Description:

Based on two years of ethnographic research among Turkish- and Arab-German communities, in this talk Esra Özyürek of the London School of Economics and Political Science will analyze the role of Turkish- and Arab-Germans in the dynamic memory culture in Germany which is commonly celebrated as a model for “mastering the past” (Langenbacher 2010). Professor Özyürek will aim to show that the recent entry of Turkish- and Arab-Germans into the German memory culture as those who allegedly cannot relate to the Holocaust is a central element of this alleged mastery.

By focusing on the wide spectrum of emotions displayed by different Turkish- and Arab-Germans at different contexts she will reveal the relational and politically contextualized nature of emotions. The deeply ambigious nature of these unprescribed emotions, she will argue, highlights the unexpected political potential of these engagements with the Holocaust.

Esra Özyürek is an Associate Professor and Chair of Contemporary Turkish Studies at the European Institute at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). She is the author of Being German, Becoming Muslim: Race, Religion and Conversion in the New Europe (2014) and Nostalgia for the Modern: State Secularism and Everyday Politics in Turkey (2007) and the editor of The Politics of Public Memory in Turkey (2007).

MENA is proud to co-sponsor this program with the Keyman Modern Turkish Studies Program in the Buffett Institute for Global Studies.