Author and Journalist Nicole Pope discusses her book: Honor Killings in the Twenty-First Century

Author and Journalist Nicole Pope discusses her book: Honor Killings in the Twenty-First Century

When: Wednesday, February 15, 5:45-7pm

Where: Funger Hall Room 220

Nicole Pope will host a conversation about her new book about honor killings and violence against women.  The book examines honor-based violence, its roots and its evolution, as well as the ongoing struggle to eradicate it in Turkey, Pakistan and other countries, including Western European nations.  Thousands of women are murdered every year by close relatives for allegedly violating an unwritten social code or rebelling against the patriarchal order. “Honor” killings and other harmful practices such as forced marriage, child marriage, and bride exchange have been recorded for centuries. Under growing pressure from human rights activists, these old traditions have also evolved and adapted to modern circumstances.  Pope will talk about the process of interviewing women and researching crimes that are often hidden and obscured as simply local customs. 

As one reviewer said of Pope’s work, “In this powerfully written book, Nicole Pope takes a comparative look at so-called honor killings, searching out the patterns and triggers that cause families and relatives to kill women suspected of sexual misconduct or even just defiance or disobedience. Pope compares honor killings in Pakistan and Turkey with violence against women elsewhere in the world, opening the road to new ways of understanding what has often been seen as a Middle Eastern or Muslim problem. Her heart-wrenching interviews with victims’ families and with women who survived illuminate the social and cultural forces that lead families to murder, but also give some glimpse of how this scourge might be eliminated.”  Jenny White, associate professor of anthropology, Boston University and author of Islamist Mobilization in Turkey

Nicole Pope is a Swiss journalist and writer based in Istanbul, Turkey. She worked as Turkey correspondent for the French daily Le Monde for 15 years and has published articles in numerous international publications. She is the co-author of Turkey Unveiled: A History of Modern Turkey (2010, revised edition) and has been conducting research on violence again women for the past decade.