Name: Kevin Bronner, Ph.D.
Section: History and Politics
Professional Email: kbronner@albany.edu
Professional Status: Adjunct Professor
Institution: Public Service Professor, University at Albany
Scheduling Preference: Saturday Afternoon
Proposal Type: Paper
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Paper Title: Lessons Learned From The Executive Budgeting Literature 1899-1929 
Abstract:
The paper outlines the literature associated with the executive budgeting movement in the United States from 1899-1929. Several pieces of literature are outlined in the paper. The paper looks into the purpose or key theme from each of the early budgeting documents and then discusses how the lessons from the 1899-1929 budgeting period can be applied to public budgeting problems being experienced today.

Name: Chris Cody
Section: History and Politics
Professional Email: codyc@stjohns.edu
Professional Status: Adjunct Professor
Institution: St. John’s University
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Paper Title: Fiscal Decisions & Political Consequences: Hosni Mubarak, Neoliberalism in Egypt, & The Arab Spring Revolution
Abstract:
Hosni Mubarak’s Egypt was a bastion of neoliberalism. Mubarak, a long time ally of the United States, happily accepted the economic policies embodied within the Washington Consensus. Politicians and economists in Washington D.C. cleared the way for Mubarak to receive a substantial loan from the International Monetary Fund in 1987. In return for this largesse, Mubarak adjusted Egypt’s economic policy to favor neoliberalism’s core tenants like free trade and economic deregulation. In the decades following the IMF loan to Egypt, the country has witnessed increasing social discontent and civil demonstrations. There is a correlation between these neoliberal fiscal policies and the societal dissatisfaction that culminated in the Arab Spring Revolution of January 25, 2011. Though much of that discontent was a response to political corruption and lack of civic freedom, there can be no doubt that a dearth of economic opportunity for the average Egyptian acted as primary catalyst for the revolution that led to Mubarak’s overthrow. Indeed, so much did the gap between rich and poor expand, that Mubarak amassed a personal fortune estimated by some to be around $70 billion dollars, making him one of the wealthiest people in the world. This is important because there is an ongoing debate as to what degree neoliberalism influenced civil unrest in Egypt and throughout the region of the Middle East. Moreover, the future stability of the country and the region depend greatly on the economic choices made by Egypt’s current leader, President Al Sisi.

Name: Yaela Collins
Section: History and Politics
Professional Email: yaelacollins@gmail.com
Professional Status: Graduate Student
Institution: New York University
Scheduling Preference: No Preference
Proposal Type: Paper
Panel Title: The European Defense Action Plan: Is Collective Defense Worth Implementing  
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Paper Title:  Ethnic Prejudice in Dutch Counterterrorism
Abstract:
Europe’s focus on the formation of an economic union, though prosperous, has created a fragmented and arguably incompatible security framework. Reluctance to surrender political and military sovereignty has left the region largely weakened and extremely vulnerable to both homegrown and rising external threats. Resulting gaps in border regulations, defense capabilities, and intelligence-sharing are being studied and exploited by terrorists and other adversaries keen on elevating their chances of carrying out a successful attack. The EU’s “security situation” has been in deteriorating for far too long and increases in “intensity, frequency, and complexity” of conflicts and problems in Europe are working to highlight the fissures in existing policy and procedure. Further, high public threat perceptions and the continuously evolving nature of threats are accumulating to pose unprecedented risks to EU stability. In the wake of blatant inefficiencies in organization, spending, and action, the question arises; “would money allocated to individual EU member defense budgets be better spent on collective EU defense?”

