WATS Related Projects

The Akn/Egin Project

During informal discussions at the Fourth Workshop for Armenian/Turkish Scholarship in Salzburg, Austria (April, 2005), the participants agreed that the workshop process had succeeded in developing a healthy environment for the joint exploration of the history of Armenian/Turkish relations. The Workshop had achieved progress in overcoming the problems of having had two histories for one past.

The participants supported the idea of a WATS sponsored mini-project, the AKN/Egin Project, the study of a non-controversial, relatively small town in Anatolia where Armenians, Turks and others had lived. The project would be conducted jointly by a group of scholars, Armenians, Turks, and others on the story of the town from its origins to the present. This collaboration would permit the use of a variety of sources in all languages as well as experiment with methodologies to integrate the various narratives on the past on the small scale.

The Akn/Egin Project is in its planning stages and will be led by Professors Muge Gocek and Gerard Libaridian of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. WATS is looking for financial support to expedite it.