Activities - Both Shores of the Aegean.

22 October 2004 - Opening Seminar
The first seminar will start at 2:30 p.m. with the opening speeches of, Hector Verykios, Prof. Ayse Soysal and Prof. Selim Deringil. Three papers will be presented between 3:00 and 6:00 p.m. Dr. Alexis Alexandris, Consul General of Greece in Istanbul, will discuss new perspectives in Greek-Turkish relations, Prof. Kostas Kostis from the University of Athens will talk about the Ottoman and Turkish history studies conducted in his country while Prof. Edhem Eldem from Bogaziçi University will give details on the Modern Greek studies carried out in Turkey.

The seminar will end with the closing speech of Tolga Egemen and the screening of a short film, "Double Memory", a film about the political conjuncture of the two countries and their cultural similarities.

19 November 2004 - Prof. Athanasia Anagnostopoulou
The Many Faces of Helleno-Ottomanism
Recently, there have been a great number of Greek studies conducted on the ideology of Helleno-Ottomanism that have resulted in a total reevaluation of "facts" concerning the Rum of the Ottoman Empire which were, up to a few years ago, taken as givens of Greek national history. However, the majority of these studies have included very few of the complex aspects of 19th century Ottoman reality. In her lecture, Prof. Anagnostopoulou, who studied Turkish at the University of Paris, will approach the subject differently, evaluating Helleno-Ottomanism as a product of a transitional process within the wider framework of Ottomanism.

Prof. Anagnostopoulou's books include, "Greek Orthodox Communities of Asia Minor (19th century-1919): From the Millet of Rum to Greek Nation", and "The Transition from Ottoman Empire to Nation-States, a Long and Difficult Process: Greece". She has also written numerous articles on Cyprus and on the role played by religion in the formation of a nation-state.

17  December 2004 - Prof. Selim Deringil
Conversion as Citizenship: Conversion, Apostasy and the Tanzimat State
Selim Deringil will provide a critical analysis of the period extending from the proclamation of the  Tanzimat Edict , in 1839, to the promulgation of the new reform charter, the  famous Reform  Edict of 1856. This was a period characterized both by great uncertainty and attempts at broad reform and reorganization. The lecture will address, in particular, changing equilibria within the issue of religious freedom - one of the biggest uncertainties of the era -and examine the evolution of the relationship between the state and non-Muslim communities.

Prof. Selim Deringil holds a B.A. in European History and Languages and a Ph.D. in History both from the University of East Anglia and he has taught at universities in the US, the UK, France, and Israel. His areas of interests focus on political and cultural history and he is the author of severa l books on Ottoman and Turkish history including, "The Well-Protected Domains: Ideology and the Legitimation of Power in the Ottoman Empire 1876-1909" and "Turkish Foreign Policy during the Second World War: An 'Active' Neutrality". Deringil has conducted extensive research on late Ottoman history and the period of Abdülhamid II.

18 February 2005 - Prof. Haris Exertzoglou
The Conceptualization of Poverty in Ottoman Urban Centers in the Late 19 th and Early 20 th Centuries
In his lecture, Haris Exertzoglou will discuss how the conceptualization of poverty within the rapidly changing early 19 th century Ottoman social environment, shaped both the process of identity formation of the rising middle classes and the centralizing aspirations of the Ottoman bureaucracy. Addressing the topic from a comparative perspective, Prof. Exertzoglou will focus on the Christian Orthodox and Greek-speaking communities in Istanbul and Izmir.

After graduating from the Department of Economics at the University of Athens, Prof. Haris Exertzoglou earned his Ph.D. from King's College at the University of London. Since 1989, he has been teaching late Ottoman and modern Balkan history in the Department of History and Social Anthropology at the University of the Aegean. His current research examines national ceremonies in modern Greece and the reshaping of Greek national identity. He has written several books and articles on the social and economic life of the Christian Orthodox populations in the Ottoman Empire including, Osmanli'da Cemiyetler ve Rum Cemaati (The Greek Community and Other Populations of the Ottoman Empire), published by the History Foundation, in 2004.

