Transnational and Local Miseries: A Practical Guide to Academic Freedom
An Event Addressing Current Sociopolitical Pressures on Higher Education
Event Details
Friday, March 27th, 2025
9:30-11:00 am (Doors open at 9 am with breakfast catering)
University Hall, Alexander G. Ruthven Building, Room 2000
1109 Geddes Ave, Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Event Description
The Davis, Markert, and Nickerson Academic Freedom Lecture Committee (DMNC) invites you to a conversation about political pressures on academic freedom.
The event will feature the work of Dr. Demet Bolat, whose research examines the political, institutional, and epistemological effects of anti-genderism on academia in Turkey. Dr. Bolat was dismissed from her faculty position in 2017 because she signed the 2016 “Academics for Peace” petition (“We will not be a party to this crime”) amid a period of intensified state violence and rights violations, particularly affecting Kurdish civilians. Following her dismissal, she faced multiple legal cases and a ban from public service, and she was unable to work at any academic institution in Turkey.
Dr. Bolat is now pursuing her academic work as the inaugural William and Sally Searle Research Fellow in the Institute for the Humanities’ new Scholars in Exile program. The program provides a one-year residency to a scholar who is living in exile due to war or persecution as the result of their academic work and/or civic engagement. A second year of the scholar’s residency may be supported by collaboration with Academy in Exile (AiE) in Germany. Dr. Bolat will discuss her work as a sociologist and feminist scholar as well as the pressures in Turkey that led her to the Scholars in Exile program.
Joining Dr. Bolat in the discussion will be two U-M faculty who will speak about U-M faculty efforts to address political pressures on academic freedom: U-M Associate Professor Gretchen Keppel-Aleks (Climate and Space, Engineering) and Faculty Senate Chair Derek Peterson (History, LSA). Dr. Keppel-Aleks will speak about the organizing efforts of the local chapter of the AAUP, and practical strategies for academics at U-M facing political scrutiny for their work, or who have concerns about such scrutiny. Dr. Peterson will speak about Faculty Senate efforts toward faculty coalition building, media engagement and training, and political outreach in furtherance of academic freedom.
The event will be on Friday, March 27th at 9:30am, with doors opening at 9am with breakfast foods provided (including breakfast burritos).
This event is part of an ongoing “Conversations on Academic and Intellectual Freedom” series of events organized annually by the Faculty Senate’s DMN Committee. In November 2025, Ruth Ben Ghiat, Professor of History and Italian Studies at New York University, gave this year’s keynote DMN lecture, “Intellectual Freedom in an Authoritarian Age.
Registration
To attend in person, kindly register:
Virtual Attendance
To attend via Zoom, please click on the link below:
Moderator
- Derek Peterson, Faculty Senate Chair, Ali Mazrui Collegiate Professor of History and African Studies, Associate Chair, History, Professor of History and Professor of Afroamerican and African Studies, LSA
Panel
- Demet Bolat, William and Sally Searle Research Fellow, Scholars in Exile, Institute for the Humanities, LSA
- Gretchen Keppel-Aleks, Associate Professor of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering, Engineering, and Associate Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences, LSA
Schedule:
- 9:00: Doors Open (With Breakfast Provided)
- 9:30: Opening Remarks and Introductions: Faculty Senate Chair Derek Peterson
- 9:40: Research Spotlight: William and Sally Searle Research Fellow
- Dr. Demet Bolat, “Academic Freedom as a Feminist Issue: Anti-Genderism and Queer-Feminist Academic Journals in Turkey”
- Audience Q & A
- 10:20: U-M Faculty Efforts to Address Current Sociopolitical Pressures in Higher Education
- Dr. Keppel-Aleks, “The AAUP and Strategies to Address Political Pressures on Academic Freedom”
- Dr. Derek Peterson, “What is Academic Freedom For?”
- 10:40: Panel Discussion
- Panel Q & A on Political Pressures on Academic Freedom
- Closing Remarks, Dr. Derek Peterson
Lecture Series
Conversations on Academic and Intellectual Freedom: Current Issues
DMN Academic and Intellectual Freedom Lecture Committee
2025 DMN Lecture: Ruth Ben Ghiat, Professor of History and Italian Studies at New York University, “Intellectual Freedom in an Authoritarian Age.”
Lecture History: Davis, Markert, Nickerson Lecture on Academic and Intellectual Freedom