SUMMARY:

The report on the first year of the collaborative project between Kazan State University and Rutgers University (USA) contains information about the program of academic exchanges, the development of the multidisciplinary Center for Democratic Education in Kazan, the new courses prepared within the framework of this partnership (reflecting the main thematic priorities of the project essential to understanding the transition to democracy in Russia today: federalism, ethnicity, nationalism/imperial history, and gender). The report illuminates the work of the Seminar in Kazan and presents the program of the November 2005 Faculty Seminar “Political Demobilization, Managed Democracy, and the Prospects for Civil Society in Russia”. The report also discusses the practice of independent external peer-reviewing of the new courses developed by Kazan project participants, which helps to spread the Kazan-Rutgers academic dialogue outside the limits of these two academic communities, thus enriching both of them. Finally, the report includes individual reflections of Kazan scholars who visited Rutgers and observed another academic culture and another type of relationships between the society and the university. For more information on the project, its resources in Kazan and the events planned for the remaining part of the program please refer to the Project’s administrator in Kazan, Aigul Sabirova: moon_k@inbox.ru.