People

Morgan Liu, Assistant Professor

Ph.D. University of Michigan, in Anthropology

Morgan Liu is a cultural anthropologist studying social imaginaries and Islamic knowledge in central Eurasia. Theoretically, his interests include space, phenomenology, agency, emergence, and ethnographic complexity. Current work: a book on how ethnic Uzbeks in a Kyrgyzstani city conceive of the post-Soviet state and Islam, based on research using vernacular language interviews and ethnographic fieldwork of urban social life. His next project, set in the populous and pious Fergana Valley of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, will investigate the links between post-Soviet Islamic piety, economic prosperity & poverty, and structural problems in society. It will look at Central Asian Islams as a form of utopian thought and practice that aims for peaceful and virtuous societal transformation in the Muslim postsocialist world. He also has a courtesy appointment with the OSU Department of Anthropology.