We will be joined on Friday, 25 November at 18:00 by Professor Dame Caroline Humphrey, FBA for a talk about her book co-authored with Franck Bille –  On the Edge: Life Along the Russia-China Border – a pioneering examination of history, current affairs, and daily life along the Russia–China border, one of the world’s least understood and most politically charged frontiers.

The border between Russia and China winds for 2,600 miles through rivers, swamps, and vast taiga forests. It’s a thin line of direct engagement, extraordinary contrasts, frequent tension, and occasional war between two of the world’s political giants. Franck Billé and Caroline Humphrey have spent years traveling through and studying this important yet forgotten region. Drawing on pioneering fieldwork, they introduce readers to the lifeways, politics, and history of one of the world’s most consequential and enigmatic borderlands.

Surprising and rigorously researched, On the Edge testifies to the rich diversity of an extraordinary world haunted by history and divided by remote political decisions but connected by the ordinary imperatives of daily life.

Professor Dame Caroline Humphrey, FBA

Caroline Humphrey’s PhD (1973) from the University of Cambridge was on ‘Magical Drawings in the Religions of the Buryats’, supervised by Edmund Leach. Since 1978 she has held appointments in the Department of Social Anthropology (Cambridge). Together with Urgunge Onon she founded the Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit (MIASU) in 1986. She retired from her post as Sigrid Rausing Professor of Collaborative Anthropology, University of Cambridge in October 2010 and became a Research Director of MIASU.

• WHEN: 25 November 2022, 18:00
• WHERE: Main Lecture Theatre, Trinity Hall, Cambridge University, Trinity Ln, Cambridge, CB2 1TJ
• FEE: CamRuSS members – FREE, registration on AllEvents is required. Non-members £6 (+£1 booking fee on AllEvents). We also welcome donations. Please BOOK and register here.
• The talk will be followed by a wine reception.
• LANGUAGE: English
• NEW: You can now also join us online via Zoom – tickets are now on sale. Find out more and book here.