NEW YORK—On Wed., March 21, Dr. Lerna Ekmekcioglu will give a lecture entitled “A Climate for Abduction, A Climate for Redemption: Armenian Women and Their Children During and Immediately After the Genocide” at Knox Hall 207, Columbia University, 606 West 122nd Street (between Broadway and Claremont Avenue). The lecture is sponsored by the Middle East Institute at Columbia University, the Armenian Center at Columbia University, and the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR).
Ekmekciolgu’s talk will focus on two processes. The first is the forcible incorporation of Armenians into Muslim households and orphanages during World War I. Ekmekcioglu will elaborate the historical reasons that enabled Ottoman politicians to conceive such a policy and the Ottoman Muslim society to successfully implement it. She will then discuss post-war Armenian attempts to rescue the kidnapped. She argues that this effort remained extremely inclusive whereby rape victims, former concubines, and wives, as well as their (technically) Muslim children were treated as full-fledged Armenians. This administrative policy, however, did not necessarily reflect the victims’ and their relatives’ perceptions of who could, after 1915, belong to the Armenian nation and who would have to be left out forever.
Lerna Ekmekcioglu is the McMillan-Stewart Career Development Assistant Professor of History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She received her undergraduate degree from Istanbul’s Bogazici University and her Ph.D. in history and Middle Eastern and Islamic studies from New York University. In 2010-11, she held a post-doctoral fellowship in the Armenian Studies Program of the University of Michigan. Currently she is revising a book entitled Surviving the New Turkey: Armenians in Post-Ottoman Istanbul, 1918-1935.
Ekmekcioglu’s lecture begins at 6:30 p.m. For more information, e-mail am3766@columbia.edu or e-mail hq@naasr.org, visit www.mei.columbia.edu, or call (617) 489-1610.
It is wonderful to see young and highly educated Armenian woman who is interested with our history. Our nation needs young people like Lerna. I am proud of her and wish to hear the lecture in LA, too.
WHile is it nice to see educated women like Lerna, it is also a sad commentary on her surname which was Turkified.
Lusine,
The fact that we have Armenians with Turkified last names is a sign of victory against Turks.
This sends a clear message to Turks: forcing Armenians to change their last names does not make them Turks.
I think Turkey must make the number of Armenian students in Turkish schools equal to the number of Turkish students in Armenia..
Fair , not ?
Only when a Turk like you accept our GENOCIDE!! We are only 3 millions in Armenia and you are 80 millions with closed borders, your beloved Turkey made 8 million Armenians homeless around the globe and occupied Armenia’s Western part. You just jump to your conclusion again and ignoring the truth of ARMENIAN GENOCIDE!! Just for your information, Armenians never been pushed to change their last name even in Muslim countries such as Iran, or even in Arab world, except Turkey!! I am sure you are smart enough to know the answer!!