During 25-27 May 2005, there will be a conference organized at Boðaziçi University. The hosts of the conference are the Comparative Literature Department of Bilgi University, the History Department of Boðaziçi University and the History Program at Sabancý University. The title of the conference is “Ottoman Armenians during the Decline of the Empire: Issues of Scientific Responsibility and Democracy.”
Only Turkish scholars will participate in this conference which is not international in character. As a consequence, the working language of the conference will be entirely in Turkish. Only an invited group of people will be able to attend the conference because of limited space and the vast interest expressed in the proceedings.
The Organizing Committee of faculty members from the three participating universities are, in alphabetic order, Murat Belge (chair, Comparative Literature Department, Bilgi), Halil Berktay (coordinator, History Program, Sabancý), Selim Deringil (chair, History Department, Boðaziçi), Edhem Eldem (History Department, Boðaziçi), Hakan Erdem (History Program, Sabancý), Çaðlar Keyder (Sociology Department, Boðaziçi), Cemil Koçak (History Program, Sabancý), and Akþin Somel (History Program, Sabancý).
In addition, the Consulting Committee of academics from Turkey and abroad comprises, in alphabetical order, of Fikret Adanýr (Bochum Ruhr University, Germany), Engin Akarlý (Brown University, USA), Taner Akçam (University of Minnesota, USA), Ayhan Aktar (Marmara University, Turkey), Þeyla Benhabib (Yale University, USA), Üstün Ergüder (Director of Istanbul Policy Center at Sabancý University, Turkey), Fatma Müge Göçek (University of Michigan, USA), Nilüfer Göle (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, France), Cemal Kafadar (Harvard University, USA), Metin Kunt (Sabancý University, Turkey), Þerif Mardin (Sabancý University), Oktay Özel (Bilkent University, Turkey), Ýlhan Tekeli (Middle East Technical University, Turkey), Mete Tunçay (Bilgi University, Turkey), Stefan Yerasimos (Universite Paris VIII, France).
The schedule of the conference already contains more than thirty papers to be delivered at ten sessions, a number of panels and a round table discussion. The organizers of the conference regretfully note that they have been unable to include many valuable suggestions that would have made the schedule much richer because of the large number of interested participants and the need to contain all the proceedings in three days.
According to the conference organizers, it is time today, ninety years after 1915, this tragic event in the history of our country, for Turkey’s own academics and intellectuals to collectively raise their voices that differ from that of the official [state] theses and put forth their own contributions. Turkish society that has grown, differentiated within itself, and opened to the world has accumulated both qualitatively and quantitatively an impressive amount of independent and critical thought. This accumulation already covers a rather large spectrum, achieves breadth and depth along the intellectual circles of historians, social scientists, writers, publishers, lawyers, journalists and independent intellectuals, and now wants to make its own voice heard and thus come of age as an intellectual generation with its own free and autonomous ideas.
The conference organizers express the common denominator of this new formation to be the recognition of a responsibility of conscience. This is not solely a responsibility in reference to scientific truth or world citizenship, but also a responsibility toward our own country, society and democracy. It is once again Turkey that would benefit the most from the emergence of different, critical and alternative voices and the portrayal of multiplicity of ideas contained in Turkish society.
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Program
25 May 2005 Wednesday
Session 1. 09:30-10:50 A Collective View of the Issues
Introductory Note by Selim Deringil
Þerif Mardin, Session Chair
Halil Berktay “What Does the Official Narrative Comprise?”
Selim Deringil “Archives and the Armenian Question: ‘Grabbing the Document by the Throat’”
Murat Belge “Armenian Problem from the Viewpoint of Democracy”
Coffee Break 10:50-11:10
Session 2. 11:10-13:00 What the World Knows and Turkey Does Not Know
Mete Tunçay, Session Chair
Osman Köker “Armenian Presence in the Ottoman State before the Deportation”
Fikret Adanýr “Massacre, Genocide and the Historical Profession”
Fatma Müge Göçek “The Chicago-Salzburg Process as an Accumulation of Knowledge”
Nazan Maksudyan “The 1915-1916 Events according to the 20th century and world historians”
Lunch 13:00-14:00
Session 3. 14:00-15:40 The ‘Old Order’ before 1914: inequalities, pressures, rebellion and massacres
Hakan Erdem, Session Chair
Akþin Somel “Armenian Schools and the Regime of Abdülhamid (1876-1908)”
Oktay Özel “Locals, Refugees and non-Muslims: some observations on the boundaries of social harmony in the Black Sea Region during the late Ottoman period”
Edhem Eldem “The Istanbul Armenian Incidents of 1895-96”
Meltem Toksöz “Armenians of Adana and the 1909 ‘Disturbance’”
Coffee Break 15:40-16:00
Session 4. 16:00-18:00 The Breaking Point
Halil Berktay, Session Chair
Stefan Yerasimos “Approaching 1915: Armenian Autonomy and the Zeytun and Van Incidents”
Nesim Þeker “The Armenian Question and ‘Demographic Engineering’”
Rober Koptaþ “The Unionist-Tashnak Negotiations and the 1914 Armenian Reform from the pens of Krikor Zohrab, Vahan Papazyan and Karekin Pastýrmacýyan”
Elif Þafak “Zabel Yesayan and the list of ‘marked Armenian intellectuals’”
26 MAY 2005 THURSDAY
Session 5. 09:30-11:10 Deportation and Massacres
Taha Parla, Session Chair
Fuat Dündar “The Settlement Policy of the Union and Progress(1913-1918)”
Taner Akçam “The Intent and Organization of Genocide, with the survivors and the destroyed, among the leaders of the Union and Progress in light of Ottoman documents”
Cemil Koçak How Do You Know the Special Secret Organization (Teþkilât-ý Mahsusa)?”
