Serif Mardin

Serif Mardin    (sociologist)
Born	1927 Istanbul, Turkey
Died	6 September 2017 (Age 89) Istanbul, Turkey
Nationality	Turkish
Alma mater	Galatasaray High School, Stanford University, Johns Hopkins University
Interests	• Sociology • political science
US-educated and -formed prominent Turkish sociologist and political scientist. Dabbled in liberal politics, including just before Attending Bilderberg/1995.  Leader of the Economical and Political Sciences Department In office 1976 - 1979 Employer Boğaziçi University  Head of the Center for Islamic Studies In office 1988 - 1999 Employer American University Attended Bilderberg/1995  Professor in Sociology and Political Sciences In office 1969 - 1973 Employer Ankara University

Şerif Mardin was a US-educated and -formed prominent Turkish sociologist, political scientist and academic. He attended the 1995 Bilderberg meeting.

Education

From a distinguished family, Mardin attended Galatasaray High School, but completed his high school education in the US in 1944. He obtained a degree in political sciences at Stanford University in 1948. Then he received his MA degree in international relations from Johns Hopkins University in 1950. He completed his PhD studies in political science at Stanford University in 1958, and his PhD dissertation was published by Princeton University Press with the title of The Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought in 1962.

Academic career

Mardin began his academic career in 1954 at the Faculty of Political Science of Ankara University and was employed there until 1956. From 1958 to 1961 he worked as a research assistant in the Department of Oriental Studies at Princeton University. from 1960 to 1961 he worked as a research fellow at the Middle East Institute of Harvard University. After that, he returned to Turkey and worked at the Faculty of Political Science at Ankara University. He became a lecturer in 1964 and a professor in 1969. His teaching and research activities at Ankara University lasted until 1973.

Şerif Mardin moved to Istanbul in order to found the Economical and Political Sciences Faculty of Boğaziçi University, the former Robert College, in 1973.

He also was faculty at Sabancı University and Şehir University. While abroad, he was a long-term lecturer at American University in Washington, D.C., where he was as the Head of the Center for Islamic Studies for more than a decade, from 1988 until 1999., and was a guest lecturer at many other leading universities.

Politics

From time to time, he came into close contact with current politics.He became one of the founders of the Hürriyet Party in the 1957 elections. In the same years, he was among the publishers and authors of the Forum magazine, which contributed the most intensively to the humanist line in Turkey.

Secondly, his contributions to Özgür Insan in the 1970s, when Bulent Ecevit was heading for power Although he was not in Ecevit's immediate circle, he was trying to contribute to the CHP's social democratic line with his writings.

On December 22, 1994, with the participation of industrialists, businessmen, writers and academics such as Asaf Savaş Akat, Cengiz Çandar, Can Paker, Etyen Mahçupyan, Kemal Anadol, Mehmet Altan, Kemal Derviş, under the leadership of businessman Cem Boyer, he became one of the founders of the New Democracy Movement, which defended liberal values such as open society, pluralism, and the free market.

Although Şerif Mardin made such political initiatives, he soon returned to academia after each attempt

 

Event Participated in

Event	Start	End	Location(s)	Description
Bilderberg/1995	8 June 1995	11 June 1995	Greece Nafsika Astir Palace Hotel Vouliagmeni	The 43rd Bilderberg. Held at the Burgenstock Hotel in Burgenstock, Switzerland.

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