Name: Mustafa Gokcek
Section: History and Politics
Professional Email: gokcek@niagara.edu
Professional Status: Associate Professor
Institution: Niagara University
Scheduling Preference: Saturday Morning
Proposal Type: Panel
Panel Title:  Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Art of Media
Panel Description: From personal feelings to political thought, we use a variety of mediums to express ourselves. Different forms of art are outcomes of artists’ effort to reach out to and connect with an audience through the reflection of their own world. The media becomes critical in addressing authoritarian rulers and political cartoons are one of the most widely utilized methods in expressing political opposition in a communicable way. In the same way, journalism plays a vital role in revealing corruption and putting checks on governments. The presentations on this panel will address how different forms of media help us communicate ideas and emotions with the larger society. Whether in the form of artwork, cartoons, or journalism, the need and variety of ways to express ourselves will remain a crucial aspect of intellectual journey.
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Paper Title:  Re-imaging a Sultan – Political Cartoons of Abdulhamid II in the Young Turk Era
Abstract:
Abdulhamid II was one of the most influential and controversial sultans of the Ottoman Empire. Abdulhamid’s 33-year reign (1876-1909) was one of the empire’s longest and most influential. This very contentious sultan is usually remembered as a heavy-handed autocrat, who tolerated no opposition and spread fear through his extensive secret police network. To his critics he was the “Red Sultan.” His supporters, the romantic Ottomanists, credited him with extending the empire’s life for several decades. More recent revisionist studies also emphasize his modernizing efforts: the Istanbul-Madina Hijaz railway, founding modern universities (mostly for the military) and schools for girls as well as spreading public education. He especially liked to work with Germany, a newly rising star. Contrary to modern Islamists’ opinions, this ardent consumer of European culture enjoyed the European classics staged for him in the private opera house of his newly built Yildiz Palace, not to mention western music and literature. His passion for photography resulted in 51 albums of more than 1,850 photos taken throughout the empire -- all digitized and uploaded by the Library of Congress. In fact, he made most of the Dolmabahce Palace’s European-influenced furniture. Abdulhamid’s strong and effective intelligence network could not suppress the nationalism so aggressively stoked by Britain, France and Russia. They opened dozens of consulates that worked among the non-Muslim subjects, established hundreds of missionary schools, educated Christian Ottoman children and raised future nationalists. Imperial Europe also agitated, sponsored, educated, trained and organized Armenian, Serbian, Greek, Bulgarian and even Muslim Kurdish nationalists to dismember the empire. Even some Turks began to dream of a pan-Turkist empire. The Young Turks, composed of mostly European-influenced students and officers, organized in the Balkans and France to reestablish the constitutional regime. In 1908, the Macedonian regiments’ coup forced Abdulhamid to reinstate the constitution and allow a Parliament representing all of the empire’s nations. The following year, they forced him to abdicate in response to an anti-constitutional protest. Whereas in 1908 almost all social segments had been cheerful and hopeful of a more democratic future, by 1913 three Young Turk officers, namely, Enver Pasha, Cemal Pasha, and Talat Pasha, had formed a military dictatorship and were suppressing political opposition, rigging elections and making all decisions. This paper studies how the media depicted the authoritarianism of Abdulhamid. It presents examples of cartoons both in the European papers during Abdulhamid’s rule and in the Ottoman periodicals after Abdulhamid was deposed. The cartoon became a common way of demeaning the old sultan and characterizing his oppression through his cartoonized image. This form of anti-Abdulhamid propaganda, I argue, aimed to suppress any potential opposition to the new Young Turk regime as well as destroy any positive image of Abdulhamid among the public and conservative intellectuals. This study reveals how the media, and specifically political cartoons, were utilized to create ancien regime, marking a serious departure from Abdulhamid’s pan-Islamism towards a western secular model of governance.

Name: Michael Iasilli
Section: History and Politics
Professional Email: iasillim@stjohns.edu
Professional Status: Adjunct Professor
Institution: St. John's University/SUNY Suffolk Community College
Scheduling Preference: Friday Afternoon
Proposal Type: Paper
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Panel Description: Given Africa's consistent exploitation from the 1950s on, why wasn't there a communist revolution? There are essences of socialism, but nothing, that without question, appears "communist." This paper explores whether there is more to the story than just African apathy to the ideals of communism, or perhaps, lack of political intent on the part of Soviet leadership. This investigation will--at the very least--pose new questions and maybe uncover some phenomena that will prompt historians and social scientists to contend further.
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Paper Title: Communist Apathy
Abstract:
Seventeenth Century Anglo-America did more than just illustrate the unfolding dominance of British elites and express their economic intentions at the exploitation of land and labor. Arguably, this history constituted the key doctrinal framework that imparts to the development of economic and social liberalism of modern American capitalism. By examining a tasting of cases from the Chesapeake, the Virginia Company, and other important colonial regions, we learn how the public-private partnerships established by British colonial endeavors led to broad public confusion and deficiencies in government. This process erroneously levied negative attitudes toward the British state, as most disenchantment that sparked revolutionary tendencies among rebel colonists was generally associated with British officials, not elitist organizations that brought forth their respective frustrations. These preliminary structures are what later led to anti-British sentiment, but also strengthened the agencies of power of private actors over public organization. More expressively, this phenomenon can be seen in how neoliberalism has permeated through contemporary American policymaking. Thus, the goal of this research will be to examine trends made between English colonists and their corresponding elites in establishing ruling companies as governing structures and the implications therein. We shall determine that British privatization schemes sparked a counter-development of communalism in response to its draconian ramifications. In a longer view, I argue that Britain’s use of privatization became broadly inherited customs of what can be seen today as modern neoliberal policymaking in America.

