Turkey Book Talk episode #138 – Jenny White, professor at Stockholm University’s Institute for Turkish Studies, on “Turkish Kaleidoscope: Fractured Lives in a Time of Violence” (Princeton University Press).
The graphic novel, illustrated by Ergün Gündüz, tells the story of four young protagonists caught up in the social and political turbulence leading to Turkey’s 1980 military coup.
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Here’s a link to the Spotify playlist specially crafted to complement the book, featuring popular songs from the era.
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Support Turkey Book Talk by becoming a member. Members get extras including exclusive access to a 30% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman history books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, English and Turkish transcripts of every interview upon publication, transcripts of the entire archive of episodes, and an archive of 231 reviews covering Turkish and international fiction, history, journalism and politics.
Turkey Book Talk episode #137 – Jeremy Seal on “A Coup in Turkey: A Tale of Democracy, Despotism and Vengeance in a Divided Land” (Chatto & Windus/Penguin).
The book blends biography, history and reportage to explore the legacy of Adnan Menderes, who became the Republic of Turkey’s first democratically elected prime minister in 1950 before being overthrown in a military coup in May 1960. It also weaves this story in with developments in contemporary Turkey under President Erdoğan, who often presents himself as inheriting Menderes’ political legacy.
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Listen to Turkey Book Talk: iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / Spotify / RSS
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Check out Raziye Akkoç and Diego Cupolo’s excellent Turkey Recap weekly newsletter.
Support Turkey Book Talk by becoming a member. Members get extras including exclusive access to a 30% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman history books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, English and Turkish transcripts of every interview upon publication, transcripts of the entire archive of episodes, and an archive of 231 reviews covering Turkish and international fiction, history, journalism and politics.
Jan-Markus Vomel on the past and future of political Islam in Turkey
November 10, 2020
Turkey Book Talk #128 – Jan-Markus Vomel, doctoral student at the University of Konstanz, on the origins and development of political Islam in Turkey from the 1950s to 2000, as well as its role today.
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Check out Raziye Akkoç and Diego Cupolo’s excellent Turkey Recap weekly newsletter.
Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk and get loads of extras: A 35% discount on any of over 100 books in IB Tauris/Bloomsbury’s excellent Turkey/Ottoman history category, English and Turkish transcripts of every interview upon publication, transcripts of the entire archive of episodes, and an archive of 231 reviews written by myself covering Turkish and international fiction, history, journalism and politics.
Umut Azak on Hagia Sophia and the future of Turkey’s religious nationalist status quo
October 13, 2020
Turkey Book Talk #126 – Umut Azak of Okan University on this summer’s conversion of the Hagia Sophia from museum to mosque, the history of calls on Turkey’s religious right to take that step, and the future of the country’s religious nationalist status quo under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
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Listen to Turkey Book Talk: iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / Spotify / RSS
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Check out Raziye Akkoç and Diego Cupolo’s excellent Turkey Recap weekly newsletter.
Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk and get loads of extras: A 35% discount on any of over 100 books in IB Tauris/Bloomsbury’s excellent Turkey/Ottoman history category, English and Turkish transcripts of every interview upon publication, transcripts of the entire archive of episodes, and an archive of 231 reviews written by myself covering Turkish and international fiction, history, journalism and politics.
Zeynep Çelik on archaeology and heritage in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey
September 15, 2020
Turkey Book Talk #124 – Zeynep Çelik, professor of architecture at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, on the origins of archaeology in the Ottoman Empire, the response to the European pursuit of antiquities, and questions of heritage in contemporary Turkey.
Çelik is author of “Empire, Architecture and the City: French-Ottoman Encounters, 1830-1914” (University of Washington Press) and “About Antiquities: Politics of Archaeology in the Ottoman Empire” (University of Texas Press), among others.
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As mentioned at the end of the episode, Nektaria Anastasiadou’s debut novel, “A Recipe for Daphne”, has just been published by Hoopoe Books. Check out details here and order it from Hoopoe here.
Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk and get loads of extras: A 35% discount on any of over 100 books in IB Tauris/Bloomsbury’s excellent Turkey/Ottoman history category, English and Turkish transcripts of every interview upon publication, transcripts of the entire archive of episodes, and an archive of 231 reviews written by myself covering Turkish and international fiction, history, journalism and politics.
Turkey Book Talk episode #115 – Michael Wuthrich, assistant professor of political science at the University of Kansas, on “The Pushback Against Populism: Running on ‘Radical Love’ in Turkey”, co-authored with Melvyn Ingleby and published in the April 2020 edition of the Journal of Democracy.
