Of Dark Pasts and Pipe Dreams: The Turkish University

At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Department of History we offer a course called “MIT and Slavery.” It is taught by Professor Craig S. Wilder who wrote a book about the intertwined history of the American universities and slavery. How this course came to be illuminates important changes in American academia in the last decade or so. It is also extremely inspiring. As an Armenian from Turkey who works on the history of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey, I have observed this wave of awareness and action with admiration. Even though this American awakening is long overdue, and the current level of action is not enough, the process opened my eyes to the possibility of doing otherwise. “Doing otherwise” not only in terms of institutions but also in terms of questioning the historical conditions that enabled certain types of knowledge(s) to be produced while inhibiting others.