Spring Symposia
A one-day symposium held each spring in London, Oxford or Cambridge, followed by the BATAS AGM.
Turkish Politics and Society in Flux:
Identity, Policy, and Transnational Dynamics
Saturday, 7th June 2025 10:00-17:00
Marshall Building (MAR.1.04)
Programme:
10:00 – 10:30 | Registration and Coffee
10:30 – 11:00 | Welcome & Opening Remarks by Yaprak Gürsoy and Nick Baird
11:00– 12:30 | Panel Session 1: Turkish Foreign Policy: Start of a New Era in an Age of Global Change?
Emel Akçalı | The Dawn of Non-Western Agency in Global Politics and Türkiye’s New Role?
This talk discusses how we can understand the emergence of non-Western agency, which sometimes questions the universality of Western norms. Can non-Western agency instigate a transformative shift in the existing world order, and can this shift potentially result in a more advanced multipolar world, a disjointed global order, or a new form of hegemony? The talk addresses these questions in order to grasp the future of international relations and global governance, as well as the evolving roles of regional players like Türkiye in this newly forming world order.
Mustafa Kutlay | Türkiye’s Middle-Power status in Global Politics: Managing Interdependencies and Trade-offs
At a time when new centres of power are emerging, middle powers have become increasingly active in global politics. While seeking to capitalise on the emerging multipolarity, middle powers prefer to avoid taking sides and getting caught between the US and China. Türkiye is one of these actors pursuing a ‘multi-alignment’ strategy in its foreign affairs. This presentation examines Türkiye’s status in global politics. It argues that for Türkiye, multipolarity will centre more on managing interdependencies and trade-offs to avert the costs of a transactional foreign policy.
Diğdem Soyaltın Colella | Authoritarian Regime Survival and anti-West Discourse
The AKP government in Türkiye sustained its popularity despite various economic and policy crises. Our research shows that, among other institutional factors, instrumental anti-West propaganda reinforces the regime’s short-term performance legitimacy. The normative anti-Westernism works through identity-based frameworks, portraying the West as a morally corrupt civilisation, undergoing profound societal and economic decline. This is juxtaposed with Türkiye as a rising economic power and with the ethically superior image of Turkish and Muslim identities, as underscored in the context of the recent humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Özge Zihnioğlu | Civil Society in Turkish Foreign Policy: Continuities, Changes and Future Prospects
This talk discusses the transformation of civil society’s influence in Turkish foreign policy since the 2010s. Traditionally dominated by political elites and state institutions, Türkiye’s foreign policy has increasingly been incorporating civil society actors, particularly in humanitarian and development efforts. These organisations partner with government agencies to advance Türkiye’s geopolitical goals. The rise of government-organised NGOs (GONGOs) further blurred the lines between state and civil society. Highlighting both opportunities and constraints, this talk explores how civil society has become a strategic tool of soft power in Türkiye’s evolving international engagement.
12:30– 13:30 | Lunch Break
13:30 – 14:45 | Panel Session 2: Diaspora, Displacement and Collective Trauma: Policies and Dialogues of Identity Across Time and Space
Başak Kale | Navigating Integration: Refugees, Immigrants, and the Evolving Landscape of Inclusion in Türkiye
Türkiye is a hub for immigration, emigration, and transit migration, hosting millions of refugees, asylum seekers, and irregular migrants. More than 3.6 million Syrian refugees were hosted for more than a decade, with no centralised refugee integration policy. As a result, local governments, CSOs, IOs, and private actors have stepped in to provide essential services. This presentation explores these informal integration mechanisms and their impact on refugee and migrant communities. It also examines the politicisation of migration and its influence on elections and public opinion in Türkiye.
Tuğçe Bıçakçı-Syed | Collective Trauma and Contemporary Horror Cinema in Türkiye
This talk examines how Turkish horror films Küçük Kıyamet (2007) and Kaygı (2017) engage with collective trauma, drawing on Linnie Blake’s theory of horror as trauma representation. Both films contain themes of rapid urbanisation and globalisation, as well as natural and man-made disasters. Produced by ‘tacticians of resistance’, these films exemplify politically subversive Gothic texts challenging conservative neoliberalism in Türkiye. The return of repressed memories is analysed through Chris Baldick’s ‘Gothic effect’, revealing the inadequacy of current recovery policies in Türkiye.
