Dr. Yektan Türkyılmaz, Kazan Visiting Professor in Armenian Studies at Fresno State, will give a presentation on “(Re)-Evaluating the Decision-Making Processes of the Armenian Genocide” at 7:30 p.m.on Tuesday, April 17, in the University Business Center, Alice Peters Auditorium, Room 191. The presentation is the concluding lecture in a three-part series of lectures given by Dr. Türkyılmaz in the spring semester.

For his final lecture, Dr. Türkyılmaz will present his most recent work that addresses the decision-making processes in the Armenian Genocide. He offers an actor-based framework that highlights institutional interests and political agency. At all stages of his research, a key goal of Dr. Türkyılmaz’s study has also been to historicize the making of major threads and presumptions in narrative construction. Therefore, he traces the imprints and influences of i) denialism, ii) genocide stereotyping (particularly around the Holocaust), and iii) regional and global political circumstances.

Drawing on Armenian, Ottoman, American and British archival and library sources, this lecture will explore how an actor centered, non-teleological approach would change the way we understand the Armenian genocide.

Dr. Türkyılmaz received his Ph.D. from the Department of Cultural Anthropology at Duke University. He taught courses at the University of Cyprus, Sabancı, Bilgi and Duke Universities addressing the debates around the notions of collective violence, memory making, and reconciliation. Dr. Türkyılmaz is currently a research fellow at the Forum Transregionale Studien in Berlin, Germany.

Meanwhile, he is working on a book manuscript based on his dissertation, Rethinking Genocide: Violence and Victimhood in Eastern Anatolia, 1913-1915, which concerns the conflict in Eastern Anatolia in the early 20th century and the memory politics around it.

The lecture is free and open to the public. Free parking is available in Fresno State Lots P6 and P5, near the University Business Center, Fresno State. A parking code, 273825, must be used at a kiosk to receive the free permit.

For more information about the lecture please contact the Armenian Studies Program at 278-2669, visit our website at http://www.fresnostate.edu/armenianstudies or visit our Facebook page at @ArmenianStudiesFresnoState.