Sweet Confusion

MAY 19 CONFERENCE PROGRAM

13.00- 16.00 PANEL I

Presentations on Turkish Cinema of the 60s and Neighboring Contexts - Nadire Mater, Zeynep Dadak, Fatih Özgüven, Ahmet Gürata, Dimitris Eleftheriotis (video conference)

16.30- 19.30 PANEL II

Presentations on Armenian Cinema of the 60s and Neighboring Contexts - Hrach Bayadyan, Keti Chukhrov, Nazareth Karoyan, Siranush Dvoyan, Vigen Galstyan

PANEL I

Turkish Cinema of the 60s and Neighboring Contexts
The panel on Turkish Cinema will focus on a wide array of issues concerning the historical and aesthetic contexts of the period in relation to 60s’ culture. Nadire Mater will present an overall introduction on significant trajectories of the 60s in the political and cultural realm in and outside Turkey. Ahmet Gürata will focus on one of the most significant classics of 60s’ Turkish cinema, Gurbet Kuşları [Birds of Exile], and discuss how social realism was incorporated within the Turkish context in relation to the political discourses of the period, particularly around issues such as national cinema, migration and class. Zeynep Dadak will expand on the most prevalent of genres in classical Turkish cinema, the melodrama, in relation to the musical, which has significant affects on the later periods of cinema in Turkey in retrospect. Fatih Özgüven will have a close look at one of the exceptional comedies of the period, Bir Gecelik Gelin [One Night Bride], in relation to various cultural influences and representations. Finally, Dimitris Eleftheriotis will present a complementary talk on a neighboring context, Greek popular culture and cinema of the 60s in relation to the manifestations of cosmopolitanism that also partly refers to certain overlapping moments with Turkish cinema.

PANEL II

Presentations on Armenian Cinema of the 60s and Neighboring Contexts
The Armenian Cinema segment will represent a wide range of aspects regarding the historical, political, social and theoretical contexts of the 60s in Soviet Armenia illustrating the situation particularly by comparing the films to the literary works they were based on. In overviewing the trajectory of the 60s and the 70s Armenian films, Vigen Galstyan will focus on the importance of the ‘conflicted’ aesthetic of Armenian cinema as a particular example of alternative expressions of late modernity. Siranush Dvoyan will discuss how the main narratives of the literature and cinema of the 60s create specific tensions between collective and personal individualities through the example of Erankyuni [Triangle], both the film and the novel. Hrach Bayadyan will compare two literary texts, including the script and film Menq enq, mer sarery [We and our mountains], attempting to analyze the complex question of censorship in film and literature of the 60s, in addition to reviewing the widely used concept of ‘national cinema’ in the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. Keti Chukhrov will illustrate how the ethical deed and ethical transformation of an individual as a means of post-Stalinist social reconstruction became an indispensible part of the narrative both in Soviet cinema and literature of the 60s and the 70s, around the concepts of political emancipation, equality, the future of socialism. Finally, Nazareth Karoyan will review the three key social and cultural contexts of the Soviet Armenian 60’s: the general geopolitical and historical context, the recurrences in the theoretical discourses of the second half of the 20th century and the impact of the 60s’ social-political and cultural transformations on the Armenian culture localized in the Soviet camp.

BIOGRAPHIES

Hrach Bayadyan
Hrach Bayadyan is a cultural critic and lecturer at Media and Cultural Studies at Yerevan State University. His research interests are particularly focused on post-Soviet media culture, urban spaces and post-Soviet/post-colonial relationships.

Keti Chukhrov
Keti Chukhrov is a cultural critic and associate professor of Art Theory and Cultural Studies at Russian State University for the Humanities. Her recent book To Be - to Perform: ‘Theatre’ in the Philosophic Criticism of Art, was published in 2011.

Zeynep Dadak
Zeynep Dadak is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Cinema Studies at New York University, and lectures on cinema at various universities. She has been an editorial board member of and also writes for Altyazı magazine. She is currently working on her first feature length film Mavi Dalga [The Blue Wave], which she will co-direct with Merve Kayan.

Siranush Dvoyan
Siranush Dvoyan is a literary critic and a Comparative Literature lecturer at Yerevan State University. Her research interests include the culture of Armenian communities in post-Soviet realms, new diasporic experiences and the revolutionary articulations in literature.

Dimitris Eleftheriotis
Dimitris Eleftheriotis is a Reader in Film and Television Studies and Head of Theatre, Film and Television Studies at the University of Glasgow. Current projects include an article on childhood in Emir Kusturica’s ‘Yugoslavian’ period, a monograph on Film and Cosmopolitanism and a special issue of Interactions on Contemporary Greek Culture.

Vigen Galstyan
Vigen Galstyan is a cinema critic, photography theorist and works as an Assistant Curator at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. He is also the co-founder of ReArk Architectural Research Center, Yerevan.

Ahmet Gürata
Ahmet Gürata teaches at the Department of Communication and Design, Bilkent University. He has published research on the history of Turkish cinema, reception, remakes and documentary in anthologies and journals. He regularly contributes to magazines on politics and culture, bir+bir and Express.

Nazareth Karoyan
Nazareth Karoyan is an art critic, curator and the president of AICA-Armenia. He was the co-curator of Armenian National Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale, 2011.

Nadire Mater
Nadire Mater is the advisor of Bianet and the chairperson of IPS Communications Foundation. She has a rights-based approach to journalism and has been working for Bianet for 12 years. Her recent book Sokak Güzeldir: 1968’de Ne Oldu? [The Street is Beautiful: What Happened in 1968?] got published in 2009.

Fatih Özgüven
Fatih Özgüven taught cinema and literature at İstanbul Bilgi University Cinema and TV Department and Bosphorus University. He is currently writing weekly film reviews for Radikal. He recently published a short story titled Hep Yazmak İsteyenlerin Hikâyeleri [Stories of Those Who Always Wanted to Write] (2010).