in Early Modern China, 1840-1950 Conference, Beijing, China, May 2004
• “Working Alone: Women’s Roles during Construction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline Railway, 1974-1984” Presented at the British Universities Siberian Studies Seminar, April 2004, Houston, Texas
• “A Return to the Past: Teaching Russian and Soviet History from a Eurasian Perspective” Presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies Annual Meeting, November 2003, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• “‘The Small Peoples of the North Must Adapt’: Siberian Aboriginals and the Construction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline Railway (BAM), 1974-1984” Presented at the 2003 Southwestern Social Science Association Annual Meeting, April 2003, San Antonio, Texas
• “Juvenile Crime and the ‘Defenders of Public Order’: Young People’s Militias during Construction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline Railway (BAM), 1974-1984” Presented at the Southern Conference on Slavic Studies Annual Meeting, March 2003, Savannah, Georgia
• “Detours along the ‘Path to the Future:’ Public and Private Perceptions of Crime during the Construction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline Railway (BAM), 1974-1984" Presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies Annual Meeting, November 2002, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
• “Out of the Long, Cold Winter: Siberia since 1991” Presented at the Arkansas Association of College History Teachers Annual Meeting, October 2002, Hot Springs, Arkansas
• “Laying the Rails of ‘Fraternal Cooperation’: The Foreign Dynamic of the Baikal-Amur Mainline Railway, 1974-1984” Presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies Annual Meeting, November 2000, Denver, Colorado
• “Selling the ‘Project of the Century’: Mass-Media Perceptions of the Baikal-Amur Mainline Railway” Presented at the Southern Conference on Slavic Studies Annual Meeting, March 1999, Richmond, Virginia
• “‘The Destruction of the Enemy Venture’: The 1956 Soviet Intervention in Hungary" Presented at the Southern Conference on Slavic Studies Annual Meeting, April 1996, Asheville, North Carolina
• “Historical Motivations for the 1979 Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan" Presented at the North Carolina Phi Alpha Theta State Conference, April 1994, Pembroke, North Carolina

Honors and Awards

• Nominee, Graduate Assistant Outstanding Teaching Award, Department of History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2002
• Honorable Mention, Southern Conference on Slavic Studies Graduate Student Paper Competition, 2000
• U.S. Department of State Program for Research & Training on Eastern Europe and the Independent States of the Former Soviet Union Advanced Research Fellowship, 1999-2000

• Merit Scholarship, American Council of Teachers of Russian Advanced Russian Language and Area Studies Program, Moscow International University, 1998
• Foreign Language Area Study (FLAS) Fellowship, 1997-1998, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Long Memorial Scholarship, 1995-1996, University of North Carolina at Greensboro