Name: Hakan Karaaytu
Section: History and Politics
Professional Email: hkaraaytu@mail.niagara.edu
Professional Status: Graduate Student
Institution: Niagara University
Scheduling Preference:
Proposal Type: Panel
Panel Title: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Art of Media
Panel Description: From personal feelings to political thought, we use a variety of mediums to express ourselves. Different forms of art are outcomes of artists' effort to reach out to and connect with an audience through the reflection of their own world. The media becomes critical in addressing authoritarian rulers and political cartoons are one of the most widely utilized methods in expressing political opposition in a communicable way. In the same way, journalism plays a vital role in revealing corruption and putting checks on governments. The presentations on this panel will address how different forms of media help us communicate ideas and emotions with the larger society. Whether in the form of artwork, cartoons, or journalism, the need and variety of ways to express ourselves will remain a crucial aspect of intellectual journey.
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Paper Title: Journalistic Perspectives on Ideal Media and the Transformation of Media’s Role in Turkey
Abstract:
In contemporary democracies, the media ideally has a role of checks and balances against authoritarian tendencies. This study reveals the structural transformation in Turkish media since 1980. The paper first discusses the discrepancies between the ideal structure of media and the transformation in Turkish media in the following areas: ownership structure, freedom of press, censorship and self-censorship, ethical rules, and professional principles. The role of the media regarding politics in Turkey moved away from one of addressing authoritarian practices to one of hindering democratic processes. The second part of the research builds on original interviews with ten Turkish intellectuals, including journalists and academics. These experts share their professional experiences on challenges of conducting journalism and research in Turkey. The interviews substantiate the theoretical discussions in communications literature on media’s critical role in an ideal democracy.

Name: Mark Anthony Lewin
Section: History and Politics
Professional Email: mark.lewin16@stjohns.edu
Professional Status: Graduate Student
Institution: St. Johns University Queens
Scheduling Preference: Friday Morning
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Paper Title: Coming to America: Tracing Du Boisian Double Consciousness through HBCUs
Abstract:
W.E.B. Du Bois argued that African-Americans hold a Double Consciousness, in which they can identify as both African and American. By the first half of the twentieth century, Du Bois’s ideas of ‘double consciousness’ had been taught in HBCU’s (Historically Black College and University’s). HBCU’s educated both African-American and African Pan-Africanists leaders, such as Kwame Nkrumah, Nnamdi Azikiwe, and Martin Luther King Jr. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how Du Bois’s ideas of Double Consciousness had affected Martin Luther King Jr., Kwame Nkrumah, and Nnamdi Azikiwe while they attend HBCUs. This paper draws sources from, memoirs of Pan-Africanists, Academic transcripts from HBCUs, and secondary literature pertinent to the topic. Memoirs include, Nnamdi Azikiwe’s My Odyssey, and Kwame Nkrumah’s Autobiography. Furthermore, Academic transcripts of Kwame Nkrumah and Martin Luther King Jr were studied to demonstrate what classes they had taken and how Du Bois’s ideologies were taught in those classes. In addition to the classes they have taken, the professors and teachers who taught them will also be analyzed to better understand how Du Bois’s ideas influenced Kwame, King, and Nnamdi. Explaining the role which HBCUs had in developing African-American and African leaders is relatively new to both African and African-American historiography. By studying this topic one is able to better understanding of both Pan-Africanism and understanding the difference of African and African-American political identities.

Name: Anna Michalik
Section: History and Politics
Professional Email: anna.michalik16@stjohns.edu
Professional Status: Graduate Student
Institution: St. John's University
Scheduling Preference: No Preference
Proposal Type: Paper
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Paper Title: Anna Frajlich, a poetess in exile
Abstract:
Between 1968-1971 about 20,000 Polish citizens of Jewish origin were forced to emigrate Poland for no other reason than their being Jewish. Organized by the governing Polish United Workers’ Party (PZPR), the anti-Zionist campaign of 1968-1971 destroyed the remaining post-Holocaust Polish-Jewish community. Many of the émigrés, most of whom represented the well-educated part of society, were forced to – once again – build a new life. At the end of 1969, Anna Frajlich, a Polish-Jewish poetess, left Poland through Vienna to Rome, and next to New York. Emigration has been for Frajlich the vessel in which she was able to explore questions of migration, displacement, and ultimately adaptation to new cultural contexts. Drawing on oral interviews with Frajlich and her poetic oeuvre, this paper captures the ways in which Frajlich experienced her life in exile. With the world becoming more and more migratory, Frajlich’s reflections on her exilic condition, are not only topical and illuminating, but also may offer solace to all those who have experienced displacement.