Aslı Kandemir | ‘British Values’ from the Perspective of British-Turkish Youth
This talk explores the subjectivities of British-Turks, with a focus on youth. The Prevent Strategy and its use of Fundamental British Values (FBVs) in education were aimed at disciplining minoritised youth, especially Muslims, to promote cohesion. However, a case study of the British-Turkish community reveals that youthchallenge the disciplinary power of FBV and redefine Britishness through inclusivity, equality, good character, and friendship. They emphasise the plurality and universality of values, underscoring the significance of bottom-up approaches in defining social cohesion and British values.
14:45 – 15:00 | Break
15:00 – 15:30 | Discussion Session 3: Exploring Identity through Memory: More than a Bundle Story
Emel Sevinç in discussion with Elif Toker-Turnalar
15:30 – 15:45 | Closing Remarks for the Symposium
15:45 – 16:00 | Break
16:00 – 17:00 | BATAS Annual General Meeting (AGM)
Speaker Bios:
Nick Baird joined the Foreign Office in 1983 and had a long and illustrious career, including a posting as the Ambassador in Ankara from 2006-2009. Since leaving the FCO, he has taken up a post as group corporate affairs director of energy firm Centrica, and is also a Trustee of Kew Gardens and the President of BATAS.
Yaprak Gürsoy is the Chair of Contemporary Turkish Studies at the European Institute of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Before her current post, she was a senior lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Relations at Aston University (2017-2021) and an Associate Professor at Istanbul Bilgi University (2009-2017). She works on Turkish domestic politics and foreign policy from a comparative perspective. She is the author of Between Military Rule and Democracy: Regime Consolidation in Greece, Turkey, and Beyond (University of Michigan Press, 2017).
Emel Akçalı is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the Defence Studies Department, King’s College London. She teaches and researches about environmental geopolitics, critical security and geopolitical studies, gender, state and society and conflict in the Middle East and North Africa, and global International Relations. Her research thus far has been funded by the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), British Institute in Ankara, Central European University (CEU), the Višegrad Fund, Fondation de Robert Schuman in Paris, and she has been awarded CEU Institute of Advanced Study and Aix-Marseille University Institute of Advanced Study resident fellowships for world-class foreign researchers in 2013 and 2016. She is the author of Chypre: Un enjeu geopolitique actuel (Cyprus, a contemporary geopolitical stake), published by l’Harmattan in Paris, in 2009, and she has a forthcoming book on Turkey Going Green, published by Edinburgh University Press.
Mustafa Kutlay is a senior lecturer in the Department of International Politics at City St George’s, University of London. He is also a senior scholar at the Istanbul Policy Center. His current research focuses on the Turkish political economy and foreign policy, as well as institutions and development in the Global South, and power shifts in the international order. His articles have appeared in International Affairs, Journal of Democracy, Foreign Affairs, Globalizations, Government & Opposition, Third World Quarterly, and The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, among others. His most recent book, Industrial Policy in Turkey: Rise, Retreat and Return, is published by Edinburgh University Press (co-authored with M. Toksoz and W. Hale). He occasionally writes policy reports and briefs for policy-making institutions and contributes commentaries and short opinion pieces to international media outlets.
Digdem Soyaltin-Colella is a lecturer (Assistant Professor) of Politics and Public Policy at the University of Aberdeen, UK. She is also a member of the global strategy reference group of Transparency International Berlin. Her research concentrates on the corruption and politics of corruption, mechanisms of state capture and regime survival, autocratic bureaucracies & illiberal governance, and Southeast European and Turkish politics. She contributed to the projects implemented by EU, Council of Europe, Transparency International on corruption, defence integrity and the rule of law in Türkiye and the Western Balkans. Her publications appeared in numerous high profile peer reviewed journals, including Journal of Gender Studies, Third World Quarterly, International Political Science Review, and International Spectator. She is the author of EU Good Governance Promotion in the Age of Democratic Decline (ed, Palgrave, 2022) and Europeanisation, Corruption and Good Governance in the Public Sector: The Case of Turkey (Routledge, 2017).
Özge Zihnioğlu is a Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Liverpool. Her research focuses on civil society, European Union civil society support, and Türkiye-EU relations, and she has published extensively on these topics. Her work has been funded by the British Academy, the British Council, ESRC, Türkiye’s Scientific and Technological Research Council and the Mercator Foundation. Zihnioğlu is the author of European Union Civil Society Policy and Turkey: A Bridge Too Far? (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) and EU-Turkey Relations: Civil Society and Depoliticization (Routledge, 2020), alongside numerous articles in leading academic journals. In recognition of her contributions to the field, she received the Young Scientists Award from the Science Academy (2015) and the International Relations Council Award (2018) in Türkiye. Zihnioğlu is also a member of the Carnegie Endowment’s Civic Research Network, where she provides policy analyses and reports on evolving trends in civil society to policymakers and donors.
