Turkish Studies Colloquium
Academic Year 2004 - 2005

Events
Event Descriptions
Turkish Studies Colloquium 

University of Michigan Museum of Art Exhibitions

Bookmark this page for additional updates and descriptions.

All presentations are on Thursdays (unless otherwise noted) in Room 1636 of the International Institute, 1080 S. University Avenue, at 7:30 p.m.

September 23, 2004
Douglas Northrop, Near Eastern Studies, University of Michigan

Tuesday, October 5, 2004
Islam Lite: Turkish Secularism, Democracy and the Good Life
Jenny White, Anthropology, Boston University

October 14 , 2004
Murat Nemet Nejat

November 11 , 2004
Victor Ostapchuk, Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, University of Toronto


December 2 , 2004

Aron Aji
Dr. Aji will speak about Bilge Karasu, Turkish literature, and transcultural translation.

Aron Aji is Professor of Literature and Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Butler University in Indianapolis. Before winning the American Literary Translators Association award for his translation of The Garden of Departed Cats by Bilge Karasu, he also translated and published Karasu's Death in Troy (2002). He has translated fiction by the Turkish authors Elif Shafak and Murathan Mungan.
ABOUT THE BOOK: "In an ancient Mediterranean city, a traditional archaic game of human chess is staged once every ten years. The players (tourists versus locals) bear weapons and the chess game may prove as potentially lethal as the magnetic attraction our narrator feels for the local man who is the Captain of the home team. Each brief interaction between the men comprises a chapter of "The Garden of Departed Cats"; interleafed between those chapters are a dozen fables. These twelve strange fables--parables moving from guilt and denial to truth, and on to desire--work independently of the main narrative but, in unpredictable ways, echo and double the chief theme of "The Garden of Departed Cats" which is the nature of love."
Refreshments will be served. Sponsored by the Program in Comparative Literature, the Turkish Studies Colloquium, and the University of Michigan.

January 20, 2005
Rita Chin
"Turks, Germans, and the New Racism"
February 12, 2005
Zeynep Celik, School of Architecture, New Jersey Institute of Technology.
As part of "Homelands in Question: Re-locating 'Europe' in the Spaces of Cultural Negotiation," organized by UM Architecture graduate students.
March 10, 2005
Suleyman's Imperial Archive, Snjezana Buzov
April 7, 2005
Interviews with the Turkish Minstrel, Ashik Reyhani, in Ann Arbor and Erzurum
Sarah Atis, a joint presentation with Yildiray Erdener

Please confirm at cmenas AT umich DOT edu closer to the time of the event.

For up-to-the-minute program information, please contact us at (734) 764-0350

Co-Sponsored by friends of the Turkish Studies Colloquium
Refreshments provided by Ayse's Courtyard Café