The Spinoza Circle in Turkey was founded with the aim of forming working groups, issuing national and international publications, organizing seminars, conferences, and other philosophical activities, bringing together Spinoza enthusiasts in all these undertakings, enabling an exchange of ideas in the spirit of joint work, and cooperating with Spinoza communities in other countries. The idea of the Circle was born at meetings at Galatasaray University in Istanbul and the name “Spinoza Studies Circle” was first used then.
Based on this idea, the first Spinoza Days was held at Istanbul Bilgi University in 2008 under the title “Around Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise”. Manfred Walther, the founder of the Spinoza-Gesellschaft in Germany, one of the oldest Spinoza communities in the world, was the only international guest present. The other participants were Türker Armaner, Tülin Bumin, Eylem Canaslan, Gaye Çankaya Eksen, Reyda Ergün, Moris Fransez, Birden Güngören, Ali Karabayram, Yücel Kayıran, A. Ulvi Türkbağ, Alber Nahum, and Solmaz Zelyüt.
At the second Spinoza Days, held in 2009 under the title “From the New World to the Old World”, most of the participants were from Latin America. In addition to Diego Tatián, Marilena Chauí, Maria das Graças de Souza, Maria Jimena Solé, Natalia Andrea Lerussi, Marcelo Gross Villanova, Manfred Walther, Miriam van Reijen, and Theo van der Werf, Solmaz Zelyüt, Türker Armaner, and Reyda Ergün also participated from Turkey. Istanbul Bilgi University publications published the presentations of the two conferences under the titles Spinoza Days (2009) and Spinoza Days 2 (2011). Later, the articles by the international participants in these out-of-print books were published by Zoe Publications as a compilation entitled Spinoza Forever (2019).
The founders of the Spinoza Studies Circle did not organize any more events after these two conferences, but continued their Spinoza studies personally. They reconvened in December 2021 to make the Circle more active and to organize joint events again. For their short biographies based on their work on Spinoza, see the Founders section.
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We thank Lalin Mercan for the logo design, E. Ulaş Boran for the website design and Erol Öz for his help with the website…