PANEL DISCUSSION TO EXPLORE RELATIONS BETWEEN TURKS, KURDS, AND ARMENIANS
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April 7, 2009
WALTHAM, Mass. (A.W.)-On April 20, a panel discussion titled "Subjects
and Citizens: (Un)Even Relations between Turks, Kurds, Armenians"
will be held at Bentley University’s Adamian Academic Center, Wilder
Pavilion (175 Forest Street,Waltham). The event, organized by Bentley
University’s Global Studies Department and the Armenian Review,
begins at 7 p.m.
The panel is made up of a group of leading scholars and commentators,
including Dr. Ugur Umit Ungor (University of Sheffield, UK), Bilgin
Ayata (Johns Hopkins), Dr. Henry Theriault (Worcester State College),
and Dr. Dikran Kaligian (Regis College). Dr. Asbed Kotchikian
(Bentley Unversity) will moderate. Weekly editor Khatchig Mouradian
will deliver opening remarks.
The panel aims at looking at the history and examining the power
relations between Armenians, Kurds, and Turks after the apparent
homogenization of Eastern Anatolia as a result of the mass killings
and deportations of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire. The
panel will discuss these relations and the prospects of rapprochement
among the three groups.
Ugur Umit Ungor is a lecturer at the University of Sheffield. He was
born in 1980 and studied sociology and history at the Universities of
Groningen, Utrecht, Toronto, and Amsterdam. His main area of interest
is the historical sociology of mass violence and nationalism in the
modern world. He has published on genocide, in general, and on the
Rwandan and Armenian genocides, in particular. He finished his Ph.D.,
titled "Young Turk Social Engineering: Genocide, Nationalism, and
Memory in Eastern Turkey, 1913-1950" at the department of history of
the University of Amsterdam.
Bilgin Ayata is completing her Ph.D. at the department of political
science at John Hopkins University, Baltimore. Her research interests
include the politics of displacement, trans-nationalism, social
movements, and migration. Her dissertation examines the displacement
of Kurds in Turkey and Europe. She currently lives in Berlin.
Henry C. Theriault earned his Ph.D. in Philosophy in 1999 from the
University of Massachusetts, with a specialization in social and
political philosophy. He is currently Associate Professor of Philosophy
at Worcester State College, where he has taught since 1998. Since
2007, he has served as Co-Editor-in-Chief of the peer-reviewed journal
Genocide Studies and Prevention and has been on the Advisory Council
of the International Association of Genocide Scholars. His research
focuses on philosophical approaches to genocide issues, especially
genocide denial, long-term justice, ethical analyses of perpetrator
motivations, and the role of violence against women in genocide.
Dikran Kaligian is a visiting professor in the History Department
at Regis College and Managing Editor of the Armenian Review. He
received his doctorate from Boston College. He is the author of
Armenian Organization and Ideology under Ottoman Rule: 1908-1914
(Transaction Publishers, 2009).
Asbed Kotchikian is a lecturer in politicals cience and international
relations at Bentley University. His area of research includes the
foreign policies of small states, the modern political history of
the post-Soviet South Caucasus, and issues of national identity.
The event is free and open to the public.