Gorshunova Olga Veniaminovna
2 June 1958, Fergana
Biography, education, career:
On 26 October 2000 Olga Gorshunova defended her Candidate Dissertation at the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of RAS; it was titled A Modern Uzbek Woman’s Lifestyle (based on the Material of the Fergana Valley). In 2007 she defended her Doctoral Dissertation, titled Female Deity in the System of Religious and Worldview Attitudes of the Peoples of Central Asia. In 1992–2001 she was Director of the Russian Centre of Culture and Language (Moscow); in 2001‑2004 she worked as a researcher at the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of RAS. In 2003 she was invited to the Center for the Study of World Religion, Harvard Divinity School, where she worked on an individual project dedicated to the problem of genesis of archaic cults and religious practices in Central Asian cultures. From 2008 she occupies the position of Associate Professor at the Department of Drawing and Painting of the Faculty of Applied Arts, Moscow State Textile University named after A.N. Kosygin.
Areas of expertise: History and ethnography of the peoples of Central Asia; Ethnic religious studies; Ethnosociology; ancient forms of religion; shamanism