The Alevi Encyclopedia participated in the First International Congress of Alevi Studies, held in Çorum, Türkiye, on 5–7 June 2026. This wide-ranging academic gathering in the field of Alevi Studies marked an important milestone for the Alevi Encyclopedia. The congress was recorded as the first major international academic event in Türkiye attended by the Encyclopedia.
On the first day of the congress, Friday, 5 June 2026, the first session, held in Hall 1 between 13:00 and 14:15, was devoted to collective knowledge production, archiving, and digitalisation in Alevi Studies. Chaired by Assoc. Prof. Dr Cemal Salman, the session included a presentation by Dr Hayal Hanoğlu entitled “Collective Knowledge Production in Alevi Studies: The Alevi Encyclopedia,” in which she introduced the Alevi Encyclopedia. The presentation addressed the Encyclopedia’s founding process, publication principles, editorial structure, scientific advisory network, and the main activities carried out during its first year. The presentation attracted considerable interest from the participants.
The same session also discussed other important projects concerning the archiving of Alevi knowledge and its transfer into digital formats. Prof. Dr Markus Dressler and Dr Hayal Hanoğlu delivered a presentation entitled “The Alevi Archive: The Ethno-History of Alevi Communities in Anatolia, 16th–20th Centuries.” Assoc. Prof. Dr Nail Elhan presented the “Alevi Periodicals Project: Periodicals, Memory, and the Construction of Modern Alevi Identity.” Prof. Dr Tuncay Bülbül, in his presentation entitled “From Sealed Word to Open Data: The Abdal Digital Ecosystem as a New Paradigm in Alevi-Bektashi Studies,” offered reflections on digital archives, open data, and new research possibilities.
In this respect, the first session provided a strong academic framework for discussing the collection, preservation, classification, digitalisation, and public circulation of Alevi knowledge. The topics addressed in the session also directly overlapped with the core approach of the Alevi Encyclopedia. The transformation of Alevi knowledge from printed publications to digital archives was discussed not merely as a technical process of transfer, but around broader questions of who produces this knowledge, how it is classified, in which public spheres it circulates, and according to which academic criteria it is made accessible.
In Dr Hayal Hanoğlu’s presentation, it was emphasised that the Alevi Encyclopedia is not merely an online publication platform. It was stated that the Encyclopedia is an independent knowledge institution that aims to produce Alevi knowledge in an academic, collective, open-access, and multilingual manner. The entries published during the project’s first year, its symposiums and workshops, video recordings, oral history activities, digital archive aims, international scientific advisory board, and the institutional identity it has gained through its ISIL code were among the main points highlighted in the presentation.
The congress programme also clearly demonstrated the interdisciplinary breadth that Alevi Studies has reached today. Over the two days, a wide range of topics was discussed in different sessions, including secularism, secularisation, Alevi identity, the Ocak system, rituals, literature, cinema, memory politics, digital platforms, Alevi publishing, diaspora, law, education, sacred places, ecology, and social transformation. This diversity showed that Alevi Studies has become an international and interdisciplinary academic field intersecting with history, anthropology, sociology, law, theology, literary studies, media studies, digital humanities, and memory studies.
One of the notable aspects of the congress for the Alevi Encyclopedia was that many of the researchers in the programme were connected to the Encyclopedia’s editorial board, scientific advisory board, or wider circle of authors. Throughout the two-day congress, academics from the Alevi Encyclopedia network took part in many presentations. This strong representation became a concrete indication of the academic network, collective production capacity, and institutional visibility that the Encyclopedia has developed in the field of Alevi Studies within a short period of time.
The Alevi Encyclopedia’s participation in this congress in Çorum showed that the project gained significant academic visibility during its first year of activity. In its future work, the Encyclopedia will continue to contribute to the production of Alevi knowledge according to academic standards, through a pluralistic approach and the principle of open access. It will also continue to support new research, digital archive initiatives, and international academic collaborations in the field of Alevi Studies.
