The Istanbul Seminars are a week long encounter amongst senior and junior faculty, young independent scholars and Ph.D. candidates in the fields of social sciences, political theory, history of ideas, sociology, legal studies and religious studies.

Our hope – and goal – is to strengthen the academic value of the Seminars also through a relaxed and lively get-together, involving scholars, students, as well as anyone interested. Therefore our meetings are open to public and the academic discussions will be accompanied by collateral social events.

The Seminars are jointly sponsored and organized by Reset-Dialogues on Civilizations and Istanbul Bilgi University, one of Turkey’s youngest and intellectually most ambitious universities. They will be held at Istanbul Bilgi University, and in 2008 they will take place from Monday, June 2 through Friday, June 6.
In order to develop program and contents of the Seminars, an executive committee has been established . Its members are:
Seyla Benhabib, Yale University – USA; Giancarlo Bosetti, Reset Magazine – Italy; Alessandro Ferrara, University of Rome “Tor Vergata” – Italy; Abdou Filali-Ansary, Aga Khan University – U.K.; Nina zu Fürstenberg, Reset-Dialogues on Civilizations – Italy; Ferda Keskin, Istanbul Bilgi University – Turkey; Nadia Urbinati, Columbia University – USA.
Emrah Efe Cakmak, graduate at Columbia University, is the executive committee secretary.