Let us now take a look at
"Taking A Stand Against The Turkish Government's Denial of the
Armenian Genocide and Scholarly Corruption in the Academy"
Letter signed by prominent academic scholars and historians.
There are 107 names on this list and looks impressive for the
unwary. Deleting the names, let us look at the professions/specialties of
these people:
Poet; Professor of English, University of Massachusetts)
writer)
Professor of History, College of William and Mary)
Former Dean of the Graduate School of Journalism, University of
California at Berkeley)
Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania)
Poet; Professor of English, Colgate University)
Director, Armenian Studies Program, and Marie Manoogian Professor of
Armenian Language and Literature, University of Michigan)
Professor of Anthropology, George Mason University)
Professor of Holocaust Studies, Hebrew University, Jerusalem)
Elliott Professor of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley)
Poet; Charles A. Dana Professor of English Emeritus, Colgate
University)
University Professor, Georgetown University)
Poet)
Professor of Comparative Literature, Yale University)
Professor of Religion, Colgate University)
Professor of Theology and Ethics Emeritus, Pacific School of Religion)
Professor of History, Pacific Lutheran University)
Writer; Fairchild Professor of Literature, Colgate University)
Professor of Comparative Literature, Emory University)
Director, Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide, Jerusalem)
Pastor Emeritus, Riverside Church, NYC)
Distinguished University Professor, University of Maryland)
Associate Professor of Middle East Languages and Cultures, Columbia
University)
Director, Genocide Study Project, H.F. Guggenheim Foundation)
Sterling Professor of History, Yale University)
Professor of Political Science, University of Massachusetts)
Poet)
Writer)
Writer)
Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics,
University of Chicago Divinity School)
Professor of Sociology, Yale University)
Harvard School of Public Health; Emeritus Professor of Sociology,
University of Michigan)
Professor of Slavic & Comparative Literature and Harry Levin
Professor of Literature, Harvard University)
Executive Director, Institute for the Study of Genocide, John Jay
College of Criminal Justice)
Professor of Comparative Literature Emerita, City University of New
York)
Poet; Professor of English, George Mason University)
Professor of History, Indiana University)
Professor of Afro-American Studies, Harvard University)
Professor of Psychology, Harvard University)
Kenney Distinguished Visiting Professor of Theology, Georgetown
University)
Poet; Distinguished Professor of English, Brooklyn College)
Professor of Theology and Ethics, Loyola College)
Professor of English Emeritus, The City College of New York)
Professor of English, William Paterson College)
Psychotherapist; Consultant in early childhood education)
Poet; Boylston Professor of Rhetoric, Harvard University; Nobel
Laureate)
Sterling Professor of Comparative Literature, Yale University)
Poet; Boylston Professor of Rhetoric, Harvard University; Nobel
Laureate)
Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School)
Writer)
Professor of Political Science Emeritus, University of Vermont)
Professor of Political Science, Virginia Commonwealth University)
Emeritus Professor of Psychology, New York University)
Professor of Armenian and Near Eastern History, UCLA)
Crashaw Professor of English, Colgate University)
Assistant Professor of English, Princeton University)
Professor of Jewish History and Thought, Cornell University)
Writer)
Instructor in History, Warwick University)
Poet)
Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology, John Jay College
of Criminal Justice and The Graduate School of the City University of New York)
Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies, Emory
University)
Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School)
Writer)
Professor of Sociology, Southwest State University, Minnesota)
Professor of Philosophy, Southern Connecticut University)
Writer)
Professor of Political Science, Purdue University)
Dag Hammarskjold Professor, Rutgers Law School)
Writer)
Playwright)
Writer)
Writer)
Writer)
Playwright)
Director, Spenser Institute)
Professor of History, Sarah Lawrence College)
Sidney Hellman Professor of European History, University of California,
Berkeley)
Professor of History, George Washington University)
Writer)
Henry Ford II Professor of Social Science, Harvard University)
Professor of Nutrition, Community Health, and Pediatrics, Tufts
University)
William R. Kenan Professor of Religous Studies Emeritus, University of
Virginia)
Writer)
Poet)
Professor of Government, College of William and Mary)
Stephen Colwell Professor of Christian Ethics, Princeton Theological
Seminary)
Professor of History, John Jay College of Criminal Justice & The
Graduate Center, City University of New York)
Writer)
Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago)
Professor of Political Science, University of Michigan)
Professor of Philosophy, Colgate University)
Professor of Religion, Colgate University)
Writer)
Writer)
Professor of English, Wesleyan University)
Professor of History, Georgetown University)
Writer)
Writer)
Poet, Professor of English, Boston University; Nobel Laureate)
Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, University College, Dublin, Ireland)
Playwright)
Lecturer in Child Welfare, School of Social Work, Haifa University,
Israel)
Professor of Sociology, Haifa University, Israel) Cornel West
Writer; Professor of English, Bucknell University)
Cooley Professor of Peace Studies and Professor of Sociology, Colgate
University)
Professor Emeritus of History, Boston University)
Now, let us keep only those lines that contain the word
"history:"
1. Professor of History, College of William and Mary)
2. Professor of History, Pacific Lutheran University)
3. Sterling Professor of History, Yale University)
4. Professor of History, Indiana University)
5. Professor of Armenian and Near Eastern History, UCLA)
6. Professor of Jewish History and Thought, Cornell University)
7. Instructor in History, Warwick University)
8. Professor of History, Sarah Lawrence College)
9. Sidney Hellman Professor of European History, University of
California, Berkeley)
10. Professor of History, George Washington University)
11. Professor of History, John Jay College of Criminal Justice &
The Graduate Center, City University of New York)
12. Professor of History, Georgetown University)
13. Professor Emeritus of History, Boston University)
Out of the 107 names in the list, only 13 people seem to have some professional experience (training and research) in history.
