Christine Bentley is department chair of art and an associate professor of art at Missouri Southern State University. She has a master of arts degree in art history from the University of Notre Dame and is an (ABD) doctoral candidate in art history at Indiana University-Bloomington. Her primary area of specialization is 19th and 20th century European art, focusing on German modernism. She also has two minor areas of specializations in Islamic and Renaissance art. She has been awarded numerous grants to conduct research abroad and has presented papers at a number of regional and national conferences. She participated in an NEH-funded summer research institute at the University of Chicago titled, “Culture and Communication in the Pre-Modern Islamic World.” Her approach to teaching art history is based on her belief that art exists as part of a larger cultural, social and political environment which often shapes the responses that people have to artwork and its use within these environments.
Presentations:
Tango in Turkey: Investigating the Intrigue of Istanbul
11:00 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2014
Corley Auditorium in Webster Hall
Admission: free
Destined to be Detained – Devshirme: Slave Children of the Ottoman Sultan
9:30 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 23, 2014
Corley Auditorium in Webster Hall
Admission: Free
Ozan Cemali was born in 1970 in Ankara, Turkey. He has been playing the baglama (a Turkish folk instrument) since the age of 10. Nurtured by the love of music that comes from the roots of his family, Cemali has been singing, performing and improvising in varied culture settings from traditional coffee houses (a significant component of becoming a troubadour in Turkey) to contemporary musical venues. At the age of 17 he widened his musical repertoire to include the oud. In addition to his skills in interpreting the corpus of traditional songs, he also has a growing songbook of his own compositions.
Presentation:
History and Traditions of Turkish Music
10:00 a.m. Friday, Sept. 19, 2014
Corley Auditorium in Webster Hall
Admission: Free
Dr. Conrad Gubera is a professor of sociology and international studies at Missouri Southern State University. He was named the university’s Outstanding International Education Teacher in 2006 and the Outstanding Teacher in 1996. He teaches courses in sociology and anthropology, secondary social science education, and international studies. Dr. Gubera has been a faculty leader of 10 different student study abroad groups at MSSU, most recently teaching “The Sociology of Death and Dying” in London. Prior to that, he led groups to the lower Yucatan area of Mexico for a study of ancient Mayan sites.
During the past 25 years Dr. Gubera has engaged in extensive travel, visiting 34 countries. Most of his international travel has been the complement of being a fellow with the East-West Center at the University of Hawaii and the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations, three separate Fulbright Awards, a Japan Foundation Award, and faculty grants through MSSU’s Institute of International Studies. He spent 11 days in Turkey in May 2014 through the Niagara Foundation.
Presentation:
The Mosque Next Door: A Traditional Religious Icon in a Modern, Secular Culture
1 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2014
Corley Auditorium in Webster Hall
Admission: Free
Beth Hammons, a senior Spanish education major at Missouri Southern State University, received a McCaleb Initiative for Peace grant to participate in the Missouri State University program, “The History and Politics of Identity in Turkey.” This was her second study abroad experience; she spent the spring of 2013 at the University of Murcia in Spain. Hammons hopes to go on to graduate school after MSSU and obtain a master’s degree in applied linguistics and then pursue a career with the U.S. Department of State. When she is not traveling or studying, she enjoys playing soccer for the MSSU women’s team and planning her next adventure.
David James
David James, a 2013 graduate of Missouri Southern State University with a bachelor of arts in history, is working toward a master’s degree in global studies at Missouri State University. He participated in MSU’s “History and Politics of Identity in Turkey” study abroad trip in May and June 2014. James spent the summer of 2010 at the Université du Québec à Montréal. He hopes to pursue a career that interacts with international non-profit organizations and the United Nations, focusing in human rights.
Presentation:
10:00 a.m. Friday, Oct. 24, 2014
Corley Auditorium in Webster Hall
Admission: Free
Dr. Paul Kaldjian is associate professor of geography at the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire (UWEC), where he has been since 2002; he is currently the chair of the Department of Geography and Anthropology. He received his Ph.D. in 2000 from the University of Arizona in Tucson. His dissertation – Urban Food Security and Contemporary Istanbul: Gardens, Bazaars and the Countryside – was based on a year of fieldwork in Turkey.
Since then, Professor Kaldjian’s research and teaching interests have focused on the geography of food, food systems and food security in Wisconsin, Turkey and Finland, and a wide range of student-faculty research projects in which he is regularly involved. He is currently chair of the West Lakes Regional Association of American Geographers.
Kaldjian travels regularly to Turkey and often presents on the relationships he has built with its people and places. He has recently turned those relationships into a learning abroad program for UWEC students – he took students to Turkey in 2011, 2012, 2013, and plans to do so again in 2015. In 2011, he received the Building Bridges Award in the Education category from the Islamic Resource Group in the Twin Cities, Minnesota. He recently finished four years as the secretary and treasurer of the Turkish Studies Association and now chairs the UW-Eau Claire’s university-wide Council on Internationalization and Global Engagement.