Name: Mary Helen Miskuly
Section: History and Politics
Professional Email: mmiskuly@niagara.edu
Professional Status: Graduate Student
Institution: Niagara University
Scheduling Preference: No Preference
Proposal Type: Paper
Panel Title: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Art of Media
Panel Description: From personal feelings to political thought, we use a variety of mediums to express ourselves. Different forms of art are outcomes of artists’ effort to reach out to and connect with an audience through the reflection of their own world. The media becomes critical in addressing authoritarian rulers and political cartoons are one of the most widely utilized methods in expressing political opposition in a communicable way. In the same way, journalism plays a vital role in revealing corruption and putting checks on governments. The presentations on this panel will address how different forms of media help us communicate ideas and emotions with the larger society. Whether in the form of artwork, cartoons, or journalism, the need and variety of ways to express ourselves will remain a crucial aspect of intellectual journey.
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Paper Title: The Power of Place: Art Media and the Promotion of Niagara Falls
Abstract:
Museums are competing for resources, audiences, cutting edge ideas, and ever-changing technologies. Can a museum’s special collections going online be used to help market the museum in a high tourist area, namely Niagara Falls, NY? Geographically removed from the Falls by seven miles and at the heart of the Niagara University campus, the Castellani Art Museum has the unique opportunity to partner with the Niagara Falls National Heritage Area and their pilot program for Discover Niagara Shuttles, a free tourist shuttle which stops midpoint along its route at the museum. The Castellani Art museum holds one of the largest collections of Niagara Falls images in the world and celebrates the visual history and place of Niagara Falls, New York. This research studies new and exciting ways to tell the story of these rarely seen and under-utilized images of Niagara Falls, as well as celebrate a rich folk art and fine art collection online and in various forms of media. The outcome of this project will be more visibility for the Castellani Art Museum, Niagara University, and other partners working in concert as an incubator for interdisciplinary ideas as well as operating as teaching tool for the University and beyond.

Name: Oluwasolape Onafowora
Section: History and Politics
Professional Email: oluwasolape.onafowora@fuoye.edu.ng
Professional Status: Graduate Student
Institution: Federal University Oye -Ekiti
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Proposal Type: Paper
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Co-author info: ONAFOWORA OLUWASOLAPE 2348033655364 DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS FEDERAL UNIVERSITY OYE-EKITI, NIGERIA P.O.BOX 1774, ADO-EKITI. NIGERIA oluwasolape.onafowora@fuoye.edu.ng solape.onafowora@gmail.com
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Paper Title:  PRESIDENTIAL DICTATORSHIP IN DEMOCRATIC SYSTEM: A CASE STUDY OF BURUNDI
Abstract:
Since the two genocides occurred in Burundi, the country has been on a cusp of another Civil war which might degenerate to another genocide is history especially with the actions by the President Nkurunziza on the resistance of the third term rules. Asides the fact that Burundi is not a military rule, it is important to note that the pattern of governance is in such direction. This paper observes the role of conflict crisis between two ethnic groups living in the same country and the state of abject poverty in the country. The role of participatory democracy is inactive and this is setting a trend for African leaders to follow; being dictators in civilian rule. This paper also observes the role of ethnicity in conflict especially in Burundi which has resulted to two of the important historical crisis in the world, after the Holocaust.

