About Istanbul Seminars
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An annual meeting to promote, develop and consolidate a network of cultural, intellectual and academic relationships in the hope of activating mutual understanding and interaction among democratic intellectuals and opinion makers belonging to different geo-political and cultural areas of the “East” and the “West”.
The Seminars' Executive Committee: Seyla BENHABIB, Giancarlo BOSETTI, Alessandro FERRARA, Abdou FILALI-ANSARY, Nina zu FÜRSTENBERG, Ferda KESKIN, Nadia URBINATI
Emrah Efe CAKMAK (eec2119@columbia.edu) is the executive committee's secretary. He can be contacted at +1 917 4985675 .
The Seminars' Resource Persons 2008: Giuliano AMATO, Andrew ARATO, Paolo BRANCA, Ian BURUMA, Marina CALLONI, Abdelmajid CHARFI, Jean L. COHEN, Fred DALLMAYR, Klaus EDER, Rainer FORST, Nilüfer GÖLE, Vartan GREGORIAN, Renzo GUOLO, Ramin JAHANBEGLOO, Jürgen HABERMAS, Hassan HANAFI, Joanna KUCURADI, Avishai MARGALIT, Massimo ROSATI, Olivier ROY, Charles TAYLOR, Carlos THIEBAUT, Michael WALZER
Volker KAUL (volkerkaul@reset.it) is coordinating the Seminars on behalf of ResetDoC. He can be contacted at
+90 506 6475233.
The Istanbul Seminars are a week long encounter amongst senior and junior faculty, young independent scholars and Ph.D. candidates in the fields of social sciences, political theory, history of ideas, sociology, legal studies and religious studies.
Our hope - and goal - is to strengthen the academic value of the Seminars also through a relaxed and lively get-together, involving scholars, students, as well as anyone interested. Therefore our meetings are open to public and the academic discussions will be accompanied by collateral social events.
The Seminars are jointly sponsored and organized by Reset-Dialogues on Civilizations and Istanbul Bilgi University, one of Turkey’s youngest and intellectually most ambitious universities. They will be held at Istanbul Bilgi University, and in 2008 they will take place from Monday, June 2 through Friday, June 6.
The Seminars will address the way different civilizations deal with contemporary challenges in the area of pluralism of values and democratic polity. And that means, among other issues:
- the process of democratization in different civilizations;
- the roots that the principles of freedom, equality, solidarity, autonomy, and human dignity have within different cultures;
- different understandings of the role of religion in the public sphere;
- forms of family in different civilizations;
- the rights of women across cultural divides;
- the methodology of dialogue among civilizations;
- pre-secular, secularized and post-secular societies;
- the contemporary discourse of Human Rights – Its hopes and limits.
In order to develop program and contents of the Seminars, an executive committee has been established . Its members are:
Seyla Benhabib, Yale University – USA; Giancarlo Bosetti, Reset Magazine – Italy; Alessandro Ferrara, University of Rome "Tor Vergata" – Italy; Abdou Filali-Ansary, Aga Khan University – U.K.; Nina zu Fürstenberg, Reset-Dialogues on Civilizations – Italy; Ferda Keskin, Istanbul Bilgi University – Turkey; Nadia Urbinati, Columbia University – USA.
Emrah Efe Cakmak, graduate at Columbia University, is the executive committee secretary.
