Public Programs And Events

A small protest against the destruction of Gezi Park in downtown Istanbul in late May has triggered wide-ranging public demonstrations in Turkey.

The Historical Studies Department at The New School presents a two day conference on October 4-5, 2013 entitled “Talk Turkey: Rethinking Life Since Gezi,” at which academics, activists, journalists, politicians, urbanists, doctors, lawyers, architects and artists will come together to address key issues raised by the Gezi protests.

What are their social, political, economic and artistic consequences? What are the new avenues opened up by Gezi’s broad public mobilization? And, what does the future hold for Turkey and the broader region in light of these milestone events?
 
Our aim is to deepen the conversation and explore the direction of new social developments. Some of the issues we address are large scale urban and economic transformations, limitations to democratic participation, media censorship, restrictions faced by doctors and lawyers, the role of women and LGBT activists in the protests, medical and legal consequences of state brutality, new forms of cultural and artistic expression of dissent. Finally, we will reflect on Gezi in the context of Occupy Solidarity and alternative globalization movements.
 
The conference will be live-streamed on Youtube. Viewers will have the chance to pose their questions in English, Turkish, German and French via Twitter, Facebook and Youtube using the hashtags #TalkTurkey and #geziniyoruz.

Speakers will include:
 - Sırrı Süreyya Önder, Turkish film director, actor, screenwriter, columnist and politician
 - Şeyla Benhabib, Eugene Mayer Professor of political science and Philosophy at Yale University, and was director of the program in Ethics, Politics, and Economics from 2002 to 2008
 - Mehmet Yüksel, a representative of Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) in Washington DC and the former representative of the party in United Kingdom.

For full conference information, visit http://www.talkturkeyconference.com/