Kurdish Studies Network

The Initiative for Mesopotamia Kurdish Academy will organize a meeting to discuss the formation of a global Kurdish academy that can shape, support, coordinate and promote scholarly research and debates on the issues related to the Kurds and Kurdistan. The first meeting of our initiative will take place at Middlesex University the Burroughs, Hendon London NW44BT.We propose two dates for the first meeting (15th December 2018 or 19th January 2019). Please participate via the doodle link below for identifying the date that could be the most convenient day and time four you.

https://doodle.com/poll/337kbcprkzfm2ruu

The Initiative for Mesopotamia Kurdish Academy

 

Objectives:

As a short run objective, the Initiative for Mesopotamia Kurdish Academy has been formed in order to support, coordinate and promote academic research by young scholars including but not limited to masters and Ph.D. students in the fields such as social sciences, humanities, psychology and linguistics. In the long run, however, the initiative bears the ambition of subsuming its activities under the banner of an academy.

 

The initiative, in order to achieve its short run goals, will assist researchers develop their projects in dialogue with the latest conceptual and methodological debates in the world academies; it will offer them assistance regarding sources and proposal design / funding opportunities. With these goals in mind, the initiative will form academic counseling units, organize conferences and offer online interactive presentations / courses.

 

The Initiative for Mesopotamia Kurdish Academy deems it as a priority to develop connections with universities and respected academic institutions. Thereby, it aims to enlarge its objectives vis-à-vis the sources and opportunities that it will manage to reach and create. The ultimate goal of the initiative’s activities is the creation of a Kurdish academy. However, given the instability and political oppression in the countries of the region –where the interests of the initiative are embedded—that deter academic activities, its base will initially be formed in Europe.

 

Organization:

The Initiative for Mesopotamia Kurdish Academy is a global enterprise. It has been created by scholars who are currently based in North America, in Continental Europe, in England and in the Middle East. It is a platform open to scholars from varied institutional backgrounds, different schools of thought and diverse worldviews. The initiative has emerged thanks to the voluntary and complimentary inputs of the participants and will continue to operate as such. The founding initiative aims, on principle, to overcome and go beyond political fragmentation and cleavages that has long taken a toll on Mesopotamia / Kurdish / Kurdistani studies.

 

Founding Activities:

The Initiative for Mesopotamia Kurdish Academy will organize a inaugural convention in October 2018. The date and the place of the meeting will be announced shortly. At this convention, fields and guiding principles of the initiative’s activities will be discussed, and relevant executive units will be formed. A foremost important agenda item will be the creation of financial resources and establishment of a permanent administrative office for the initiative.

 

Following this founding convention in April 2019 the initiative aims to hold its first academic conference with the participation of Ph.D. students specializing in the abovementioned fields. In this meeting the methodological and conceptual aspects of the participants’ research projects will be interactively and dialogically discussed.

 

The Initiative for Mesopotamia Kurdish Academy envisions to hold its first interdisciplinary conference in June 2019. Academic institutions whose foci are in the fields described above will also be invited to the convention. In a special session of the conference the future of the Mesopotamia / Kurdish / Kurdistani studies will be discussed with regards to the experiences and current situation of area studies in the world.

 

All of these meeting will be held at locations in Europe due to current political instability in Kurdistan and consequent concerns about security / safety of participants.

 

This is not an absolute or final program; it will be reshaped according to the participants’ critiques, comments and proposals.

 

Institutional Participants:

Paris Kurdish Institute

Stockholm Kurdish Library

İsmail Beşikçi Foundation

Bruxelles Kurdish Institute

Kurd-Akad