Elif Toker-Turnalar is a researcher, lecturer, public speaker and specialist in Political Communication, Turkish Politics and Public Relations. She has an MA from Boğaziçi University in Political Science and International Relations, where she completed her thesis on “The formal role of the military in political decision making: Egypt and Turkey”, and a BA from Middlesex University in Politics, History and TEFL. At present, she holds a Lectureship post at Regent’s University, London. She is engaged with colleagues on a 10-year longitudinal study of digital literacy and the understanding of politics and news by young adults, with an emphasis on social media platforms, mainly Facebook.
Başak Kale is an Associate Professor of International Relations, Middle East Technical University, Ankara,and she is the former Chair of the European Studies Postgraduate Programme. She is also the coordinator of the Migration Research Program (METUMIR) of the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence Centre for European Studies, METU. In addition to these positions, she is an independent ethics expert working for the European Commission at the Ethics and Research Integrity Sector, DG Research and Innovation. Dr Kale taught and conducted research at various institutions, including Harvard University, UC Berkeley, Boğaziçi University, University of British Columbia (UBC), Simon Fraser University and Hitotshubashi University (Tokyo). Currently, she is working with the European Studies Centre, St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford. Outside academia, she was also the founding and governing body member of Türkiye’s first migration research specialised NGO, IGAM. She is also a founding member of the Türkiye’s Refugee Council (TRC).
Tuğçe Bıçakçı-Syed is an independent literary scholar, editor, and writer based in Birmingham, UK. She holds a PhD in English (2018) and an MA in Contemporary Literary Studies (2013) from the University of Lancaster, both fully funded by the Turkish Ministry of Education. Her research focuses on the Gothic mode in Turkish literature and film, exploring its historical development in relation to ideological, cultural, and political shifts, with a strong foundation in literary and cultural theory. She has published critical essays on popular genres in Turkish literature and cinema, as well as on representations of Turkish identity in Anglophone narratives. Her recent publications include “Global Gothic 1: Islamic Gothic” in The Cambridge History of the Gothic: Volume 3 – Gothic in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries (Cambridge University Press, 2021) and “Gothicising the Ottoman Past and Building Modern Turkey in Turkish Gothic Novels of the 1920s” in Middle Eastern Gothics: Literature, Spectral Modernities and the Restless Past (University of Wales Press, 2022).
Aslı Kandemir is a critical sociologist and an interdisciplinary researcher. She is currently working in the School of Education at the University of Birmingham on a study examining freedom of expression in English schools. Dr Kandemir holds a PhD in Sociology from Liverpool Hope University and researches ‘race’/ethnicity and immigration, education policy, and intersectional inequalities. Her forthcoming book, Tolerance and Symbolic Borders: British-Turkish Identity, Values, and Community Cohesion, is published by Bristol University Press (2025). Dr Kandemir also works on equitable mentoring and volunteers as an academic mentor to university students, academics and professionals. She is a former radio DJ and an avid capoeirista.
Emel Sevinç is a London-based writer and the founder of the ‘More Than a Bundle Story’ project, which will be featured at Hackney Museum in mid-June. Holding a degree in English and Creative Writing, and with over 15 years of teaching experience, Emel has worked with individuals from diverse backgrounds. Her work delves into themes of memory, identity, and belonging within the Turkish diaspora, reflecting on the enduring connections between family, migration, and the passage of time. Emel amplifies the rich and multifaceted narratives of the Turkish diaspora, illustrating how memories transcend borders and shape the lives of individuals and communities. In addition, Emel runs workshops through her Scribbles project, helping writers at all levels discover the art of free-flow creative writing. She is currently working on her debut novel, blending her passion for storytelling with a deep connection to her Turkish roots.
