Weintz Art Lecture Series: Esra Akcan @ Stanford

Architecture and the Right to Heal: Resettler Nationalism in the Aftermath of Conflict and Disaster

Akcan will introduce her new book that explores architecture’s role in healing after conflicts and disasters by discussing buildings and spaces in relation to transitional justice and energy transition. Focusing on lands held by former Ottoman Empire and putting forth the concept of resettler nationalism as a source of partition and displacement, the book locates spaces of political and ecological harm, and advocates for healing on individual, communal and planetary levels. It construes healing as a matter of rights and a holistic notion of justice to be achieved retroactively, and calls for instituting accountability and reparations against internal social, state and business-led violence.

About the Speaker

Esra Akcan is professor and director of graduate studies in the Department of Architecture at Cornell University and the 2025-2026 Marta Sutton Weeks Fellow at Stanford Humanities Center. Akcan’s research on modern and contemporary architecture and urbanism foregrounds the intertwined histories of Europe, West Asia and Northeast Africa, and offers new ways to understand architecture’s role in global, social and environmental justice. She has written extensively, lectured globally, and received multiple fellowships on critical and postcolonial theory, racism, immigration, climate change, reparations and transitional justice, architectural photography, translation, neoliberalism, and global history.

Made possible by the J. Fred Weintz and Rosemary Weintz Art Lecture Series Fund, this series invites distinguished art historians from diverse concentrations each quarter to speak and engage with our students and the Stanford community, enriching the culture of art history and appreciation on campus and beyond.