Turkey Book Talk #215 – Andrew Finkel on his novel “The Adventure of the Second Wife: The Strange Case of Sherlock Holmes and the Ottoman Sultan” (Even Keel Press).
Andrew is a veteran journalist based in Turkey for decades. His debut novel is a sprawling, playful narrative exploring the mystery of Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II’s obsession with Sherlock Holmes stories.
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Turkey Book Talk #212 – Alexander Christie-Miller on “To The City: Life and Death Along the Ancient Walls of Istanbul” (William Collins).
Alexander worked for many years as the Times of London’s Turkey correspondent. His book is a sophisticated meditation on contemporary life and politics in the country. It combines historical, political and environmental ruminations with vivid portraits of people living in the neighbourhoods around Istanbul’s historic city walls.
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Timur Hammond on religion and change in Istanbul
January 16, 2024
Turkey Book Talk #210 – Timur Hammond, Assistant Professor of Geography and the Environment at Syracuse University, on “Placing Islam: Geographies of Connection in Twentieth-Century Istanbul” (University of California Press).
The book is a sociological and historical study tracing the changing character of Istanbul’s Eyüpsultan district, its industrial and commercial history, and its role in the emergence of political Islam in Turkey.
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Turkey Book Talk #208 – Berk Esen, associate professor of political science and international relations at Istanbul’s Sabanci University, on the troubled future of Turkey’s democracy and the challenges facing its opposition parties heading into 2024.
Berk is a prolific commentator and sophisticated scholar of Turkish politics, recently co-authoring “Turkey’s New Regime: Competitive Authoritarianism” (Iletisim) along with Hakan Yavuzyilmaz and Sebnem Gumuscu.
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Turkey Book Talk #200 – Anthony Gad Bigio on “A Sephardi Turkish Patriot: Gad Franco in the Turmoil of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic” (Hamilton Books).
The book describes the turbulent and difficult life of Anthony’s grandfather, Gad Franco, a prominent journalist, social activist and lawyer in the late Ottoman and early republican eras. It also charts his gradual disillusionment after advocating Jewish integration into Ottoman and later Turkish society, which culminated in his imprisonment and impoverishment following the 1942 Wealth Tax.
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Turkey Book Talk #198 – Şebnem Gümüşcü, associate professor of political science at Middlebury College, on “Democracy or Authoritarianism: Islamist Governments in Turkey, Egypt and Tunisia” (Cambridge University Press).
The book looks in depth at how intra-party factional struggles were key in shaping the AKP’s authoritarian direction in Turkey, while also comparing this with Islamist parties that won elections in Egypt and Tunisia.
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Turkey Book Talk #197 – Constanze Letsch on “Territorial Stigmatisation: Urban Renewal and Displacement in a Central Istanbul Neighbourhood” (Transcript).
The book examines a controversial project to demolish and rebuild Istanbul’s historic, troubled Tarlabaşı neighbourhood, the impact it had on locals and what that tells us about today’s Turkey.
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Download the ebook for free via the Transcript website.
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Turkey Book Talk #196 – Ci Demi on his photographs of Istanbul, which present an eerie, unflattering image of the city through depopulated landscapes, urban sprawl and surreal juxtapositions.
His latest photobook ”Sehri Fikri” (Notions of a City) was recently published by Onagöre.
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Check out Ci Demi’s work on Instagram.
Listen to the Spotify playlist “Something Is Missing”, created to accompany the “Sehri Fikri” photobook.
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Turkey Book Talk #195 – Political communications strategist Derin Koçer on Turkey’s critical recent presidential and parliamentary elections.
The conversation addresses how economic woes may actually have helped Erdogan’s campaign, why the main opposition CHP repeatedly fails, whether nationalism is the real winner to emerge from the ballot boxes, and what awaits Turkey in the next five years.
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Read and subscribe to Derin Koçer’s Substack.
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Turkey Book Talk #190 – Maureen Freely on the life and work of the late Tezer Özlü.
Her translation of Özlü’s 1980 novel “Cold Nights of Childhood” has just been published for the first time in English by Serpent’s Tail.
First published in 1980, the book follows a narrator whose life closely mirrors Özlü’s own, growing up in Istanbul before periods in Berlin and Paris, unhappy marriages, and tortuous stays in psychiatric institutions. Despite being set against the backdrop of a uniquely turbulent era in Turkey’s modern history, the book is also characterised by its sexual frankness and political ambivalence.
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Ryan Gingeras on the last days of the Ottoman Empire, 1918-1922
December 6, 2022
Turkey Book Talk #182 – Ryan Gingeras, professor of history in the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School, California, on “The Last Days of the Ottoman Empire, 1918-1922” (Allen Lane).
The conversation addresses events between the end of the First World War and the declaration of the Turkish Republic, as well as how these years are remembered in today’s Turkey.
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Enno Maessen on nostalgia and cosmopolitanism in Istanbul’s Beyoglu
November 22, 2022
Turkey Book Talk #181 – Enno Maessen, lecturer in political history at Utrecht University, on “Representing Modern Istanbul: Urban History and International Institutions in Twentieth Century Beyoglu” (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury).
The book examines convulsive changes in Istanbul’s historical Beyoglu district over the past century.
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