(PDF) (DOC) (JPG)November 3, 2016

MAHWAH, N.J. – Dr. Lerna Ekmekcioglu, McMillan-Stewart Associate Professor of History, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will speak about her recent book Recovering Armenia: The Limits of Belonging in Post-Genocide Turkey on Tuesday, November 29 at 7:15 p.m. in the Trustees Pavilion at Ramapo College of New Jersey. The Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies will sponsor this event.

The book follows the trajectories of the survivors of the 1915 Armenian Genocide who remained inside Turkish borders after the signing of the 1918 Mudros Armistice (and during the Allied occupation years of Istanbul) and after the 1923 establishment of the new country as the Turkish Republic. How did the Kemalist state treat the remaining Armenians? What were Armenians’ responses to the new (but also old) Turkish regime? Dr. Ekmekcioglu will discuss multiple strategies Armenians improvised in order to cohabit with unapologetic perpetrators and survive in the new Turkey.

She gives voice to the community’s most prominent public figures, notably Hayganush Mark, a renowned activist, feminist, and editor of the influential journal Hay Gin. These public figures articulated an Armenianess sustained through gendered differences, and how women came to play a central role in preserving traditions, memory, and the mother tongue within the home.

Lerna Ekmekcioglu is an historian of the modern Middle East and an affiliate of the Women and Gender Studies Program as well as the Center for International Studies.  She specializes in Turkish and Armenian lands in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. Her work focuses on minority-majority relationships and the ways in which gendered analytical lenses help us better understand coexistence and conflict, including genocide. She holds a B.A. from Bogazici University (Istanbul) in Sociology, and a Ph.D. in History and Middle East and Islamic Studies from New York University, 2010. With Melissa Bilal, she also co-edited Bir Adalet Feryadı: Osmanlı’dan Cumhuriyet’e Beş Ermeni Feminist Yazar (1862–1933) [A Cry for Justice: Five Armenian Feminist Writers from the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic (1862–1933)] (Istanbul: Aras Publishing House, 2006)

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About Ramapo College

Ramapo College of New Jersey is the state’s premier public liberal arts college and is committed to academic excellence through interdisciplinary and experiential learning, and international and intercultural understanding. The comprehensive college is situated among the beautiful Ramapo Mountains, is within commuting distance to New York City, was named one of the 50 Most Beautiful College Campuses in America by CondeNast Traveler, and boasts the best on-campus housing in New Jersey per Niche.com. Established in 1969, Ramapo College offers bachelor’s degrees in the arts, business, data science, humanities, social sciences and the sciences, as well as in professional studies, which include business, education, nursing and social work. In addition, the College offers courses leading to teacher certification at the elementary and secondary levels, and offers graduate programs leading to master’s degrees in Accounting, Applied Mathematics, Business Administration, Contemporary Instructional Design, Computer Science, Creative Music Technology, Data Science, Educational Leadership, Nursing, Social Work and Special Education, as well as a Doctor of Nursing Practice.

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