Nora Fisher Onar on Turkish political history beyond binaries
October 28, 2025
Turkey Book Talk #256 – Nora Fisher Onar, Associate Professor and Chair of Global Studies at University of San Francisco, on “Contesting Pluralism(s): Islamism, Liberalism, and Nationalism in Turkey and Beyond” (Cambridge University Press).
The book aims to “challenge the received wisdom that a binary contest between ‘Islam’ and ‘secularism’ is the driving force in Turkey’s politics”. It voices the same scepticism about other binary divides often used to explain Turkey’s political history, instead proposing an alternative theory of alliances between pluralist and non-pluralist forces that shift over time.
Download the episode or listen below:
Read a transcript of the interview on Substack.
Listen to Turkey Book Talk : Apple / Spotify / PodBean / Stitcher / PlayerFM / Listen Notes
Follow : Instagram / Facebook / Twitter / Bluesky
Please support Turkey Book Talk as a member on either Substack or Patreon. Members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, access to transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and links to articles related to the subject of every episode.
Turkey Book Talk 