Alexander C. Diener is an Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Kansas where he works in the field of political and social geography. His research explores the relationship between identity and place through the themes of geopolitics and borders, nationalism and transnationalism, mobility and migration, and urban landscape change. His regional expertise includes Central Asia, Russian borderlands, and Mongolia. Joshua Hagen is Professor and Chair of the Geography Department at the Marshall University. His research focuses on the political geographic dimensions of nationalism, borders, international relations, totalitarianism, urban design, and historical preservation. He has worked on these issues in European, Eurasian, and North American contexts.