The Bilkent History Graduate Symposium, organized by the Bilkent Historical Society and the Department of History, was held on May 7–8. Thirty-five graduate students from across the world presented their papers at the symposium, which had the theme of “Mobility.”
The symposium opened with a welcoming by Assoc. Prof. Mehmet Kalpaklı. Acclaimed historian Assoc. Prof. Teresa Shawcross from Princeton University then delivered a keynote speech titled “Migrants from the Eastern Mediterranean to Western Europe, 14th–16th Centuries.” The participants examined various aspects of mobility, including physical mobility in panels and papers themed around trade, exile, battle tactics, pilgrimages and individual travel as well as more abstract aspects such as mobility’s effects on a person or a group’s emotions or its effects on political thought. Over the course of two days, graduate students met scholars and other students and received valuable feedback on their work.
This was the fourth consecutive year that the Bilkent Historical Society and the Department of History jointly organized a graduate symposium.
