[This talk was a MESANA Global Academy event hosted by American University as a part of AU’s fall symposium on War Crimes and Catastrophe in Today’s Global Crises.]
Speakers
Dilan Okcuoglu is a postdoctoral fellow and professorial lecturer in School of International Service at the American University in Washington, DC. Before that, she was a visiting scholar at the Cornell University, M. Einaudi Center for International Studies. Also, affiliated with the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Diversity and Democracy (CRIDAQ) at the Université du Québec à Montréal in 2018-2019. She received her PhD and MA in Political Studies from Queen’s University in Canada where she was also affiliated with Center for the Study of Democracy and Diversity as well as the Laboratory for Ethnic Conflict Research. Dr. Okcuoglu has an interdisciplinary background in politics, economics and philosophy. Her teaching and research interests primarily lie in the politics of MENA, conflict and peace studies, comparative territorial and border politics, Kurdish politics, democratization, ethnic politics and nationalism as well as state-minority relations in conflict zones. She is currently working on her book proposal in addition to two scholarly publications. For more details, please see her CV attached.
Dilşa Deniz is a socio-cultural Kurdish anthropologist and currently a lecturer at University of California San Diego (UCSD). She was dismissed from her teaching position in Turkey in February 2016, after signing a peace petition. Her research focuses on cultural and religious practices, sacred geography, environmental attacks on the Alevi geography, ecocide, the relationship between Alevism and the environment, and myths of Alevism in Kurdish communities—particularly in the city of Dersim, an ancient urban center for Kurdish Alevism in Anatolia. Deniz has worked extensively as an activist and organizer in the women’s movement in Turkey. She holds a PhD in Social Anthropology and has published articles, book chapters, and a monograph.