WELCOME FALL 2024!

On September 2-3, ZI kicked off the Fall semester with back-to-back Orientations for new students and faculty. We are delighted to welcome students from far and near- Toronto, Mosul, and Mexico City; San Francisco and Sulaymaniyah- to our growing community of learners.

We are also proud to introduce new faculty members in both the Kurdish Language Institute and the MA and Certificate programs in Kurdish Studies. In our Kurmanji program, Songul Gundogdu, professor of Kurdish and Iranian linguistics, joins us from Muş Alparslan University. And on the Sorani side we are pleased to welcome Sarhad Hadi Taha of Salahaddin University (and our own MA student). Behrooz Shojai, a linguist and literary scholar from Uppsala University, joins us to introduce a new course in Classical Kurdish Literature for MA and Certificate students.

With a roster of thought-provoking and interactive classes and extracurriculars like our Wednesday lecture series (beginning September 18 with a panel on Kurdish cinema with filmmaker Mehmet Ali Konar and Sebahattin Şen), a lively Fall semester beckons.

Critical Muslim Studies Launch Event

Join us for a lecture and reception as we gather to celebrate the launch of
Zahra Institute's new MA program in Critical Muslim Studies.

"Post-Islamism and the Flight from Religion: Turkey's New Secularization"

Mucahit Bilici
Associate Professor of Sociology CUNY-John Jay College
Academic Director, Zahra Institute

Date and Location: Saturday, May 4, 2024 at Fulton Street Collective, Chicago

Annual Lecture 2024: Sabri Ates Explores the Origins of Kurdish Nationalism


For this year's annual lecture, Zahra Institute is proud to welcome Sabri Ates, an influential historian whose work focuses on the Ottoman-Iranian borderlands. His talk, "The Emergence of Kurdish Nationalism: The Sheikh Ubeidullah Uprising of 1880," will examine this well-known rebellion against Iranian authority in the larger Kurdish historical context. Please join us (in-person only) at 12:30 pm on Saturday March 2 as we welcome this special guest. The event will take place in Coffey Hall, McCormick Lounge on the Loyola University Chicago campus. It is free and open to the public, with reception to follow. 

Watch Here

2024 Spring Speaker Series

Welcome to Our Incoming 2023-24 Students

ZI gave a warm welcome to new and continuing students at the AY 2023-24 Orientation. This year is especially exciting as we welcome the first group of students to our new MA program, in addition to our existing Certificate program.

Students from across the globe (Germany, Iran, Italy, Latvia, Syria (Rojava), Turkey and the UK) and nearby (Canada and the US) came together on Zoom to kick off the new term. Marwan, an MA student, observed that the program’s interdisciplinary approach to Kurdish culture and identity “bodes very well for the promising two-year journey that lies ahead.”

When asked for their first impressions, one graduate student shared that, “The first week of the MA program in Kurdish studies was really interesting, from meeting knowledgeable professors to having informative sessions that helped me to fill in gaps in other history studies, which definitely affected my perception for years of the Middle East's general issues, whether political or social.” A fellow student, Neda, added, “Being at Zahra Institute is a unique experience for me because I can learn about the history of my nation and share this knowledge with others. Thank you very much for accompanying me on this journey.”

The Tension between Self-Determination and National Unity


In this lecture Asif Shuja (National University of Singapore) discussed how the ethnic quest for independence clashes with states’ aims for territorial integrity, creating a tension between self-determination and national unity (November 8, 2023).

A Talk on Women's Rights and Liberty in Iran


On July 11, 2023, Zahra Institute hosted a lecture and conversation with Elham Hoominfar of Northwestern University about recent developments in Iran. Sparked by the murder of Mahsa Amini, the movement for women's rights and Kurdish rights has drawn worldwide attention to the intersection of gender and liberation. Watch here.

