Event Series
Kurdish Studies Series
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Past Events and Podcasts
Kurdish Studies Conference, Weds 11 - Fri 13 June 2025
This interdisciplinary event builds on the conferences held at Sheffield in 2024 and LSE in 2023, and is organised by the Kurdish Studies Series at the LSE Middle East Centre and the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Sheffield.
Register to attend
Iranian Kurdistan Under the Islamic Republic: Change, Revolution, and Resistance (Book Launch)
Monday 3 February | 17:30 - 18:30 GMT | Marouf Cabi, LSE Middle East Centre; Kamran Matin, University of Sussex
Listen on SoundCloud
Watch on YouTube
Bridging Identities: The Cultural Odyssey of Kurdistani Jews (Webinar)
Monday 2 December | 16:00 - 17:00 GMT | Bahar Baser, Durham University; Duygu Atlas; Mesut Alp; Moayed Assaf
Listen on SoundCloud
Watch on YouTube
Women Fighters in the Kurdish National Movement: Transforming Gender Politics and the PKK
Thursday 6 June | 17:00 - 18:00 BST | Mustafa Kemal Topal, Roskilde University in Denmark
Listen on SoundCloud
Kurdish Studies Conference, 22-23 May 2024
This interdisciplinary event builds on the inaugural conference at LSE in 2023 and is organised by the Kurdish Studies Series at the LSE Middle East Centre and the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Sheffield.
Voices That Matter: Kurdish Women at the Limits of Representation in Contemporary Turkey
Thursday 30 November | 18:00 - 19:00 GMT | Marlene Schäfers, Utrecht University
Listen to the recording on SoundCloud
Watch the recording on YouTube
Art and Activism in Iraqi Kurdistan: Feminist Fault Lines, Body Politics and the Struggle for Space
Thursday 5 October | 18:00 - 19:00 BST | Isabel Käser, LSE Middle East Centre; Houzan Mahmoud, Culture Project; Müjge Küçükkeleş, SOAS
Listen to the recording on SoundCloud
Watch the recording on YouTube
Kurdish Studies Conference, 24-25 April 2023
This conference marked the fifth anniversary of the establishment of the Kurdish Studies Series at the Middle East Centre.
Listen to the recording on SoundCloud
Understanding Insurgency: Popular Support for the PKK in Turkey
Thursday 27 October | 17:30 - 18:30 BST | Francis O'Connor, Wageningen University & Research
Listen to the recording on SoundCloud
Watch the recording on Facebook
The Formation of Modern Kurdish Society in Iran
Thursday 17 March | 13:00 - 14:00 GMT | Marouf Cabi, Historian
Listen to the recording
Co-organised with the
Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa, LSE
Second-Generation Liberation Wars: Rethinking Colonialism in Iraqi Kurdistan and Southern Sudan
Thursday 3 March | 13:00 - 14:00 GMT | Yaniv Voller, University of Kent
Listen to the recording
The Kurdish Women's Freedom Movement: Gender, Body Politics and Militant Femininities
Monday 17 January | 13:00-14:00 GMT | Isabel Käser, LSE Middle East Centre
Turkey’s Mission Impossible: War and Peace with the Kurds
Monday 25 October | 15:00 - 16:00 BST | Cengiz Çandar, Journalist
Listen to the recording
A Modern History of the Kurds
Thursday 17 June | 13:00 - 14:00 BST | David McDowall
Listen to the recording
Co-organised with the Kurdish Studies Programme, UCF
Kurds and Yezidis in the Middle East: Shifting Identities, Borders, and the Experience of Minority Communities
Friday 23 April | 15:30-16:30 BST | Majid Hassan Ali, Ilia State University Georgia; Ohannes Kılıçdağı; Güneş Murat Tezcür, University of Central Florida; Arzu Yilmaz, University of Hamburg
Listen to the recording
Mapping Kurdistan: Territory, Self-Determination and Nationalism
Monday 16 November | 13:00 - 14:30 GMT | Zeynep Kaya, LSE Middle East Centre
Methodological Approaches in Kurdish Studies: Theoretical and Practical Insights from the Field
Thursday 21 November | 16:30 - 18:00 | Bahar Baser, Coventry University; Yasin Duman, Coventry University; Francis O'Connor, Peace Research Institute Frankfurt; Mark Sinan Winrow, LSE; Begum Zorlu, City, University of London
The Kurds of Northern Syria: Governance, Diversity and Conflicts
Thursday 5 September | 16:00 –17:30 | Wladimir van Wilgenburg, Journalist and Independent Researcher
The Kurdish Women’s Movement: On Revolution, Militarism and Body Politics
Tuesday 4 June | 16:00 - 17:30 | Isabel Käser, Centre for Gender Studies at SOAS University of London
Islam and Ethnicity in the Kurdish Political Sphere in Turkey
Monday 17 December | 16:00 - 17:30 | Mehmet Kurt, London School of Economics and Yale University
Updating 'A Modern History of the Kurds'
Tuesday 23 October | 16:00 - 17:30 | David McDowall