Twenty-ninth Spring Symposium 2018
in association with the London Middle East Institute, SOAS (LMEI)
Wolfson Lecture Theatre, Senate House
SOAS University of London
Saturday 10 March 2018
10am to 4.45pm
Symposium Programme
10.00 – 10.40 – Registration (in entrance hall of Paul Webley Wing) and Coffee/Tea (in Room S209)
10.50 – Opening remarks by President of BATAS
11.00 – Bill Park, Visiting Research Fellow, Department of Defence Studies, King’s College London
“Turkey’s assorted Kurdish woes”
11.50 – Tim Stanley, Senior Curator, Asian Department, Victoria and Albert Museum
“Barbarossa’s Bath-house: Ottoman tiles and Persian poetry in the 1540s”
12.45 – Break for lunch
14.45 – Dr Gül Berna Özcan, Reader in International Business and Entrepreneurship, School of Management, Royal Holloway, University of London
“Piety, business and politics: a quarter-century transformation in Turkey”
15.35 – Professor Daniela Berghahn, Professor of Film Studies, Royal Holloway, University of London
“Turkish-German cinema and the diasporic family experience”
16.45 – Closing remarks by President of BATAS
17.00 – BATAS Annual General Meeting to be held in the Brunei Gallery, SOAS, Room B104 (first floor).
Twenty-eighth Spring Symposium 2017
Wolfson Lecture Theatre, Senate House
SOAS University of London
Saturday 6 May 2017
10am to 4.40pm
Symposium Programme
10.00 – 10.40 – Registration and Coffee/Tea
10.50 – Opening remarks (Professor William Hale, Acting President of BATAS)
11.00 – Uluç Gürkan, (Former Deputy Speaker of the Turkish Grand National Assembly and Vice Chairman of the Parliamentary Assemblies of the Council of Europe (PACE) and OSCE)
“Legal light on the ‘Malta Tribunals’ of 1919-1921: The British Government’s unsuccessful attempt to bring Turks to trial after WW1”
11.50 – Professor Scott Redford, (History of Art & Archaeology, SOAS, University of London)
“An A-Z of medieval Anatolian travel”
12.45 – Break for lunch (list of local eating places available at registration desk)
14.15 – Dr Ziya Meral, (Resident Fellow, British Army’s Centre for Historical Analysis and Conflict Research)
“Turkey’s Security Dilemma: What drives Turkish security and defence policies? And why is the country facing more insecurity as their outcome?”
15.05 – Dr Rachel Harris, (Reader in Ethnomusicology, SOAS, University of London)
“Text, performance, and the transnational circulation of the Hikmet poetry of 12th-century Sufi Ahmet Yesevi”
16.00 – 16.30 – Coffee/Tea
16.40 – BATAS Annual General Meeting
Twenty-seventh Spring Symposium 2016
Emmanuel College, Cambridge
The Queen’s Building
Saturday 9 April 2016
10am to 4.30pm
Symposium Programme
10.00 – 10.40 – Registration and Coffee (The Queen’s Building)
10.50 – Opening remarks (Michael Lake, President of BATAS)
11.00 – Prof. Dr Sinan Bayraktaroğlu, (Hacettepe University, Ankara)
“The issue of Turkish versus English as languages of higher education
in Turkey”
11.50 – Edward Charlton-Jones, (Allen & Overy LLP)
“White Russian Refugees in Constantinople, 1918-23”
12.45 – 14.00 – Break for lunch (served in the Upper Hall)
14.10 – Dr İpek Demir, (University of Leicester)
“Kurdish and Turkish communities from Turkey: From ‘economic
immigrants’ to ‘political diasporas’?”
