Sabancı University Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and Gender and Women’s Studies Forum realized the first graduate student conference in memory of Dicle Koğacıoğlu on October 23, 2010, at Karaköy Communication Center. The aim of this award was to promote successful current academic research on Turkey’s society and culture with a gender focus among young scholars and graduate students.
28 articles from 16 different universities were submitted to Dicle Koğacıoğlu Article Award; Ankara University, Bilgi University, Bilkent University, Boğaziçi University; Dokuz Eylül University, European Inter-University Human Rights Institution, Galatasaray University, Hacettepe University, İstanbul Technical University, İstanbul University, Marmara University, Mimar Sinan University, Muğla University, Middle East Technical University, Radboud University, Sabancı University and York University.
A preliminary committee composed of academicians from Sabancı University assessed the 28 submitted articles and selected 12 of them to be evaluated anonymously by the final jury. Ayşe Öncü and Akşin Somel from Sabancı University; Meltem Ahıska and Nüket Esen from Boğaziçi University and Fatmagül Berktay from İstanbul University who were the members of the final jury, evaluated the 12 articles anonymously and determined the three award winning papers. The jury also found three articles to be worthy of presentation at the student conference.
The first prize was awarded to Özlem Ezer from York University and to her article titled “Bir'in ve Dil'in Hegemonyasından Kurtulmak: Yaşam Yazımında Çokseslilik”. The second prize was awarded to Doğu Durgun from Sabancı University for his article “Eşcinsel Mekanlar: Erkek Eşcinsellerin Toplumsal Cinsiyet Kurulumunun Heteronormativite ile İlişkisi” and finally the third prize was awarded to Meral Akbaş from Middle East Technical University for her article “Dört Duvarın Arasında Gül(ebil)mek: ‘Cop Dansı’na, ‘Lasonil’e, ‘Tam Mahkemelik Morluklar’a Dair”.
At the student conference three sessions were held. At the first session “Thinking Gender Over Space” Avşar Gürpınar and Doğu Durgun presented their articles in which Ayfer Bartu Candan from Boğaziçi University was the discussant. The second session discussed by Bertil Emrah Odel from Koç University was titled “The Interaction of Law and Gender” and the two presentators were Nezihat Bakar and Olcay Karacan. The last session called “Gender Over Language” was discussed by Hülya Adak from Sabancı University and Özlem Ezer and Meral Akbaş were the presantators of this panel.
Following the student conference an award ceremony was held at the Karaköy Communication Center with the participation of the president Nihat Berker; Dicle Koğacıoğlu’s family, colleagues and students.