Name: Olena Prokopovych
Section: History and Politics
Professional Email: oprokop5@naz.edu
Professional Status: Associate Professor
Institution: Nazareth College of Rochester
Scheduling Preference: Saturday Morning
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Paper Title:  A Path of Their Own: Private Institutions and American Health Care Exceptionalism
Abstract:
Open any textbook chapter on American health care politics and, chances are, you will soon read about the unsuccessful first attempt to create a public medical insurance program for manual workers during the 1910s. Typically, this episode is presented as a signal event in the persistent history of failure to achieve universal health care insurance that, to this day, distinguishes the United States from virtually all other advanced democratic nations. Political scientists, especially those working within historical institutionalist school of American political development, deserve much credit for establishing the understanding of this political episode as a linchpin of the path-dependent explanation of American health care exceptionalism. Political scientists have paid much less attention to another notable failure that occurred at about the same time: the ultimately unsuccessful attempt by the major corporate foundations to impose a full-time salaried model on the faculty at leading medical schools. This difference is a symptom of a bigger and perhaps inevitable bias of our discipline toward favoring explanations focused on public rather than private realms, political rather than societal forces, institutional rather than cultural factors. This paper uses this lesser-known “escape from the corporation” (Paul Starr, The Social Transformation of American Medicine) as a launching pad for a critique of historical institutionalist theory of U.S. health care policy development. I argue that, despite its claims to the opposite, historical institutionalism does not pay sufficient attention to the significance of private institutions, private policies, and historical sequences of their emergence, development, and interaction. While anointing the unparalleled number of veto-point features of the American political system as a decisive factor that prevented the emergence of universal health insurance in the U.S., historical institutionalism fails to examine the role of this political system in creating and sustaining an equally unique and path-setting ecology of private medical institutions. I show that temporally prior to the emergence of health insurance proposals, America’s unique political system both reflected and promoted the emergence of private health care institutions resistant to reform and rationalization by either public or private forces. This paper problematizes historical institutionalism’s easy dismissal of cultural and societal variables in explaining American health care exceptionalism and argues for a more nuanced synthesis of institutional and cultural factors. It contends that a fuller understanding of private institutions and private policies is crucial for comprehensive analysis of America’s exceptionally privatized health care system.

Name: Sofia Sedergren
Section: History and Politics
Professional Email: ssedergren@gradcenter.cuny.edu
Professional Status: Graduate Student
Institution: The Graduate Center, City University of New York
Scheduling Preference: Saturday Afternoon
Proposal Type: Paper
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Paper Title: Framing Political Debates Based on the Attainment of Women’s Suffrage: The Case of Great Britain, 1916-1930
Abstract:
This project focuses on the impact of the passage of women’s suffrage on the political debate in Great Britain from 1916 to 1930, through the study of issues specifically framed for women in handbooks disseminated to women voters after the passage of partial women’s suffrage in 1918 and adult suffrage in 1928. The study is focused on two research questions: 1. What political issues were framed for women in the aftermath of the passing of the Representation of People Act of 1918 and the Equal Franchise Act of 1928?; and 2. How did women’s suffrage in Great Britain impact the political issues debated in Parliament and the media 1916-1930? Through a contiguity based analysis of the terms used in political information and propaganda disseminated to women as a means to educate the new constituency and win the women’s vote, the topics considered central to women in the political context are extrapolated and examined, resulting in search terms used in a textual analysis of Parliamentary records and media reporting from the Times. Additionally, the examination of legislative action in Parliamentary debates and media reporting in the Times connected to the attainment of women’s suffrage and issues specifically framed for women provides the basis for an analysis of potential shifts in political issues discussed in Parliament and the media as a result of women’s suffrage. The analysis of Parliamentary records and media records contribute to determining the impact of women’s suffrage on larger political debates. The existing literature on the topic is focused on the movement leading to the passage of women’s suffrage, but few studies have been conducted examining how political issues were framed for women in the aftermath of the passage of The Representation of the People Act of 1918. An exception is Véronique Molinari’s work which highlights themes emphasized in interwar handbooks distributed to women. However, Molinari’s analysis does not include the impact women’s suffrage had on the political debate in Parliament and the media. With Molinari’s work and method as a base, the findings from my research will contribute to a better understanding of how the themes framed for women impacted the larger political debate in Great Britain. A contiguity based analysis of the three data sources (handbooks, Parliamentary debate records, and newspaper articles) clarifies the impact that shifts in the constituency have on political issues highlighted in political debates and, by extension, the influence of different groups within the constituency on the political system. The introduction of women to the voting constituency is not only a historically significant event, but can also contribute to an increased understanding for how new constituency groups influence political policy merely by being identified as a certain group.