15.00 – Dr Eylem Atakav, (University of East Anglia)
“Growing up Married: Representing Child Brides in Film”
16.00 – 16.30 – Tea
16.40 – BATAS Annual General Meeting
Twenty-sixth Spring Symposium 2015
St Antony’s College, Oxford
Nissan Lecture Theatre
Saturday 25 April 2015
10.00am to 4.40pm
Symposium Programme
10.00 – 10.30 – Coffee, registration (in the Hilda Besse Building)
10.50 – Opening remarks (Michael Lake, President of BATAS)
11.00 – Dr Zeynep Kezer, University of Newcastle
“State penetration in eastern Turkey: Landscape, memory and identity in the early Republican years”
11.50 – Dr Pheroze Unwalla, York University, Toronto
“From battlefield to ‘theme park’: Centenary reflections on the transformation of Gallipoli”
12.45 – 14.00 – Break for lunch
14.10 – Professor Sami Zubaida, Birkbeck, University of London
“Turkey, alcohol and Islam”
15.00 – Antony Wynn, Freelance historian; author of Three Camels to Smyrna)
“Carpets in peace and war: The Oriental Carpet Manufacturers of Smyrna from 1908 to the early Republic”
16.00 – 16.30 – Tea
16.40 – Annual General Meeting
Twenty-fifth Spring Symposium 2014
Emmanuel College, Cambridge
The Upper Hall
Saturday 26 April 2014
10.00am to 4.30pm
Symposium Programme
10.00 – 10.30 – Coffee, registration (in the Upper Hall)
10.40 – Opening remarks (Celia Kerslake, Chairperson of BATAS)
10.50 – Dr Michael Axworthy, University of Exeter
“Tribes, Turks and Persians in the time of Nader Shah, 1698-1747”
11.45 – Dr Kerem Öktem, St Antony’s College, Oxford
“The contested territory of political Islam in Turkey: From coalition to fratricide”
12.45 – 14.10 –Break for lunch
14.15 – Professor George Hewitt, SOAS
“Caucasians in Turkey: Their distribution and languages”
15.10 – Dr Michael Ellison, University of Bristol
“Say I am You – Mevlana: A love story”
16.00-16.30 – Tea
16.40 – Annual General Meeting
Twenty-fourth Spring Symposium
Saturday 27 April 2013
St Antony’s College,
Oxford Nissan Lecture Theatre,
St Antony’s College, 62 Woodstock Road,
Oxford, OX2 6JF
TASG Twenty-third Spring Symposium
Saturday 5 May 2012
Emmanuel College, Cambridge
The Queen’s Building
Programme
10.00 – 10.30 Registration and Coffee
10.45 – 11.35 Fadi Hakura (Associate Fellow, Chatham House)
Turkey’s role in international relations: The Middle East and beyond
11.40 – 12.30 Dr Ece Göztepe Çelebi (Faculty of Law, Bilkent University)
The constitution–making process in Turkey: Between law and politics
12.40 – 14.20 Lunch
14.25 – 15.15 Shahina Farid (UCL Institute of Archaeology)
“A Turkish Delight” – Life in an Anatolian city 9000 years ago:
the excavations at Çatalhöyük
15.20 – 16.10 Dr Caroline Tee (Bristol University)
On the path of Pir Sultan? Engagement with authority in the modern Alevi movement
16.15 Tea
16.30 Annual General Meeting
for booking details please contact us
Earlier Symposia, 1990-2011
| TASG First Symposium at St. Antony’s College , Oxford, 12 May 1990 | |
| Speakers | |
| Professor Geoffrey Lewis | Miscellanea Turcica |
| Metin Kunt | Studying Ottomans and Turks |
| Sir Mark Russell | Eastern Europe and Turkey’s aspirations |
| John Norton | Path to paradise: Turkish Sufi movements |
| Jennifer Scarce | The domestic hearth: A look at Turkish rugs |
| TASG Second Spring Symposium at Sawston Hall, Cambridge. 4 May 1991 | |
| Speakers | |
| Professor Michael Rogers | Iznik blue and white |
| Professor Polymnia Athanassiadi | |
| İsmail Emre | A Dervish without an order |
| Professor Gül Durmuşoğlu | Turkish female talk |
| Dr D Barchard | Turkey in the British press |
| Sir Horace Phillips | Teaching at a Turkish university |
| TASG Third Spring Symposium at Sawston Hall, Cambridge, 9 May 1992 | |
| Speakers | |
| Dr William Hale | Turkish politics after the elections |
| Peter Liddle | In search of Gallipoli |
| Dr Ayse Kırtunç | Ottoman costumes |
| Dr Arın Bayraktaroğlu | Telling of troubles in Turkish |
| Rosalie Lamburn | Improvisation in Turkish music |
| TASG Fourth Spring Symposium at Sawston Hall, Cambridge, 8 May 1993 | |
| Speakers | |
