received from Dr. Yeliz Teber (Wolfson College, University of Oxford)
Event: KIZILBASH/ALEVISM-BEKTASHISM SYMPOSIUM: New Corpora, Databases, and Digital Tools in Ottoman and Contemporary Contexts
Taking place: Friday 22 May 2026
Location: Wolfson College, University of Oxford
Registration: by e-mail to the symposium convener Dr. Yeliz Teber (yeliz.teber@ames.ox.ac.uk). All welcome.
Full programme: can be downloaded here
Event Overview
The Alevis (historically known as Kizilbash) and Bektashis constitute the largest religious minority in Sunni-majority Turkey, drawing from diverse ethnic backgrounds, including Turkish, Kurdish, and Zaza, with diasporas across Europe and North America. Rooted in an esoteric form of Sufi mysticism and the veneration of Caliph Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of Prophet Muhammad, the Kizilbash/Alevis-Bektashis have often been perceived as ‘heretical’ and persecuted during both the Ottoman and Turkish Republican periods. Despite the community’s marginalisation, Kizilbash/Alevi-Bektashi studies have grown rapidly in recent years, challenging some of the dominant narratives in broader Islamic, Ottoman, and Turkish scholarship.
In response to this growth, the Kizilbash/Alevism-Bektashism Symposium provides a rare opportunity to bring together established and emerging scholars of Alevi-Bektashi studies from the UK and abroad at the University of Oxford. It is the first of its kind globally to focus on digitally engaged projects on Kizilbash/Alevi-Bektashi material culture and heritage in Ottoman and contemporary contexts. Over the past five years, scholarship has increasingly moved towards large-scale digital research methods, including the digitisation of historical sources such as manuscripts and documents, mapping villages and sacred sites, conducting digitally informed ethnographic fieldwork, and documenting intangible cultural heritage such as ritual songs and dances. Given these exciting developments, this timely symposium is organised to showcase and connect new and ambitious projects around several key research questions:
What elements of Kizilbash/Alevi-Bektashi history and present-day experiences have only become visible through the digital corpora, databases, and tools we now possess? What do these projects
reveal about the historical trajectory of Kizilbash/Alevi-Bektashi traditions? How can we assess lost Alevi-Bektashi materials, and what does this loss reveal about power, voice, and memory? How have rituals, cultural practices, and intellectual life shaped the community’s collective identity? What traces of violence have marked Kizilbash/Alevi-Bektashi history and self-perception? Finally, in what ways has modern scholarship framed and influenced contemporary understandings of the community in Turkey and the diaspora?
Generously funded by Oxford’s Khalili Research Centre and Wolfson College, as well as the Past & Present Society, this one-day symposium will convene ten papers to foster collaboration and enhance visibility at the vibrant research environment of Wolfson College on 22 May 2026.
Past & Present logo, 2017 all rights reserved