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AKCAM LAUNCHES LATEST BOOK AT COLGATE UNIVERSITY
Armenian Weekly
April 12, 2012
HAMILTON, N.Y.-Prof. Taner Akcam lectured to a packed Persson Hall
Auditorium at Colgate University on Thurs., April 5, launching
his new book The Young Turks' Crime Against Humanity: The Armenian
Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire, which has just
been published by Princeton University Press. Akcam spoke about the
importance of the new archival documents he unearthed in the ministry
of the interior archives in Istanbul. He explored the Young Turks'
policies of forced conversions and planned absorption of orphaned
Armenian children as a dimension of the genocidal process through
which Armenian identity was obliterated by the central planning of the
Ottoman government in 1915. Akcam also discussed the significance of
Talat Pasha's orders to massacre about 200,000 Armenians in Der Zor,
Syria, in the summer of 1916. The lecture was followed by a lively
question and answer session and a reception.
Akcam (R) and Balakian at Colgate In his introduction, Akcam's host,
Prof. Peter Balakian, noted: "Akcam's work remains groundbreaking,
vitalizing, essential. Not only has he opened up space inside Turkey
for an honest evaluation of the genocide of the Armenians, but also
he has given courage to a generation of younger Turkish scholars to
tackle this history from the premise of truthful acknowledgment of
Lemkin's definition of genocide."
The lecture was sponsored by Colgate's Office of the Dean and Provost,
its Peace and Conflict Studies Program, and the Core Program, in
which Balakian teaches his course on modern genocide.
Akcam holds the Kaloosdian and Mugar Chair in Armenian Genocide
Studies at Clark University.
Armenian Weekly
April 12, 2012
HAMILTON, N.Y.-Prof. Taner Akcam lectured to a packed Persson Hall
Auditorium at Colgate University on Thurs., April 5, launching
his new book The Young Turks' Crime Against Humanity: The Armenian
Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire, which has just
been published by Princeton University Press. Akcam spoke about the
importance of the new archival documents he unearthed in the ministry
of the interior archives in Istanbul. He explored the Young Turks'
policies of forced conversions and planned absorption of orphaned
Armenian children as a dimension of the genocidal process through
which Armenian identity was obliterated by the central planning of the
Ottoman government in 1915. Akcam also discussed the significance of
Talat Pasha's orders to massacre about 200,000 Armenians in Der Zor,
Syria, in the summer of 1916. The lecture was followed by a lively
question and answer session and a reception.
Akcam (R) and Balakian at Colgate In his introduction, Akcam's host,
Prof. Peter Balakian, noted: "Akcam's work remains groundbreaking,
vitalizing, essential. Not only has he opened up space inside Turkey
for an honest evaluation of the genocide of the Armenians, but also
he has given courage to a generation of younger Turkish scholars to
tackle this history from the premise of truthful acknowledgment of
Lemkin's definition of genocide."
The lecture was sponsored by Colgate's Office of the Dean and Provost,
its Peace and Conflict Studies Program, and the Core Program, in
which Balakian teaches his course on modern genocide.
Akcam holds the Kaloosdian and Mugar Chair in Armenian Genocide
Studies at Clark University.