2023 Annual Lecture Brings together Kurdish and Armenian Histories

"Kurds and Armenians in Comparative Perspective: From the Ottoman Empire to the Modern Era"

Zahra Institute held its Annual Lecture for 2023 on May 24 at the University of Chicago's Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures. Opening the gathering, Zahra Institute's Executive Director, Ibrahim Demir, noted that after two years of remote lectures it was a particular pleasure to return to the in-person format in such a beautiful space. Mucahit Bilici, Zahra's Director of Academic Affairs, introduced Fatma Müge Göçek, Professor of Sociology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, who spoke on "Kurds and Armenians in Comparative Perspective: From the Ottoman Empire to the Modern Era." Drawing on both her personal experience doing research on two minority identities (Armenian and Kurdish) and their historical and political parallelisms, Professor Gocek highlighted continuities and divergences in the often violent treatment of the two peoples throughout Ottoman-Turkish history.

Attended by a diverse and inquisitive audience, the program included a surprise musical performance by Mark Gavoor, a Professor at North Park University. Highlighting a symbol of Kurdish Armenian (and Turkish) cultural tradition and commonality, Gavoor played songs from the repertoire of the iconic Kurdish-Armenian singer Aram Tigran (1934-2009) and concluded his brief "cümbüs" performance with a well-known song in Turkish: "Agladikca". A hit song performed by the famous Kurdish singer Ahmet Kaya (1957-2000), "Agladikca" was composed by Ara Dinkjian, an Armenian-American musician.

The lecture and music was followed by a reception in the museum's galleries with hors d'oeuvres served by the Chicago area Kurdish restaurant, The Gundis. Watch the lecture

Prof. Fatma Müge Göçek

Prof. Mark Gavoor

Zahra Institute Annual Lecture 2023

This year the Institute’s annual lecture returns to an in-person format as we welcome Fatma Müge Göçek of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Professor Göçek will speak on “Kurds and Armenians in Comparative Perspective: From the Ottoman Empire to the Modern Era.” The program will take place on the University of Chicago campus at the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures (the former Oriental Institute) on May 24, 2023. The lecture will begin at 5:00pm and will be followed by a reception in the museum from 6:00-7:30pm. A historical sociologist specializing in the trajectories of Ottoman minorities, Professor Göçek has published extensively on issues of empire, violence, gender, and ethnicity. Her recent work focuses on the experiences of Armenian and Kurdish minority identities in the context of the modern Turkish nation-state.  Watch the lecture

Fatma Müge Göçek is Professor of Sociology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her research focuses on the comparative analysis of history, politics, gender, and collective violence from a critical, DuBoisian perspective. Göçek’s recent books include Denial of Violence: Ottoman Past, Turkish Present and the Collective Violence against the Armenians, 1789-2009 (Oxford University Press, 2015), Kurds in Dark Times: New Perspectives on Race/Ethnicity, Violence and Resistance (co-edited with A. Alemdaroğlu, Syracuse, 2022), and Critical Approaches to Genocide: History, Aesthetics and Politics (co-edited with H. Adak and R.G. Suny, Routledge, 2022).

A Talk on Kurdish Political Aspirations


On May 15, 2023, Zahra Institute hosted a lecture and conversation with Aslam Kakar who recently conducted fieldwork in different parts of Turkey on divergent narratives of Kurdish demands. Watch the talk here: https://youtu.be/v3pTWtzgPSs

When the Walnut Leaves Turn Yellow

Zahra Institute is proud to be among the sponsors of Mehmet Ali Konar’s forthcoming film, Dema Ko Pelên Dara Guzê Zer Dibin [When the Walnut Leaves Turn Yellow]. The award-winning Kurdish filmmaker’s recent work includes Hewno Bêreng (Colorless Dreams, 2018) and Govenda Ali û Dayka Zîn (The Dance of Ali and Mother Zin, 2021). 

Zahra Institute Annual Lecture 2022


Ziya Gökalp's Turkism and the Kurdish Question

Speaker:

FUAT DÜNDAR

TOBB-ETU University, Ankara

Date and Time: May 5, 2022, Thursday, 2:00pm EST 

Popularly known as the theorist of Turkish nationalism, Mehemed Ziya (Gökalp) was also the first Ottoman-Turkish Kurdologist. Although his contributions in politics, ideology, and sociology have been well studied, there is no biography of Gökalp that takes as its central concern his views on Kurdish identity. Nonetheless, it is clear that the community he was born into in Diyarbakir— child of a Kurdish mother and Turkish father— profoundly shaped his ideas about nationalism. His ethnographic journey of self-discovery laid the groundwork for his later work in Kurdish studies and shaped the civic, as opposed to ethnic, character of his conception of Turkish nationalism. His ideological orientation was conditioned by the geography of his origins. Before his time in Thessaloniki he was an Ottomanist, after becoming a member of the central committee of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) he became Turkist, during World War I he turned Turanist and finally, in the post-independence war, he supported the Misak-i Milli ideal of the new republic. In this lecture, Fuat Dündar explores the intellectual transformations of Ziya Gökalp with respect to the Kurdish question. Watch the lecture

