The WATS Workshop…

One of the most controversial and politically corrupted topics in modern historical scholarship has been the investigation of ethnic and religious conflict and the state treatment of minorities in the last decades of the Ottoman Empire, particularly the experience of its Armenian subjects. The repercussions of the massacres and deportations of 1915 continue to resonate far beyond the academy. Yet for too long a time many scholars have avoided engaging in a dispassionate and balanced treatment of this topic that might illuminate the causes, progress, and effects of the tragedy that befell the Armenians, other Ottoman peoples, and the empire itself.

The Workshop for Armenian and Turkish Scholarship (WATS) is an informal, cooperative attempt to address this problem by providing a regular forum for the presentation of new research, discussion and reflection in an atmosphere of mutual trust and respect.

WATS is based at the University of Michigan and its activities are financed by academic institutions.