January 16, “Breaking News: Democracy in Crisis: Lessons from Turkey”
240 Franklin Center, Duke University, 6 PM

Recently, Turkey’s ruling AK Party has become entangled in the biggest political crises of its twelve-year rule. Come listen to Duke and UNC faculty from various departments explain and discuss the ongoing political crisis in Turkey and what it means for the Turkish Model and the Middle East in general. Free and open to the public.

Panelists:

Erdağ Göknar, Turkish & Middle Eastern Studies, SES, Duke University
Mustaf Tuna, Slavic and Eurasian Studies, Duke University
Cemil Aydin, Dept. of History, UNC-Chapel Hill
Banu Gökarıksel, Dept. of Geography, UNC-Chapel Hill
Eren Taşar, Dept. of History, UNC-Chapel Hill
Zeynep Tüfekçi, School of Information and Library Science, UNC-Chapel Hill

Sponsors: Carolina Center for the Study of the Middle East and Muslim Civilizations, Duke University Middle East Studies Center, Duke-UNC Consortium for Middle East Studies.

http://wunc.org/post/will-revolution-be-tweeted

Zeynep Tufekci was only 16 years old and living in her native Turkey when she became a computer programmer.

After moving to the United States, she developed an interested in the relationship between technology and social life. Today, she travels the globe documenting the use of social media in protest movements from the Arab Spring to uprisings in Gezi Park to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Host Frank Stasio talks with Zeynep Tufekci, professor of sociology and information and library science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill about her life and research.

Thursday, November 21 at 6:00 PM
Hanes Art Auditorium – Room 121
UNC – Chapel Hill

During the month of June every major city in Turkey saw tens of thousands of people converge in the streets in defiance of the government and its autocratic rule. What started at the end of May in Istanbul as a movement against urban development resonated across the country and became an uncontrollable revolt spreading like wildfire. Catching everyone, including its participants, off-guard the uprising captivated the imagination of people in Turkey as well as those following it across the globe. Although it would appear from a distance that the Gezi Spirit has subsided, in reality it has ushered in a new era and form of rebellion in Turkey.

Join us to hear a first-hand report from Istanbul, accompanied by photos and videos, outlining the progression of the uprising, some of its constituents, their strategies, the reconciliation of social divisions, contradictions on the ground and stories from the heady days filled with teargas and barricades. The discussion will include an overview of where the Gezi Resistance finds itself today, months after the first street-level revolts.

Sponsored by the UNControllables
Questions? Contact CarolinaUNControllables@gmail.com

Cosponsored by the Center for Global Initiatives, the Curriculum for Global Studies, the Carolina Center for the Study of the Middle East and Muslim Civilizations, and the Duke-UNC Consortium for Middle East Studies.

Wednesday, November 6, 12-1pm, Global Education Center Room 1005

Dr. Sinan Ciddi explores the question of why Turkey’s governing Justice and Development party (AKP) has been electorally unchallenged since 2002. Opposition parties have continued to remain electorally weak in the AKP era mainly due to an inability to challenge the incumbent’s service oriented performance record. This said, as of 2013, a new wave of citizen-based political participation in the form of street protests has challenged the AKP’s confidence. The “Gezi” protests, which erupted in May 2013, have demonstrated that citizens may not need to rely on opposition parties or regular election cycles to voice their grievances against the incumbent.

Sinan Ciddi was appointed as the fourth executive director of the Institute of Turkish Studies, succeeding David C. Cuthell at the end of August 2011.Ciddi was born in Turkey and educated in the United Kingdom, where he gained his Ph.D. in Political Science from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London in June 2007. He was previously an instructor at Sabancı University between 2004-2008 and completed his Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the same institution between 2007-2008.

We have exciting year for Turkish Studies at UNC-CH this year. Eren Tasar joined the faculty of the Department of History (http://history.unc.edu/people/faculty/eren-tasar/). His interests are in religion and politics in Central Asia. We also have a visiting scholar, Vakur Sumer, at the Global Research Institute this year (http://gri.unc.edu/people/vakur-sumer/). His research concerns environmental politics and water management in Turkey. Zeynep Tufekci, from School of Information and Library Science, was a leading tweeter during Gezi Parki protests in Istanbul last summer: see her blog http://technosociology.org/ and on twitter @zeynep.

Check back for information on upcoming events…