| Dr John Baldwin | Some aspects of the interaction of Turks and Slavs in the Balkans |
| Prof Chris Hann | |
| Dr Ildiko Beller-Hann | Markets and morality in the east Black Sea border country |
| Dr Uygur Kocabaşoğlu | The 19th Century British consular establishment in the Ottoman Empire |
| Professor Cem Behar | Traditional Turkish music: Sound and sense |
| TASG Fifth Spring Symposium at Sawston Hall , Cambridge, 14 May 1994 | |
| Speakers | |
| Lady Rosamond Hanworth | The Heritage of North Cyprus |
| Behrooz Morvaridi | Social structure in North Cyprus |
| Oktay Ekşi | Recent developments in the Turkish media |
| Emre Aracı | The traditions and influences of Turkish janissary music |
| TASG Sixth Spring Symposium at Sawston Hall, Cambridge, 13 May 1995 | |
| Speakers | |
| Professor Malcolm Wagstaff | Mountain life in south-west Turkey |
| Tim Stanley | The Library of Umur Bey in Bursa |
| Professor Paul Sterling | Turkish Village: Forty years of revolutions |
| Professor David Kushner | Questions of identity in contemporary Turkey |
| TASG Seventh Spring Symposium at Sawston Hall, Cambridge, 11 May 1996 | |
| Speakers | |
| Dr Andrew Mango | Perceptions of Turkey |
| Professor Filiz Yenişehirlioğlu | Trends and styles in modern Turkish painting |
| Dr Butrus Abu-Manneh | Rethinking the early Ottoman reforms |
| Dr Hugh Poulton | The top hat, the Grey Wolf and the Crescent: nationalism in the Turkish Republic |
| TASG Eighth Spring Symposium at Sawston Hall, Cambridge, 10 May 1997 | |
| Speakers | |
| Rev Robin Denniston | The Second World War: Eavesdropping on Turkey |
| Dr Philip Mansel | Ambassadors and artists in Istanbul |
| Dr F.A.K. Yasamee | Ottoman diplomacy |
| Dr Sinan Bayraktaroğlu | Foreign language education, sociocultural change and modernisation: The Turkish case |
| TASG Ninth Spring Symposium at Sawston Hall, Cambridge 2 May 1998 | |
| Speakers | |
| Rev John Kemp | Icongraphy in Byzantium during the Palaiologan period (1258-1453) |
| Peter Coggins | The Turkish diaspora in Britain |
| Eva Ostergaard –Nielsen | With the feet in Germany and the head in Turkey: |
| Political mobilisation of the diasporas from Turkey in Germany | |
| Professor Osman Okyar | Politics in Ataturk’s modernisation |
| TASG Tenth Spring Symposium at Sawston Hall, Cambridge, 8 May 1999 | |
| Speakers | |
| Dr Colin Imber | The Ottoman Empire: A lost world? |
| Dr George Dedes | Mehmet the Conqueror and the Church of `Ayasofya` |
| Mark Hutchings | Turks in Shakespeare and his contemporaries |
| John Drake | The Sultan’s garden at Aynalı Kavak Kasrı |
| TASG Eleventh Spring Symposium at Sawston Hall, Cambridge, 6 May 2000 | |
| Speakers | |
| Charles Newton | The Ottomans observed: Pictures of Ottoman Turkey in the Searight Collection at the V&A |
| Dr David Morray | The dragoboys of Ortakoy: the Levant Consular Service 1877-1914 |
| Mithat Rende | The Turkish straits: A challenging future? |
| Dr William Hale | Turkey’s politics: Before and after the Earthquake |
| TASG Twelfth Spring Symposium at Sawston Hall, Cambridge, 12 May 2001 | |
| Speakers | |
| Professor Belma Ötüş Baskett | Keeping step with Atatürk: The precarious career of Hakkı Behiç |
| Dr Tunç Aybak | The Black Sea world, emergent or imagined |
| David Barchard | The end of Ottoman Crete |
| Osman Streater | The ‘Turkish Ambassador’ who became Pope: |
| The wartime friendship between the future Pope John XXIII and Numan Menemencioglu | |
| TASG Thirteenth Spring Symposium at Sawston Hall, Cambridge, 11 May 2002 | |
| Speakers | |
| Professor Richard Clogg | Greeks bearing gifts: Arnold Toynbee and the Koraes Chair |
| Dr Arın Bayraktaroğlu in collaboration with Dr Maria Sifianou (in absentia) | An introduction to linguistic politeness across boundaries: The case of Greek and Turkish |
| Michael Stephen | Some legal issues affecting Turkish-Greek relations |
| Professor Clement Dodd | The Cyprus negotiations : Reconciling the irreconcilable |
| TASG Fourteenth Spring Symposium at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, 10 May 2003 | |
| Speakers | |
