The third Cultural Conversation was held at TACC-Madison on May 3, 2009. The speaker was Uli Schamiloglu (Yulay Şamiloğlu), a prominent Tatar-American professor of Languages and Cultures of Asia and the director of Middle East Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Professor Schamiloglu has received his BS in Middle East Languages and Cultures and his PhD in History from Columbia University. He has been on the faculty at UW-Madison since 1989. He has founded the Department of Languages and Cultures of Asia at UW-Madison. He knows many languages including Kazan Tatar (native), Republican Turkish, Uzbek, Kazak, Azeri, Bashqort, Karachay, Kyrgyz, Türkmen, Uygur, Chuvash, Tuvan, Yakut, French, German, Russian, Hungarian, Arabic (Syrian dialect), and Italian.

Professor Schamiloglu talked about “Tatars in New York” (New York’taki Tatarlar) and summarized his life and memoirs briefly from New York where he grew up. He talked about how Tatars first immigrated to the US and explained his parents’ role in this immigration process for Tatars. Professor Schamiloglu also highlighted his childhood experiences with other members of Tatar community in New York. He also mentioned how he established his academic background and how he ended up at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. We also celebrated his birthday at the end of the program.

The participants asked many interesting questions including how his interest in Asian languages emerged, and how the current political relationships between Turkic Countries develop.

Thanks to Turkish families for the delicious food; all attendants enjoyed them and Turkish tea after the program.  Attendants had a fun night and learned lots of interesting stories about Tatars in the U.S.

At the end of program, there was a surprise for Professor Schamiloglu. We celebrated his birthday (May 2) and ate the cake.

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