The Heinrich Boell Foundation Yerevan Office – South Caucasus Region,theTurpanjian Institute of Social Sciences (AUA), and the Oral History Matters (OHM) initiative (AUA) hold a presentation of the book “Embattled Dreamlands” by David Leupold.

“Embattled Dreamlands” explores the complex relationship between competing national myths, imagined boundaries and local memories in the threefold-contested geography referred to as Eastern Turkey, Western Armenia or Northern Kurdistan.

The book sheds light on the multi-layered memory landscape of the Lake Van region in Southeastern Turkey, where collective violence stretches back from the Armenian Genocide to the Kurdish conflict of today. Based on his fieldwork in Turkey and Armenia, the author examines how states work to construct and monopolize collective memory by narrating, silencing, mapping, and performing the past, and how these narratives might help to contribute to and resolve present-day conflicts. By looking at how national discourses are constructed and asking hard questions about why nations are imagined as exclusive and hostile to others, “Embattled Dreamlands” provides a unique insight into the development of national identity, which will provide a great resource for students and researchers in sociology and history alike.
 

David Leupold is a 2018-2019 Manoogian post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Sociology at the University of Michigan. He focuses his research on politics of memory in the post-Ottoman and post-Soviet space.

The event will be held on April 29 at 6.30 PM in the Akian Art Gallery (PAB) at the American University of Armenia (40 Marshal Baghramyan Ave).

Please confirm your participation at the latest on April 25 via email (am-info@am.boell.org).