Presentations:
An Armenian Geographer in Turkey: What am I Doing Here?
9:00 a.m. Friday, Sept. 5, 2014
Corley Auditorium in Webster Hall
Admission: Free
Urban Food Systems and the Changing Place of Istanbul's Neighborhood Market
11:00 a.m. Friday, Sept. 5, 2014
Corley Auditorium in Webster Hall
Admission: Free
Anatolian Aphorisms and Honorifics: Navigating Relationships through Language
1:00 p.m. Friday, Sept. 5, 2014
Corley Auditorium in Webster Hall
Admission: Free
Why do we study other people and places? Here’s one reason why: to help us understand our relationships with each other. The words and gestures we direct to others speak to the relationships in which we exist and toward which we aspire. How the people of Anatolia address strangers and family, and the cultural insights found in daily sayings and proverbs, can help us in our multifaceted and quotidian relationships.
Ömer Zülfü Livaneli is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the cultural, artistic, and political life of Turkey. He achieved prominence and success not only as a writer and a musician but also as a film director. His novels have been turned into theatrical movies, stage plays, and operas. He is also known for his contemporary music, in much the same way as Bob Dylan and his contemporaries in the United States were in the 1960s. His 1997 concert in Ankara, Turkey was attended by no less than 500,000 people.
Livaneli has been nationally and internationally active in promoting human rights, the culture of peace, and mutual understanding between people. In 1995, he was appointed as a Goodwill Ambassador of UNESCO in recognition of his contributions to world peace. He still continues to work on UNESCO’s Culture of Peace programs worldwide. In 2002, he was selected a Member of Parliament from the Republican People’s Party (CHP). On July 3, 2014, Livaneli was awarded France’s highest distinction, the Legion d’Honneur.
Livaneli has composed some 300 songs, a rhapsody − recorded by London Symphony Orchestra − and a ballet. His compositions have reached cult status nationwide and have been performed by internationally renowned artists such as Joan Baez. He has also written five plays and 30 film soundtracks.
Presentation:
Bliss: A Novel
9:30 a.m. Thursday, Jan. 15, 2015
10 a.m. Friday, Jan. 16, 2015
Corley Auditorium in Webster Hall
Admission: Free
O.Z. Livaneli, one of Turkey’s most prominent and popular authors, makes a special appearance at MSSU to discuss his international bestseller, Bliss, selected as the common reader for use in all sections of the University Experience 100 course for 2014-15. The book tells the stories of Meryem, a young girl sentenced to death because she is believed to have dishonored her family; Cemal, a soldier who returns from fighting the PKK in the Ghabar Mountains to find that he’s been given the task of killing his cousin, Meryem; and Professor Irfan, a well-known intellectual in the midst of an existential crisis. The three, brought together by fate, embark on a turbulent journey to the depths of themselves, of each other, and of the soul of the country.
A bestseller in Turkey in 2002, Bliss has been published in several countries including by St. Martin’s Press in the United States, Gallibard in France, Klett-Cotta in Germany, and Gramese in Italy. The novel was turned into a movie in 2007, directed by the acclaimed Turkish director Abdullah Oguz.
Book Signings and Q&A with O.Z. Livaneli
11:00-11:45 a.m. and 1:00-1:50 p.m.
Thursday, Jan. 15, 2015
Third floor of Spiva Library (by the fireplace)
Admission: Free
9:30-10 a.m. and 11:00-11:50 a.m.
Friday, Jan. 16, 2015
Corley Auditorium in Webster Hall
Admission: Free
Author O.Z. Livaneli will sign copies of Bliss and answer questions in these informal sessions.
Dr. Serdar Poyraz teaches courses on modern Middle Eastern history, world history, and the history of the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey as a visiting assistant professor at Missouri State University. His research interests include the intellectual and social history of the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey as well as Turkish-Middle Eastern relations. He also has taught at Ohio State University, Wake Forest University, and the University of Montana.
Poyraz received his B.A., magna cum laude, in international relations from Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey (2000), his M.A. in political science from Ohio State University (2003), and his Ph.D. in Middle Eastern history from Ohio State University (2010). His research languages are modern Turkish, the Ottoman language, and Persian.
Presentations:
Turkey in a Nutshell: From Ancient Times to Today
9:30 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 2, 2014
Corley Auditorium in Webster Hall
Admission: Free
From Fez to Hat: How did Turkey Modernize?
11:00 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 2, 2014
Corley Auditorium in Webster Hall
Admission: Free
Eric Rasheed is a government property administrator for the U.S. Department of State – Middle East. He has a degree in history from Southern Illinois University with an emphasis on 20th century European and American history, along with a minor area of concentration in psychology. He has additional interests in the culture and history of the Middle East and Islam, from the time of the prophet Muhammad to the present day.