| Joyce Reynolds | Hunting for inscriptions at Aphrodisias |
| Dr Renee Hirschon | The 1923 Greek-Turkish population exchange in retrospect |
| Dr Catherine Alexander | Images of the ‘state’ in contemporary Turkey |
| Dr Nuri Yurdasev | How European is Turkey ? |
| TASG Fifteenth Spring Symposium at Emmanuel College, Cambridge,24 April 2004 | |
| Speakers | |
| Osman Streater | Can Turkey join the EU while the Greek Orthodox Seminary on Heybeli Island remains closed ? |
| Dr Vally Lytra | Greek and Turkish contact: A sociolinguistic account of two languages and cultures in an Athens primary school |
| Dimitris Antoniou | Western Thracian Muslims in the Greek capital: From migration to religious organisation |
| John Muir | The construction of a dam in Turkey: An engineer’s reflections on his experiences |
| TASG Sixteenth Spring Symposium at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, 23 April 2005 | |
| Speakers | |
| John Martin | Turco-British encounters 1920: A view from the Royal Navy |
| Dr Halim Kara | Self and nation in the autobiographical writings of Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu (1889-1974) |
| David Barchard | A concise history of turcophobia in the 19th and 20th centuries |
| Dr Aslı Niyazioğlu | Imperial visions: Mehmed II and his Topkapı Palace |
| TASG Seventeenth Spring Symposium at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, 22 April 2006 | |
| Speakers | |
| John Martin | Espionage in Ankara: Operation Cicero |
| Professor Clement Dodd | Cyprus: Turkey’s nemesis? |
| Dan van der Wat | SMS Goeben: The ship that changed the world |
| Andrew Finkel | The anatomy of an ‘asparagas’ – or why Turkish newspapers sometimes lie |
| TASG Eighteenth Spring Symposium at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, 21 April 2007 | |
| Speakers | |
| Osman Ertekün | THE GOVERNMENT OF CYPRUS: FACT OR FICTION? |
| Maureen Freely | ORHAN’S İSTANBUL: A TRANSLATOR’S REFLECTIONS |
| Nanor Kenderian | REPRESENTING THE TURK IN ARMENIAN LITERATURE: HAGOP OSHAGAN (1883 – 1948) |
| Dr Kerem Öktem | THE KURDS: ‘TRAPPED MINORITY’ OR ‘AGENTS OF CHANGE’ IN CONTEMPORARY TURKEY? |
| TASG Nineteenth Spring Symposium at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, 19 April 2008 | |
| Speakers | |
| Prof Gerald MacLean | Courting the Porte: Early Anglo-Ottoman Diplomacy |
| Ateş Orga | Irfan Orga’s “Portrait of a Turkish Family”: |
| Genesis of a literary masterpiece | |
| Prof Salahi Sonyel | British policy during the Cyprus crisis, 1974-1975 |
| Prof Clement Dodd | The Orient Express |
| TASG Twentieth Spring Symposium at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, 18 April 2009 | |
| Speakers | |
| John Martin | Franz von Löher: A German Foray into Ottoman Cyprus 1875 |
| Prof Richard Sakwa | Russia and Turkey: Parallel Destinies |
| Dr Brian Beeley | Postal Rivalries in the Late Ottoman Empire |
| Stephen Parkin | An Italian in Istanbul: Edmondo De Amici’s ‘Constantinople’ |
| TASG Twenty-first Spring Symposium at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, 17 April 2010 | |
| Speakers | |
| Laurent Mignon | Forbidden Love: Vartan Paşa and Zafer Hanım |
| Dan van der Vat | Winston Churchill’s Greatest Failure:The Dardanelles Disaster in 1915 |
| Ruth Christie | Reading from her translated Turkish poetry |
| Gareth Winrow | Turkey’s role as an energy transit state |
| John MacGinnis | The Ziyaret Tepe Archaeological Project: |
| Excavating a Provincial Capital of the Assyrian Empire | |
| TASG Twenty-second Spring Symposium at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, 7 May 2011 | |
| Speakers | |
| Metin Heper | Some Thoughts on Currently Conflictual Issues in Turkey |
| William Park | The Origins, Nature and Prospects of Turkish Foreign Policy |
| under Ahmet Davutoğlu | |
| Deniz Duru | Coexistence in Burgaz, Princes Islands of Istanbul: Living |
| and Negotiating with Ethnic, Class and Religious Differences | |
| Figen Phelps | Dame Ninette Valois and Turkish Ballet |
| Özlem Güçlü | New Cinema of Turkey: What is ‘new’? Why is it not ‘Turkish’? |