18 March 2005 - Assoc. Prof. Arzu Öztürkmen
A Memory of the Greek Community in Tripoli (Tirebolu). A Multi-Sited Historical Ethnography of a Black Sea Town
In her lecture, Associated Professor Arzu Öztürkmen will examine the memory of past communities in Tirebolu, a Black Sea town that was deeply affected by the movement of its population. Öztürkmen will also analyze the town's material culture -destroyed and rebuilt continually since the 1910s- as a text worthy of consideration alongside the narratives. Öztürkmen's study is based on oral history methodology, collecting life-history interviews, and using archived and published narratives on the past of the town. Adressing the issue from a comparative perspective, the seminar will focus on how Tirebolu is remembered, based on Greek and Turkish sources.

After graduating from the Department of Business Administration at Bogaziçi University , Assoc. Prof. Arzu Öztürkmen obtained her Ph.D. from the Department of Folklore and Folklife at the University of Pennsylvania . Since 1994, she has been teaching oral history, the history of performing arts in Turkey , history and anthropology, culture in early Republican Turkey, and folk literature at the Department of History at Bogaziçi University . Her current research areas are oral history, Black Sea studies, the history of folklore studies, the history of national celebrations, and dance history.

15 April 2005 - Assist. Prof. Socrates Petmezas
Bridging the Gap. Rural Macedonia from Ottoman to Greek Rule (1900-1920)
In his lecture, Socrates Petmezas will examine Macedonian countryside in the first decades of the 20th century. Petmezas, through his presentation, will be combining the first ottoman agricultural "census" of 1907-1908 and the subsequent Greek agricultural statistics of 1914-1922 for the provinces that are currently part of Hellenic Macedonia. Petmezas, with this study, aims to assess the informative value of each individual census, make comparisons between the respective Greek and Ottoman European agricultural economies and, finally, give a clearer picture of the economic development of the region in the last decades of the Ottoman era. Socrates Petmezas' concern is to bridge the gap between academic communities, each entrenched into its own national monologue.

After graduating from the Department of Economics at the University of Salonica , Socrates Petmezas received his masters degree at the E.H.E.S.S., Paris. He has been teaching economic and social history at the Department of History and Archaeology of the University of Crete , in Rethymno, since 1990. In 2003, he published a book on the "History of Greek Agriculture in the 19th century" in Greek.

13 May 2005 - Antonis Anastasopoulos
Case-studying the Ottoman 18th Century: The Example of Karaferye
In his lecture, Antonis Anastasopoulos will discuss the value of the case studies in terms of studying the social history in the Ottoman context. He will examine the case studies in a comparative perspective. The discussion will be based on the example of Karaferye (Veria), a town in the southern Balkans with a mixed population of Muslims and non-Muslims.

Antonis Anastasopoulos received his Ph. D. degree at Cambridge University in 1999 with his thesis entitled "Imperial Institutions and Local Communities: Ottoman Karaferye, 1758-1774". He currently teaches Ottoman History at the University of Crete. His research interests include center-periphery relations in the Ottoman Empire, Ottoman institutions, eighteenth-century Ottoman provincial societies, as well as Islamic tombstones.

3 June 2005 - Assist. Prof. Elçin Macar
Problems of Minority Foundations during the Single Party Era
In his lecture, Elçin Macar will touch on the problems concerning the "single trustee" era which arose as a result of the amendment in the Foundation Law of 1938 and which continued until its annulment in 1949. Macar will analyze in detail, the process during the era when minority foundations were administered incompetently, when their work was not carried out and during which the minorities frequently complained.

Born in 1968, Elçin Macar graduated from the Department of International Relations at Istanbul University where he also obtained his M.A. and Ph.D. degree. He is still a member of the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Yildiz Technical University. Besides the book he wrote with Yorgo Benlisoy entitled: the Greek Patriarchate, he also has books published with the titles Two Disappeared Communities of Istanbul: Catholic Greeks and Bulgarians of Eastern Rite, and the Greek Patriarchate of Istanbul in the period of the Turkish Republic.