[Bilimsel Haber] CfP: Unsettling Conceptual Blind-Spots in Ottoman and Turkish Studies (New York, May 4-5, 2007)

[Onur Inal]

Call for Papers
Historical Continuities, Political Responsibilities: Unsettling
Conceptual Blind-Spots in Ottoman and Turkish Studies
Graduate Student Conference
May 4-5, 2007
New York University and The Graduate Center, CUNY

As the historiography of the Ottoman Empire is still mostly excluded
from the history of Europe, or only addressed as one of a formative
‘other’, this conference wants to bring into dialogue graduate students
who are faced with the particular fall-outs of Ottoman historiography
with regard to Turkey and the Middle East as well as the Balkans and
Eastern Europe, where scholarship has predominantly focused on issues of
post-socialism and Europeanization.
Historically and conceptually rooted in the discipline of orientalist
studies, much of the scholarship on regions formerly subsumed under
different forms of Ottoman governance, be they in Europe or the Middle
East, draws on a body of work that Talal Asad and Roger Owen aptly
described to have sought to understand ‘non-European rule’ “by looking
for absent kinds of concepts – ‘liberty’, ‘progress’, ‘humanism’ which
are supposed to be distinctive of Western civilization” (1980, 35). More
than 26 years later, the engagements with Edward Said’s critique of
Orientalism notwithstanding, this perspective has perpetuated a set of
standardized narratives, such as the notion of ‘belated modernity’,
which has become an explanatory model for almost all political, economic
and social problems throughout the Balkans, Turkey and the Middle East.

Through a rigorous discussion of the most prominent and central
arguments on the transition from empires to nation-states, this workshop
aims to break away from evaluations of the Ottoman Empire as well as the
historical trajectory of its successor states that continue to operate
along well-criticized dichotomous notions such as ‘tradition and
modernity’, ‘religious and secular’, ‘East and West’. These concepts are
employed in official state-narratives and academic discourses alike,
although with often diametrically opposed intentions. This workshop is
particularly intended to problematize the political and academic
implications that this parallelism produces in regard to understanding
the history of the Ottoman Empire as well as that of its former
territories. We invite participants to critically examine how these
concepts have been, and are, operationalized in both theory and practice
when it comes to issues such as ‘nationalism’, ‘citizenship’,
‘multiculturalism’, ‘ethnic conflict’, ‘identity’, ‘secularism’,
‘democratization’, ‘state sovereignty’ and the like.
Although sessions will be organized around the themes of submitted
papers, one major emphasis will be on present-day Turkey. Here, we are
particularly concerned with the many blind-spots that the conceptual
framework of Ottoman and Turkish studies has created and perpetuated,
among them the myth of radical rupture between the Ottoman Empire and
the Turkish Republic, the obscuration of the religious, ethnic and
linguistic diversity of Anatolia through ‘retrospective Turkification’,
and the silences surrounding different forms of state violence – such as
the history of military coups, the Armenian genocide, the internal
displacement of Kurds, and other measures of ‘population engineering’.
This workshop also seeks to question the ways in which critical
approaches in the social sciences have recently attempted to change the
public perception of Turkey’s official historiography, while at the same
time staying circumscribed by the very conceptual framework of the
standardized narratives they seek to subvert.

For this interdisciplinary workshop, we invite contributions from
graduate students in the social sciences and humanities whose work
grapples with the above outlined conceptual limitations and blind-spots
permeating the majority of Ottoman and Turkish Studies as well as
related fields. Proposals need not necessarily be limited to present-day
Turkey, and we look forward to submissions covering former Ottoman
Empire territories. Finally, we encourage proposals that not only aim to
advance alternative theoretical approaches, for instance, by employing a
comparative framework, but that are also sensitive to the political
implications and responsibilities of academic works in this area.

Abstracts should be between 200-300 words and are due on March 18, 2007.
Applicants will be notified within one week after the deadline. The
workshop will take place from May 4-5, 2007 at New York University and
the Graduate Center, CUNY.

Please also provide a brief biography (200 word max), including current
academic affiliation and research interests.
This initial workshop is conceptualized as an exploratory discussion
ground for a publication and an accompanying conference planned for
early 2008.
Abstracts and inquiries should be addressed to
unsettling.blindspots at gmail.com.

This Graduate Student Conference is sponsored by:
The Center for International History at Columbia University 
Department of Anthropology, Graduate Center (CUNY)
The Doctoral Student Council (DCS), Graduate Center (CUNY)
The Middle East and Middle Eastern American Center (MEMEAC), Graduate
Center (CUNY)
The Provost’s Office Professional Development Fund, Graduate Center
(CUNY)
Wilf Department of Politics, MA Program; New York University

Organizers:
*Ozan Aksoy, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Music(Graduate Center, CUNY,
New York) *Arman Artuç, Managing Editor, Hye Tert News Portal *Bedross
Der Matossian, Ph.D. Candidate, Department for Middle East and Asian
Languages and Cultures (Columbia University, New York) *Ayda Erbal,
Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Politics (New York University, New York)
*Banu Karaca, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Cultural Anthropology
(Graduate Center, CUNY, New York) *Ceren Özgül, Ph.D. Candidate,
Department of Cultural Anthropology (Graduate Center, CUNY, New York)