Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Nobel Prize-Winner Pamuk Receives Inaugural Humanist Medal

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Nobel Prize-Winner Pamuk Receives Inaugural Humanist Medal

    NOBEL PRIZE-WINNER PAMUK RECEIVES INAUGURAL HUMANIST MEDAL
    By Liam Otten

    Washington University Record, Washington
    Nov 16 2006

    The Turkish novelist will speak at 'Celebrating Our Books' colloquium
    Nov. 27

    Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk, winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in
    Literature, will receive the University's inaugural Distinguished
    Humanist Medal.

    The award - which includes a cash prize of $15,000 - is supported by
    the Center for the Humanities and International and Area Studies, both
    in Arts & Sciences. It will be given biannually to a distinguished
    scholar, writer or artist whose career merits special recognition
    for excellence and courage.

    Orhan Pamuk Pamuk will receive the medal and make a formal address
    during the fifth annual faculty book colloquium at 4 p.m. Nov. 27 in
    Graham Chapel. Titled "Celebrating Our Books, Recognizing Our Authors,"
    the colloquium honors the work of scholars from across the arts and
    sciences disciplines.

    Pamuk's speech will be published in the University's literary
    journal, Belles Lettres. Pamuk also will conduct a question-and-answer
    session before a select audience at Hurst Lounge the afternoon of his
    visit. Text from the session is scheduled to be published in 2007 in
    the new graduate student online publication, Arch.

    "Pamuk was chosen for the award late last spring in consultation
    with other faculty, well before he won the Nobel Prize," said Gerald
    Early, Ph.D., the Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters in the
    Department of English in Arts & Sciences and director of the Center
    for the Humanities.

    "James Wertsch (the Marshall S. Snow Professor in Arts & Sciences and
    director of International and Area Studies) and David Lawton (professor
    and chair of English in Arts & Sciences) were especially helpful,
    as they both know Pamuk's books very well," Early noted. "It was felt
    that Pamuk was not only a brilliant writer whose works provide us with
    fresh, important perspectives on the divide between East and West,
    but that his support of free speech in Turkey was a notable act. He
    was an ideal selection for the prize, and he was happy to accept."

    In addition to Pamuk's talk, "Celebrating Our Books" will include
    presentations by John R. Bowen, Ph.D., the Dunbar-Van Cleve Professor
    in Arts & Sciences and author of Why the French Don't Like Headscarves:
    Islam, the State and Public Space (2006), and Lingchei Letty Chen,
    Ph.D., assistant professor of modern Chinese language & literature
    in Arts & Sciences and author of Writing Chinese: Reshaping Chinese
    Cultural Identity (2006).

    "We bring Orhan Pamuk here not only to honor him for his achievements,
    but to show how much regard we have for Washington University
    faculty authors by having them share the stage with a writer of such
    international eminence," Early said. "We very much want to showcase
    our writers and scholars."

    Born in 1952, Pamuk graduated from American Robert College in Istanbul
    and studied architecture at Istanbul Technical University before
    earning a degree in journalism from Istanbul University.

    At 23, he decided to become a novelist and published his first book,
    Cevdet Bey and His Sons, seven years later. Now one of Turkey's most
    prominent writers, his books have been translated into more than
    40 languages.

    Pamuk made international headlines in 2005 when criminal charges were
    brought against him in Istanbul following his statement that Turkey
    killed a million people in the Armenian Genocide of 1915-17 and
    massacred 30,000 Kurds in the late 20th century. Pamuk was indicted
    on charges the remark amounted to a "public denigration" of Turkish
    identity, a crime in Turkey. Authors from around the world, including
    Salman Rushdie and John Updike, spoke out on Pamuk's behalf. Charges
    were dropped in January 2006.

    In addition to Cevdet Bey, Pamuk wrote The Silent House (1983), The
    White Castle (1985) and The Black Book (1990). The New Life (1994),
    about university students influenced by a mysterious book, is one of
    the most widely read novels in Turkish literature.

    His most recent books include My Name Is Red (1998) - his most popular
    work in English - about Ottoman and Persian artists, the political
    novel Snow (2002) and the memoir Istanbul (2005).

    Bowen's research focuses on the role of cultural forms in processes
    of social change. His first three books - Muslims Through Discourse:
    Religion and Ritual in Gayo Society (1993), Critical Comparisons in
    Politics and Culture (1999) and Islam, Law and Equality in Indonesia:
    An Anthropology of Public Reasoning (2003) - examine issues of
    religion, culture and politics in Indonesia. In Why the French Don't
    Like Headscarves, he explores the French government's 2004 decision to
    ban Islamic headscarves and other religious signs from public schools.

    Chen's Writing Chinese addresses complex issues surrounding the claim
    of "Chinese-ness" in our increasingly borderless world. Cutting across
    geographical boundaries, the work challenges current discussions
    of hybridity and nationalism by examining the politics of Chinese
    cultural identity facing writers in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and
    the United States. In the end, Writing Chinese proposes that the
    aesthetics of hybridization are key to developing a more open,
    creative and individualized notion of Chinese cultural identity.

    The event is free and open to the public, but seating is limited
    and RSVPs are strongly encouraged. A reception and book-signing
    will follow in Holmes Lounge. The reception will include a display
    of all faculty books published in the past five years. In addition,
    the Campus Store will display books by all three speakers, all of
    which will be available for purchase.
Working...
X