Now, let us look at these people more carefully:
1. James Axtell , Professor of History, College of William and
Mary)
2. Christopher Browning , Professor of History, Pacific Lutheran
University)
3. David Brion Davis, Sterling Professor of History, Yale University)
4. Lawrence J. Friedman, Professor of History, Indiana University)
5. Richard G. Hovannisian, Professor of Armenian and Near Eastern
History, UCLA)
6. Steven T. Katz, Professor of Jewish History and Thought, Cornell
University)
7. Mark Levene, Instructor in History, Warwick University)
8. Francis B. Randall, Professor of History, Sarah Lawrence College)
9. Nicholas V. Riasanovsky, Sidney Hellman Professor of European
History, University of California, Berkeley)
10. Leo P. Ribuffo, Professor of History, George Washington University)
11. Charles B. Strozier, Professor of History, John Jay College of
Criminal Justice & The Graduate Center, City University of New York)
12. Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, Professor of History, Georgetown University)
13. Howard Zinn, Professor Emeritus of History, Boston University)
Now, let us focus on the training and specialties of these people:
1. American Indian history and the history of higher
education
2. American historian of the Holocaust.
3. American intellectual and cultural historian, and a leading authority
on slavery and abolition in the Western world
4. American Cultural History, U.S. and European Intellectual History,
Philanthropy in American Culture, War and Society, Biography, and Baseball
History.
5. Armenian zealot (the only historian in the list that has in depth
knowledge of the Turkish-Armenian conflict; unfortunately a nationalist and not
objective)
6. Jewish and Holocaust Studies.
Katz is reported to say that the Holocaust is the only genocide that has
occurred in history, and defines "Holocaust" to include only
"the travail of European Jewry" and not other victims of the Nazis.
He also had some ethical problems:
Shortly afterward it was reported that Katz had been disciplined by
Cornell for two matters. Katz had misrepresented how close a book he was
writing (The Holocaust in Historical Context) was to publication. In documents
dating to 1983 Katz had claimed that the book's publication was imminent on
Harvard University Press, while it actually only appeared in 1994 on Oxford
University Press. A Cornell report found that Katz had "knowingly and
deliberately misrepresented his claims of completed and published scholarly
works." Katz was also punished by Cornell (his salary was frozen for
years) because during a 1989 sabbatical he had accepted a paid teaching
position at the University of Pennsylvania, in violation of Cornell policy.
Katz maintained his innocence, but in the wake of much criticism from within
the Jewish community and Holocaust museum board he stepped down in March 1995.
(Wikipedia)
7. His sources: Dadrian and Hovannisian
8. Little information
9. Russian history and European intellectual history
10. 20th century US history and American intellectual history
11. A practicing psychoanalyst,
has training as a research candidate at the Chicago Institute for
Psychoanalysis and clinical psychoanalytic training at TRISP in New York City
12. Expert on the history, diplomacy, and politics of U.S.-China
relations and on the cross-strait relationship between the People's Republic of
China and Taiwan
13. History of the United States
I have looked at these persons' resumes carefully; not a single one of them
has expertise on Ottoman or Turkish or Kurdish history. Not a single one of
them can read Turkish, not to mention Ottoman Turkish and Ottoman archives. The
opinions of these people on the Turkish-Armenian conflict, I have to say, are
worthless.
