A discussion of the Gezi Park protests, which erupted in Istanbul in late May 2013. The event coincides with the publication of “Resistance Everywhere”: The Gezi Protests and Dissident Visions of Turkey, published by Jadaliyya and Tadween Publishing, a collection of essays intended as a pedagogical resource for those teaching and studying recent events in Turkey.

With Anthony Alessandrini, Jay Cassano, Louis Fishman, Aslı Iğsız, Elif Sarı, Cihan Tekay, and Emrah Yildiz

Friday, March 14th
6:30pm to 8:30pm
Room C198
Graduate Center, CUNY
Fifth Ave, New York, NY 10016

This panel will take as its starting point a discussion of the Gezi Park protests, which erupted in Istanbul in late May 2013 and led to ongoing resistance throughout Turkey in opposition to the majority government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. In addition to considering the continuing after-effects of the Gezi resistance, panelists will consider contemporary political issues in Turkey, particularly those related to the ongoing peace process initiated between the Turkish state and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), with its potential end to the thirty-year war that has been waged in Turkey, as well as more recent controversies related to corruption charges against Erdoğan’s government. The panel is meant to coincide with the publication of “Resistance Everywhere”: The Gezi Protests and Dissident Visions of Turkey, published by Jadaliyya and Tadween Publishing, a collection of essays intended as a pedagogical resource for those teaching and studying recent events in Turkey.

Anthony Alessandrini is an associate professor of English at Kingsborough Community College, and an affiliate faculty member of MEMEAC. He is the editor of Frantz Fanon: Critical Perspectives, and his book Finding Something Different: Frantz Fanon and the Future of Cultural Politics will be published in 2014. He is a Co-Editor of Jadaliyya E-Zine.

Jay Cassano is a freelance journalist who from 2010 to 2012 worked as a foreign correspondent in Istanbul. He covered the Gezi Park protests for The Nation, Jadaliyya, and Mashallah News. He is a co-editor of Jadaliyya’s Turkey Page.

Louis Fishman is an assistant professor of history at Brooklyn College. He works on questions dealing with Palestinian and Israeli history during the late Ottoman period, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, modern Turkey, and late Ottoman history. He also has interests in the construction of nationalism, state-building, and historical narratives.

Aslı Iğsız is an assistant professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University. Her teaching and research interests include cultural representation and cultural history, narratives of war and displacement, and dynamics of heterogeneity in late Ottoman and contemporary Turkish contexts.

Elif Sarı is a graduate student in Near Eastern Studies at New York University. Her research interests include gender, sexuality, displacement, asylum, law, and violence in the Middle East. She is the co-editor of the Turkey Media Roundup for the Turkey Page at Jadaliyya.

Cihan Tekay is a PhD Candidate in Cultural Anthropology at the CUNY Graduate Center and a Graduate Teaching Fellow at John Jay College of Criminial Justice. She has been active in various social movements in the US and in Turkey, including antiracist, feminist, ecological, anticapitalist, and international solidarity work. She is a co-editor of Jadaliyya’s Turkey page.

Emrah Yildiz is a Joint PhD Candidate in Social Anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University. His research interests include historiography and ethnography of borderlands, anthropology of Islam and pilgrimage, political economy and contraband commerce, as well as studies of gender and sexuality in the Middle East. He is co-editor of Jadaliyya’s Turkey Page.

This event is co-sponsored by MEMEAC-CUNY, Center for Place Culture and Politics, Center for Humanities “Narrating Change” Seminar, Jadaliyya E-Zine, and Tadween Publishing