Author to speak today on the politics of memory

Meline Toumani, an award-winning writer and international journalist, will speak about identity, memory and the politics of memory in a talk today (Wednesday, March 18) in the Lower Galleries of the Zoellner Arts Center.

The event, which is free and open to the public, is being sponsored by the Visiting Lecturers’ Committee and the department of international relations.

Toumani’s first book, There Was and There Was Not: A Journey Through Hate and Possibility in Turkey, Armenia and Beyond, was published by Metropolitan Books in November 2014 and was a finalist for the 2014 National Book Critics Circle Award.

There Was and There Was Not—a phrase that throughout the Middle East signals the start of a fable—explores the clashing narratives created by history. In this nonfiction work that blends memoir, essay and reporting, Toumani, an ethnic Armenian raised in the U.S., examines the legacy of the Armenian Genocide of 1915.

On her website, Toumani writes of her book: “An Armenian-American goes to Turkey in a ‘love thine enemy’ experiment that becomes a transformative reflection on how we use—and abuse—our personal histories.”

According to her official bio, Toumani has long been frustrated both by the decades-long campaigns by Armenians around the world to convince governments to acknowledge the genocide and by Turkish efforts to prevent such recognition.

In addition to her book, Toumani has written about politics, ideas, books and music for The New York Times Sunday Magazine and culture pages, Harper’s, The Nation, n+1, Salon, The Boston Globe, GlobalPost, The National and Travel + Leisure. As an international reporter, she has worked in Turkey, Armenia, Georgia and Russia.

In 2002 and 2003, she was the coordinator of the Russian American Journalism Institute in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, and in 2007, she was a journalism fellow in residence at the Institute or Human Sciences in Vienna.

Her work has been anthologized in Istanbul: The Collected Traveler, and included in The New York Times Presents Smarter by Sunday: 52 Weekends of Essential Knowledge for the Curious Mind. She has been an invited speaker in academic and private settings, and a commentator for The Wall Street Journal Online, Deutsche Welle Radio, Russia Today and Pacifica Radio.  In addition to her freelance work, she has held staff editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, KQED Public Media, and GreatSchools.

Toumani graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with high honors in English and public policy, and holds a master’s degree in journalism from the Cultural Reporting and Criticism Program at New York University.