After its written encyclopedia entries and the video archive “Yol Önderlerinin Dilinden,” the Alevi Encyclopedia is opening a new field of publication. The Open Lecture Platform aims to present key topics, concepts and current debates in Alevi Studies in an academic, open-access and multilingual format.
The platform is designed to produce reliable, concise and accessible lecture materials that can also be used at university level. The lectures will be prepared by scholars who specialise in Alevi Studies and will be published as 15–25-minute video lectures. The first lectures will be recorded in English and German. For each lecture, a detailed record, abstract and key content information will be published on the Alevi Encyclopedia website in Turkish, English and German.
The first group of lectures will be recorded on 11 July 2026, and the second group on 18 July 2026, in Berlin, at the Berlin Cemevi / CanoCan Films studio. The first contents of the Open Lecture Platform will be published in the fall term of 2026. The series will continue with new lectures in the following academic terms.
The first group of lectures and speakers is as follows:
- Dr Ümit Çetin — Transnational Migration, Settlement and Suicide: A Case Study of Second-Generation Alevi-Kurdish Young Men in London
- Prof Markus Dressler — Alevism as Charismatic Islam
- Dr Ahmet Kerim Gültekin — How to Understand Dersim? Sacred Places, Objects, and Everyday Religious Life in Raa Haqi
- Deniz Ali Gür (PhD candidate) — Bektashism(s) in the Age of Nation-States
- Dr Hayal Hanoğlu — Alevi Women: Between Ritual, Authority, and Lived Experience
- Dr Çiçek İlengiz — Politics of Memory in Kurdish Alevism
- Dr Celia Jenkins — From “Sort of Muslim” to “Proud to Be Alevi”: The Alevi Religion and Identity Project in UK Schools
- Prof Cem Kara — Between Orality and Textuality: The Epistemic Foundations of Alevi Theology
- Dr Mark Soileau — Hacı Bektaş Veli and the Bektashi Traditions
- Dr Zeynep Türkyılmaz — The Dersim Genocide, Kizilbash and the Republican Colonial Fantasies
- Dr Samuel Vock-Verley — Hızır (Xızır) from Traditional to Contemporary Alevism
- Dr Besim Can Zırh — The (Re)Construction of Alevism in the Context of Migration in Europe
The Alevi Encyclopedia Open Lecture Platform aims to strengthen access to academic knowledge on Alevism, to produce lasting teaching materials for universities and independent research contexts, and to create a reliable multilingual educational archive, especially for younger generations.
Further details, lecture titles and speaker profiles will soon be published on the Alevi Encyclopedia website.