Coffee Break 11:10-11:30
Session 6. 11:30-13:00 Tales of Tragedy and Escape
Ferhunde Özbay, Session Chair
Sarkis Seropyan “Landscapes of conscience from within a Painful History”
Fethiye Çetin “From Heranuþ to Seher, the tale of a ‘liberation’”
Aykut Kansu “Thinking through the Tales of Those Who Survived the Deportation”
Lunch 13:00-14:00
Session 7. 14:00-15:40 Witnesses and Memories
Ayþe Öncü, Session Chair
Hülya Adak “The Armenian Question in Memoirs”
Ahmet Kuyaþ “What Do the Unionists Say?”
Cevdet Aykan “The Meaning of Memories and The
Responsibility of Politics and the Times”
Gündüz Vassaf “Armenians and 1915 in the Educational Calendar (Saatli Maarif Takvimi)”
Coffee Break 15:40-16:00
Session 8. 16:00-17:40 From the Threshold of the First Confession to the Formation of Taboos
Metin Kunt, session chair
Ayhan Aktar “The Armenian Question in the Ottoman Assembly, November-December 1918”
Erol Köroðlu “Examples of Remembrance and Forgetting in Turkish Literature: the Different Breaking Points of Taciturnity”
Baskýn Oran “The Roots of a Taboo: the Historical-Psychological Suffication of Turkish Public Opinion on the Armenian Problem”
27 MAY 2005 FRIDAY
Session 9. 09:30-11:10 States of Being an Armenian
Nükhet Sirman, session chair
Hrant Dink “The New Sentences of Armenian Identity in Turkey and the World”
Ferhat Kentel “Societies of Turkey and the Armenian Republic: Boundaries and Prejudices”
Karin Karakaþlý “To Be an Armenian in Turkey: community, individual, citizen”
Ferhat Kentel, Günay Göksu Özdoðan, Füsun Üstel, Melissa Bilal “An Identity Trapped In Between the Past and Present: the Experience of Being an Armenian in Turkey”
Ayþe Gül Altýnay “Two Books and an Exhibit: The Rediscovery of Turkish Armenians”
Coffee Break 11:10-11:30
Session 10. 11:30-13:30 Armenian Problem and the Turkish Democracy
Murat Belge, session chair
Ali Bayramoðlu “Views and Approaches to the Armenian Question in Turkey”
Etyen Mahcupyan “The Connection of Historical Perception and Mentality as a Founding Factor of the Turkish National Identity”
Ahmet Ýnsel “The Armenian Question and the Concept of the Enemy Within in Turkish Politics”
Murat Paker “Turkish Armenian Issue in the Context of a Psychoanalytic Evaluation of Turkey’s Dominant Political Culture”
Þahin Alpay “What Can Be Done to Reinstitute Turkish-Armenian Friendship?”
Lunch 13:30-14:30
Session 11. 14:30-16:00 The Armenian Problem and the Freedom of the Press
Ýsmet Berkan, session chair
Round Table: Ahmet Hakan, Oral Çalýþlar, Kürþat Bumin, Fehmi Koru
Coffee Break 16:00-16:20
Session 12. 16:20-18:30 Today and the Future
Üstün Ergüder, session chair
A Reconciliation Analyst: Esra Çuhadar Gürkaynak
A Politician: Cem Özdemir
A Diplomat: Ýlter Türkmen
A Lawyer: Turgut Tarhanlý
A Historian: Mete Tunçay
Yorumlar kapatıldı.