Dr. Fatma Muge Gocek to Speak at Ararat-Eskijian Museum

MISSION HILLS — Ararat-Eskijian Museum, National Association for Armenian Studies and research, and Organization of Istanbul Armenians present an illustrated talk by Dr. Fatma Muge Gocek Professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies, University of Michigan “Denial of Violence: Ottoman Past, Turkish Present, and Collective Violence Against the Armenians”.

The event is on March 08, 2015, 4 PM Ararat-Eskijian Museum/Sheen Chapel, 15105 Mission Hills Road, Mission Hills CA 91345

In this talk based on her recently published book, Professor Fatma Müge Göçek will delve into the roots of Turkey’s denial of the Armenian Genocide and explain why it still persists. Prof. Göçek will specifically focus on the denial of collective violence committed against Armenians throughout Ottoman and Turkish history, demonstrating its occurrence many times before 1915. Having qualitatively analyzed 315 memoirs published in Turkey from 1789 to 2009 in addition to numerous secondary sources, journals, and newspapers, she reveals that denial is a multi-layered, historical process with four distinct yet overlapping components: the structural elements of collective violence and modernity on one side, and the emotional elements of collective consensus and legitimating events on the other. In the Turkish case, denial emerged through four stages, beginning with the imperial denial of the origins of collective violence committed against Armenians that commenced in 1789 and continued until 1907, followed by the Young Turk denial of violence lasting for a decade from 1908 to 1918, then an early republican denial taking place from 1919 to 1973, and culminating with the late republican denial of the responsibility for the collective violence started in 1974, which continues to this day.

Admission free. For more information call the Ararat-Eskijian Museum at (747-500-7585 or e-mail:ararat-eskijian-museum@netzero.net

Dr. Fatma Muge Gocek to Speak at Ararat-Eskijian Museum