TANER AKCAM APPOINTED CHAIR AT CLARK UNIVERSITY’S STRASSLER CENTER FOR HOLOCAUST AND GENOCIDE STUDIES
PanARMENIAN.Net
12.12.2008 17:48 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Turkish scholar Taner Akcam has been appointed Chair
at Clark University’s Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide
Studies, Armeniаn Mirror Spectator reports.
Akcam, who is moving from the University of Minnesota to Worcester,
Mass., in June, in preparation for taking up his new position in
September, said, "Ever since 1976, when I was a teaching assistant
at the Middle East Technical University in Turkey, it was my dream
to become a scholar, to go to Europe or the US and get my PhD. I
was arrested and my life changed, but in the 1980s, I committed
myself [to this goal]. I have worked very hard to be where I am,
and I am very happy about the appointment and that I have realized my
dream." Because Akcam is Turkish and will teach, among other subjects,
a course on the Armenian Genocide, his appointment in some circles is
bound to be considered controversial, but Akcam sees it as the result
of a normal process that has opened the field to non-Armenian scholars.
Akcam has lived outside of Turkey since 1978, first as a political
refugee. He later came to the United States and has taught in the
Department of History at the University of Minnesota since 2002. He
last visited Turkey in 2007 for the funeral of his close friend,
Hrant Dink, the Turkish-Armenian journalist and editor of Agos,
who was assassinated in Istanbul in front of his newspaper office.
Akcam has filed a lawsuit in the European Court to completely rescind
Article 301 of the Turkish Criminal Code, which imposes harsh penalties
on those whose views are seen as "insulting Turkishness," for example,
mentioning the Armenian Genocide. Although Turkey has recently
passed amendments to soften the penalties, Akcam will not withdraw his
suit. "Nothing has been decided yet," he said. "Of course, the European
Court might use the Turkish amendments as a reason to drop the case."
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