Presentation:
Tango in Turkey: Investigating the Intrigue of Istanbul
11:00 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2014
Corley Auditorium in Webster Hall
Admission: Free
Dr. David Romano holds the Thomas G. Strong Chair in Middle East Politics at Missouri State University. His work has appeared in journals such as International Affairs, The Oxford Journal of Refugee Studies, Third World Quarterly, International Studies Perspectives, the Middle East Journaland Ethnopolitics. He is also the author of The Kurdish Nationalist Movement (Cambridge University Press, 2006 − also translated into Turkish and Persian). He is the editor, along with Mehmet Gurses, of a forthcoming book, Conflict, Democratization and the Kurdish Issue in the Middle East(Palgrave Mamillan). Dr. Romano additionally writes a weekly political column for Rudaw, an Iraqi Kurdish newspaper.
Presentations:
Conflict, Democratization and the Kurdish issue in Turkey
9:00 a.m. Friday, Oct. 31, 2014
Corley Auditorium in Webster Hall
Admission: Free
Wire-taps, Scandals, Protests and Turkey’s Run-Away Democracy Train
11:00 a.m. Friday, Oct. 31, 2014
Corley Auditorium in Webster Hall
Admission: Free
On the Eve of the 100-Year Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide − What Have We Learned?
1:00 p.m. Friday, Oct. 31, 2014
Corley Auditorium in Webster Hall
Admission: Free
Deborah and Albert Sherrer of Main Street Mediterranean Cuisine in Bolivar, Missouri, will discuss the origins and history of Turkish food, which is “as close to biblical food as you can get.” (She lived in Turkey for five years; he was born and raised there.) They and their staff will prepare five different types of kebabs – chicken, doner, Alexander, Adana, inegöl – from the different regions of Turkey plus kabuli, hummus, and handmade bread. Come hungry, as there will be plenty of food to sample!
Presentations:
11:00 a.m. Monday, Sept. 29, 2014
12:00 p.m. Monday, Sept. 29, 2014 (repeat)
Corley Auditorium in Webster Hall
Admission: Free
Carla Tilghman has degrees in art history and studio arts. Having learned to weave when she was 12, she has had an abiding interest in textiles. After traveling to Turkey while in college, she developed a particular love of all things Turkish, particularly the textiles and carpets. Over the course of several subsequent trips, she learned traditional weaving and felting techniques. Tilghman currently teaches at Washburn University and at the University of Kansas.
Istanbul, Turkey has been the terminus of the famous Silk Road for thousands of years. Beginning in Western China, routes moved across Central Asia and India, bringing silk, spices and other luxury goods that found their way into the Roman Empire and the European Middle Ages. We’ll explore the routes, the dangers on the way, and the amazing goods that flowed into Turkey and influenced much of its visual arts.
Turkish carpets are distinctive in both their patterns and the techniques used to make them. We’ll explore different regional motifs and methods with lots of visuals and a bit of hands-on.
Presentations:
9:30 a.m. Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2014
Cornell Auditorium in Plaster Hall
Admission: Free
11:00 a.m. Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2014
Cornell Auditorium in Plaster Hall
Admission: Free
Gary Wintz has traveled to more than 220 countries in the last 40 years, researching, writing, photographing, and lecturing about distant lands and cultures. He has worked on NGO projects in Indochina, Indonesia, and Bangladesh, and has contributed his expertise to development projects in Ethiopia for UNICEF. In 1981-82, he taught at universities in China and Tibet and lectured for the Soviet Academy of Sciences in 1989 and 1990. Wintz has also lectured on cruise ships and private jet tours and for the National Geographic Society at its headquarters in Washington, D.C. He has lectured also in the presence of the Dalai Lama. Wintz is a longtime member of the Mongolia Society, the Association for Asian Studies, the American Institute of Afghanistan Studies, and the Central Eurasian Studies Society. As a tour leader, he has been a longtime leader of citizen diplomacy exchanges, including pioneering “Peace Trains” on the trans-Siberian.
Besides Turkey, in 1978, Wintz first started visiting other Turkish regions such as Northern (Turkish) Cyprus as well as Turkic regions such as Uzbekistan. Over the successive decades he has traveled to every Turkic-speaking region in the world except Yakutia (Sakha). From Bosnia to Kyrgyzstan, from Tartars in Crimea to Uyghurs in Eastern Turkestan, (Xinjiang), from Turkmen villages in Afghanistan to Iraq to Azerbaijani regions of Iran, he has been there multiple times. He has guest lectured at many universities on Central Asia, Inner Asia, and on Turkic themes, such as Tannu Tuva, at Harvard, Yale, Brown, Columbia, Dartmouth and Indiana, etc.
(Gary Wintz photo by Grace Fritzinger)
Presentations:
Talking Turkey and Her Neighbors
11:00 a.m. Thursday, Aug. 28, 2014
Corley Auditorium in Webster Hall
Admission: Free
Tourism in Turkey: Intercontinental Beauty
10:00 a.m. Friday, Aug. 29, 2014
Corley Auditorium in Webster Hall
Admission: Free