Name: Harvey Strum
Section: History and Politics
Professional Email: strumh@hotmail.com
Professional Status: Full Professor
Institution: sage
Scheduling Preference: Saturday Morning
Proposal Type: Paper
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Paper Title:  Constellation's Errand of Mercy to Ireland in 1880
Abstract:
Three times in the 19th Century the US provided aid to starving Irish. The aid came from the private contributions of Americans since the federal government viewed foreign aid as an unconstitutional use of public funds. I will discuss the debate over the use of public funds in 1847 and 1879-80. Instead, the federal government agreed twice to allow the use of warships to carry privately raised food aid abroad. In 1847, the Jamestown and Macedonian carried privately raised aid from Boston and New York City, respectively, to Ireland and Scotland. In 1880 although the House Foreign Affairs Committee recommended an appropriation of $300,00 to aid the starving Irish Congress refused. Congress did approve a joint resolution endorsing sending a warship to Ireland. The Constellation, docked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, was sent from New York City with the contributions donated by several wealthy New Yorkers and some other private citizens. Levi Morton, a Congressman from NY, who later served as VP under Harrison, and governor of New York contributed one quarter of the aid and William Grace, a shipowner, and soon to be the first Irish Catholic mayor of the city, contributed another quarter of the aid. I will look at the problems in getting contributions for the Macedonian in 1847 and the nature of voluntary aid in 1847, 66-63, and 79-80.Americans throughout the 19th Century joined together to organize committees, of temporary duration, to raise funds to deal with disasters at home and abroad.

Name: Julia Sweet
Section: History and Politics
Professional Email: js9491@nyu.edu
Professional Status: Graduate Student
Institution: Rutgers University
Scheduling Preference: No Preference
Proposal Type: Paper
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Paper Title:  Ecological activism in a semi-authoritarian regime: The Russian case
Abstract:
The paper analyzes the agenda, strategy, and development of ecological activism in modern Russia in terms of political transformation. This sort of activism is new for society and seems to appear only after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, nowadays, the green movement has not become a powerful force that plays a great role in the consolidation of civil society. To determine what Environmental organizations actually do as well as their agenda, the first section of the paper examines the environmental landscaping which has emerged in Russia during the last 20 years and the influence of the Soviet heritage. The second section provides the analysis of the effectiveness of ecological organizations on Russian policy and the degree of penetration of the green agenda into Russian society. The third part evaluates the perception of the local and federal authorities towards ecological grassroots activism, looking for answers on the following questions: Does the government consider ecological organizations and groups to be potential political competitors? Are there any repression or/ and bureaucratic obstacles for ecological activism?

Name: Farahnaz Tafreshi
Section: History and Politics
Professional Email: farahnaz_tafreshi@yahoo.ca
Professional Status: Graduate Student
Institution: Niagara University
Scheduling Preference:
Proposal Type: Panel
Panel Title:  Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Art of Media
Panel Description: From personal feelings to political thought, we use a variety of mediums to express ourselves. Different forms of art are outcomes of artists’ effort to reach out to and connect with an audience through the reflection of their own world. The media becomes critical in addressing authoritarian rulers and political cartoons are one of the most widely utilized methods in expressing political opposition in a communicable way. In the same way, journalism plays a vital role in revealing corruption and putting checks on governments. The presentations on this panel will address how different forms of media help us communicate ideas and emotions with the larger society. Whether in the form of artwork, cartoons, or journalism, the need and variety of ways to express ourselves will remain a crucial aspect of intellectual journey.
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Paper Title: Depression, creativity, and art therapy
Abstract:
There is a connection between the physical self, the mind, and our feelings, which remains unspoken. In the same way that bodies have a language, so do arts. From the ancient world to the 21st century, artists anguish by mental illness and often suffer to express their emotion through challenging artistic forms. A number of studies argue that pain has no language of its own and mental illness destroys inner talent to express the emotion. Some other fields of the study contend that if pain and suffering destroy the skill to speak, artists can express their emotion beyond their own creativity in order to give their pain a language. Many people are touched with depression and struggle to face the difficulties within life. As an artist and due to the political persecution in my country Iran, I experienced depression and I found it quite painful while trying to make sense of the events and upheavals I have witnessed. It is not simple and there is no language to explain and express this feeling. In my own experience, I have develop a language in my paintings and over time my painting has changed and transcended the sadness of politics to express beauty, richness, and hope for the future. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between depression, creativity, and art therapy. In one view, creative people may hurt by mental disorders and mostly suffer to create their art, but on the other hand, mental illness may exist at the same time with creativity and development of art. A goal of this study is to explore how medical conditions may affect the lives of the artist and how creativity can be beneficial for them to express the feeling through the process of making art without an obligation to speak. This study is based on interdisciplinary ideas and evidence from researchers in art, art history, and psychological reviews, notably by Albert Rothenberg and Kay Redfield Jamison on the work of some famous artists.