ASP Roundtable. "Imperial Violence: Gender, Ethnicity and the State in the Last Years of the Ottoman Empire."

Convener: Ronald G. Suny, History, U-M. Participants: Ayhan Aktar, Social Sciences, Istanbul Bilgi University; Yigit Akin, History, College of Charleston; and others. Co-sponsor: UCLA Department of History.

Roundtable: “Imperial Violence: Gender, Ethnicity and the State in the Last Years of the Ottoman Empire.”

Introduction: Kathryn Babayan

Chair: Ronald Grigor Suny

Yigit Akin: "War's Overlooked Victims: Violence against Women in the Ottoman Home Front during World War I"?

Ayhan Aktar: “Diyarbekir 1915: Deportations, Massacres and New Alliances among the Local Elites.”

Discussants: Haydar Darici,  Fatma Muge Goçek

The level of violence during the First World War was but the first salvo in what would prove to be the most brutal century of mass killing, ethnic cleansing, and genocide in human history.  In its bid to preserve its empire and regain a place in the constellation of Great Powers, the Ottoman Empire engaged in extensive violence directed against its Christian subjects, culminating in the genocide of the Armenians.  Yet Muslims also suffered as war and hunger devastated the civilian population as well as soldiers at the front.

    Historian Yigit Akin and historical sociologist Ayhan Aktar bring their latest research into episodes of violence in the fateful last years of the empire.  Historical sociologist Fatma Muge Goçek and graduate student in anthropology and history Haydar Darici, both of whom have been working on the reverberations and legacies of violence, will provide commentaries.  Ron Suny, who is working on a history of the Armenian Genocide, will chair.