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NAASR Christmas Open House to Feature Ekmekcioglu Talk
http://www.armenianweekly.com/2012/11/23/naasr-christmas-open-house-to-feature-ekmekcioglu-talk/
November 23, 2012
BELMONT, Mass. - On Thurs., Dec. 6, Dr. Lerna Ekmekcioglu, the
McMillan-Stewart Career Development Assistant Professor of History at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, will
give a lecture entitled `Wishful Thinking or Insidious Camouflage?
Armenians Responding to the New Turkey (1923-33).' The talk will
highlight the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research
(NAASR) Center's 2012 Christmas Open House, which begins at 6 p.m. and
concludes at 11 p.m., with Ekmekcioglu's talk set for 8 p.m.
Lerna Ermekcioglu
Ekmekcioglu will examine the previously under-studied Armenian
community in Turkey in the first decade of the Turkish Republic. How
did Armenians respond to the establishment of the new Turkey in 1923?
Was this republic really `new' for them? What can we learn about the
early Turkish Republic when we look at it from the perspective of its
Armenian citizens?
Focusing on 1920's and 1930's Armenian spokespeople, intellectuals,
and lay and religious leadership, Ekmekcioglu will demonstrate that
Armenian responses to the state's policies (homogenization,
secularization, Westernization) included cooperation, accommodation,
and camouflaging, as well as certain forms of more overt resistance
that took the shape of calls to preserve `Armenianness' inside those
spaces where the state did not care or dare to interfere. She argues
that neither the Turkish Republic's policies nor the Armenian
responses were completely new; the Ottoman past mattered much more
than either group would admit.
Ekmekcioglu joined MIT in 2011 after a postdoc year at the University
of Michigan's Armenian Studies Program. The holder of a doctorate
from New York University, she teaches courses related to the modern
Middle East, with a focus on its ethnic diversity and
majority-minority relations. She is also affiliated with the Women
and Gender Studies Program, and teaches courses on gender in the
Middle East and North Africa. As the holder of the McMillan-Stewart
Chair she organizes lectures that pertain to women in the developing
world.
She is currently working on a monograph titled Surviving the New
Turkey: Armenians in Post-Ottoman Istanbul, which analyzes the ways in
which survivors of the genocide who continued living inside Turkish
borders crafted themselves a new presence to be able to co-habit
peacefully with the perpetrator society.
Both before and after the lecture, NAASR's bookstore will be open and
will feature a one-night only 20 percent off sale, with additional
discounts of 40 percent or more on selected titles. Numerous recently
published titles will be available.
Ruth Thomasian, the founder and executive director of Project SAVE
Armenian Photograph Archives, will also be on hand with the 2013
calendar `Armenians a Century Ago: In the Homeland and Diaspora.' The
calendar, as always featuring remarkable photographs from Project
SAVE's enormous archival collection, provides a glimpse of the
diversity of Armenian life during the pre-genocide years.
The evening's events will take place at the NAASR Center, 395 Concord
Ave. in Belmont. For more information about Ekmekcioglu's lecture, the
NAASR Christmas Open House, or NAASR and its programs, call (617)
489-1610, fax (617) 484-1759, e-mail [email protected], or write to NAASR,
395 Concord Ave., Belmont, MA 02478.
http://www.armenianweekly.com/2012/11/23/naasr-christmas-open-house-to-feature-ekmekcioglu-talk/
November 23, 2012
BELMONT, Mass. - On Thurs., Dec. 6, Dr. Lerna Ekmekcioglu, the
McMillan-Stewart Career Development Assistant Professor of History at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, will
give a lecture entitled `Wishful Thinking or Insidious Camouflage?
Armenians Responding to the New Turkey (1923-33).' The talk will
highlight the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research
(NAASR) Center's 2012 Christmas Open House, which begins at 6 p.m. and
concludes at 11 p.m., with Ekmekcioglu's talk set for 8 p.m.
Lerna Ermekcioglu
Ekmekcioglu will examine the previously under-studied Armenian
community in Turkey in the first decade of the Turkish Republic. How
did Armenians respond to the establishment of the new Turkey in 1923?
Was this republic really `new' for them? What can we learn about the
early Turkish Republic when we look at it from the perspective of its
Armenian citizens?
Focusing on 1920's and 1930's Armenian spokespeople, intellectuals,
and lay and religious leadership, Ekmekcioglu will demonstrate that
Armenian responses to the state's policies (homogenization,
secularization, Westernization) included cooperation, accommodation,
and camouflaging, as well as certain forms of more overt resistance
that took the shape of calls to preserve `Armenianness' inside those
spaces where the state did not care or dare to interfere. She argues
that neither the Turkish Republic's policies nor the Armenian
responses were completely new; the Ottoman past mattered much more
than either group would admit.
Ekmekcioglu joined MIT in 2011 after a postdoc year at the University
of Michigan's Armenian Studies Program. The holder of a doctorate
from New York University, she teaches courses related to the modern
Middle East, with a focus on its ethnic diversity and
majority-minority relations. She is also affiliated with the Women
and Gender Studies Program, and teaches courses on gender in the
Middle East and North Africa. As the holder of the McMillan-Stewart
Chair she organizes lectures that pertain to women in the developing
world.
She is currently working on a monograph titled Surviving the New
Turkey: Armenians in Post-Ottoman Istanbul, which analyzes the ways in
which survivors of the genocide who continued living inside Turkish
borders crafted themselves a new presence to be able to co-habit
peacefully with the perpetrator society.
Both before and after the lecture, NAASR's bookstore will be open and
will feature a one-night only 20 percent off sale, with additional
discounts of 40 percent or more on selected titles. Numerous recently
published titles will be available.
Ruth Thomasian, the founder and executive director of Project SAVE
Armenian Photograph Archives, will also be on hand with the 2013
calendar `Armenians a Century Ago: In the Homeland and Diaspora.' The
calendar, as always featuring remarkable photographs from Project
SAVE's enormous archival collection, provides a glimpse of the
diversity of Armenian life during the pre-genocide years.
The evening's events will take place at the NAASR Center, 395 Concord
Ave. in Belmont. For more information about Ekmekcioglu's lecture, the
NAASR Christmas Open House, or NAASR and its programs, call (617)
489-1610, fax (617) 484-1759, e-mail [email protected], or write to NAASR,
395 Concord Ave., Belmont, MA 02478.