Fuat Dündar is Associate Professor at TOBB-ETU University in Ankara. He received his PhD at EHESS in Paris and has published extensively on issues of population, politics and identity in the late Ottoman Empire, Modern Turkey and Iraq. He is the author of Modern Türkiye’nin Şifresi: Ittihat ve Terakki’nin Etnisite Mühendisliği (1913-1918) [The Passcode to Modern Turkey: Ittihat Terakki’s Ethnic Engineering (1913-1918)] and Hicret, Din û Devlet: Osmanlı Göç Politikası (1865-1908) [Migration, Religion and the State: Ottoman Migration Policies (1865-1908)].


ISLAMOPHOBIA SURVEY

Zahra Institute is conducting a survey on Islamophobia in America. The survey should take around seven minutes to complete and is entirely confidential.
Islamophobia is a growing problem faced by minority Muslim communities around the globe. As a step toward combating the problem, this brief survey explores how Muslims understand and experience Islamophobia. The survey is open to all Muslims age 18+ who reside in the United States. Launch the survey. 

Zahra Institute Annual Lecture 2021


The Kurdish Medrese in Republican Turkey:  
An Institution of Civil Society Caught Between Turkish State and Kurdish Political Movement

Speaker: Martin van Bruinessen, Utrecht University

Date: March 11, 2021

Day and Time: Thursday, 2:00pm EST (New York), 1:00pm US Central Time (Chicago), [8:00pm Central European Time, 10:00pm Istanbul and Diyarbakır Time]

Martin van Bruinessen is professor emeritus of the comparative study of contemporary Muslim societies at Utrecht University. He carried out anthropological field research in all parts of Kurdistan in the mid-1970s and has been returning to Kurdistan more or less regularly ever since. The social and political role of religion has been a central concern of his research. He is the author of Agha, Shaikh and State: The Social and Political Structures of Kurdistan (London: Zed Books, 1992) and Mullas, Sufis and Heretics: The Role of Religion in Kurdish Society (Istanbul: The Isis Press, 2000). 
Watch the lecture


Looking back at 2021 Certificate Program

Zahra Institute’s 2021 Online Kurdish Studies Certificate Program was a success. An interdisciplinary initiative, the eight-week certificate program was the first of its kind in the United States. This English-language program was designed to provide students and researchers with strategic knowledge of the structure and history of the Kurdish language and the social structures and culture of the Kurdish people. The program, which took place from April 5 to May 27, 2021, consisted of three core courses: (1) History and Structure (Syntax) of Kurdish Language, (2) Reading Skills for Kurdish (Kurmanji) Texts in Kurdo-Arabic Script, and (3) Introduction to Kurdish Society and Culture.

The cohort of participants hailed from all over the world. Some students were based in the United States— from Los Angeles to New York, Florida to Chicago; others joined us from Brazil and China, from the Basque Country, Iran, and Kurdistan.

Here’s what our 2021 Certificate Program students are saying about Zahra Institute courses 

  • “I'd made several assumptions about who Kurds were, and what they believed, based on romanticized and superficial notions. The courses challenged my assumptions and introduced far more nuance into my understanding of the Kurdish struggle.”
  • “The professors were knowledgeable, friendly, punctual, and creative in terms of teaching.” 
  • “I appreciated being able to take a language course simultaneously with a society and culture course. The two complemented each other very well. I also appreciated how professors brought guest speakers to our classes, so we could take deep dives into certain specialized areas.” 
  • “While I considering myself relatively knowledgeable on topics relating to Kurdish politics and modern history, these courses were greatly beneficial to me in offering a systematic introduction to language and various aspects of Kurdish culture. Furthermore, I found some of the discussions and critical interpretations raised by the professors in relation to material I was already somewhat aware of to be quite stimulating.” 

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