AIM: Mirroring lives across the Armenian–Turkish divide

This event will include a welcome and introduction from Dr Sahika Erkonan (a Visiting Scholar with the Cambridge Interfaith Programme) and Professor Esra Özyürek (Academic Director of the Cambridge Interfaith Programme).

There will then be a panel discussion focused on the book Mirroring Lives:

Conversations on feminism, racism and genocide

Panellists: Ayse Gul Altinay (Turkey); Arlene Avakian (New York); and Fethiye Cetin (Turkey) with interpreter

Mirroring Lives is based on conversations among three women whose shared feminist, anti-racist, anti-militarist politics brought them together across the deep divide shaped by the genocide of Ottoman Armenians in 1915–1916 and its ongoing denial in Turkey. Coming together around the shared understanding of “the personal is political” and a critical feminist intersectional approach, the authors have engaged in deeply interactive conversations that focus on the gendered, racialized, and heteronormative aspects of the genocidal process and its ongoing afterlives.

In this session, they will read selections from their book manuscript and reflect on their journey of sharing pain, vulnerability and mourning as well as joy; embarking on personal/political journeys together, as well as co-witnessing and co-resisting in moments of political struggle. 

For the background to this event, and to register, please visit the dedicated webpage: Artistic Interventions in Memory.

This event series is the culmination of a project funded by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in association with the Cambridge Interfaith Programme, exploring creative practice and memory in the diaspora (sensory studies), with specific reference to Armenian–Turkish relations.

Disclaimer: Support by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation does not constitute endorsement of any specific opinion, perspective or approach expressed or utilised in this event.