Conference on Nazım Hikmet at Brown University

ISTANBUL

The US conference is devoted to the life and work of Nazım Hikmet.

Brown University will be hosting the first conference in the United States devoted to the life and work of Nazım Hikmet, one of the greatest poets in modern Turkish history. 

The conference titled “Nazım Hikmet: One Poet, One Nation, One World,” which will take place Feb. 11 between 9 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., will focus particularly on the global impact of his life and work, which have served as an inspiration to people, especially in the Middle East, aspiring to self-determination as they emerged from the ruins of empire. 

“At the same time, because his birth as a poet coincided with the birth both of his nation and of his language (written Turkish), his life and work raise the issue of the relationship between nation-building and a national language,” Brown University said in a statement. “And in an age when so many countries with diverse populations look poised to make the leap from one-man or one-party rule to pluralistic nationhood, the Turkish model appears to be increasingly appealing, and Hikmet’s experience with precisely that transition, documented and dramatized as it is in his poetry, might be another point of discussion.”

Although the primary points of discussion at the conference will concern the international influence, whether poetic or political, of the historic figure, no discussion of him would be complete without an acknowledgment of the central role the commanding moral presence of his life and poetry continues to play in Turkey and on the world stage, said the statement.