The article examines the main opposition Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) successful local election campaigns in major Turkish cities in 2019, when it applied sophisticated methods crafted by strategist Ateş İlyas Başsoy to counter the government’s populism.
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Here’s a link to the article.
Listen to Turkey Book Talk : iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / Spotify / RSS
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Check out Raziye Akkoç and Diego Cupolo’s excellent Turkey Recap weekly newsletter
Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk and get loads of extras: A 35% discount on any of over 100 books in IB Tauris/Bloomsbury’s excellent Turkey/Ottoman history category, English and Turkish transcripts of every interview upon publication, transcripts of the entire archive of episodes, and an archive of 231 reviews written by myself covering Turkish and international fiction, history, journalism and politics.
Turkey Book Talk episode #113 – Ayfer Karakaya-Stump, associate professor of history at The College of William and Mary, on “The Kizilbash Alevis in Ottoman Anatolia: Sufism, Politics and Community” (Edinburgh University Press).
The book traces the origins of today’s Alevis as a unified religious group back to the 15th and 16th centuries.
Download the episode or listen below
Listen to Turkey Book Talk : iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / Spotify / RSS
Follow Turkey Book Talk on Facebook or Twitter
Check out Raziye Akkoç and Diego Cupolo’s excellent Turkey Recap weekly newsletter
Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk and get loads of extras: A 35% discount on any of over 100 books in IB Tauris/Bloomsbury’s excellent Turkey/Ottoman history category, English and Turkish transcripts of every interview upon publication, transcripts of the entire archive of episodes, and an archive of 231 reviews written by myself covering Turkish and international fiction, history, journalism and politics.
Turkey Book Talk episode #110 – Onur İşçi, assistant professor at Ankara’s Bilkent University and director of its Centre for Russian Studies, on “Turkey and the Soviet Union during World War II: Diplomacy, Discord and International Relations” (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury).
The book counter-intuitively argues that the breakdown in Turkey-Soviet relations the Second World War and at the start of the Cold War was an anomaly in a 20th century in which Turkey and Russia in fact cooperated widely.
We also take the opportunity to address present-day Ankara-Moscow ties and the situation in Syria.
Download the episode or listen below.
Listen to Turkey Book Talk : iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / Spotify / RSS
Check out the excellent Turkey Recap weekly newsletter
Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk and get loads of extras: A 35% discount on any of over 100 books in IB Tauris/Bloomsbury’s excellent Turkey/Ottoman history category, English and Turkish transcripts of every interview upon publication, transcripts of the entire archive of episodes, and an archive of 231 reviews written by myself covering Turkish and international fiction, history, journalism and politics.
Ayse Zarakol on stigma and status anxiety in Turkey’s ties to the West
February 18, 2020
Turkey Book Talk episode #109 – Ayşe Zarakol, reader in international relations at Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge, on “After Defeat: How the East Learned to Live with the West” (Cambridge University Press).
The book was published in English in 2011, and its second Turkish edition has just come out. It examines how a sense of “stigma” has dogged the way modern Turkey engages with the Western-led international order, as well as comparable cases of Japan and Russia.
Download the episode or listen below.
Listen to Turkey Book Talk : iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / Spotify / RSS
Check out the excellent Turkey Recap weekly newsletter
Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk and get loads of extras: A 35% discount on any of over 100 books in IB Tauris/Bloomsbury’s excellent Turkey/Ottoman history category, English and Turkish transcripts of every interview upon publication, transcripts of the entire archive of episodes, and an archive of 231 reviews written by myself covering Turkish and international fiction, history, journalism and politics.
Sign up as a member to support Turkey Book Talk via Patreon.
Caner Yelbaşı on the Circassians in Turkey and the Ottoman Empire
December 3, 2019
Turkey Book Talk episode #104 – Caner Yelbaşı, researcher in history at Mardin Artuklu University, on “The Circassians in Turkey: War, Violence and Nationalism from the Ottomans to Atatürk” (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury).
The book describes the course of Circassians in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey after they were driven from their north Caucasus homeland by the Russian Empire in the 19th century.
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Here’s our earlier episode from February 2017: Benjamin Fortna on Eşref Kuşçubaşı, late Ottoman insurgent and special agent
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Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk and get loads of extras: A 35% discount on any of over 400 books in IB Tauris/Bloomsbury’s excellent Turkey/Ottoman history category, English and Turkish transcripts of every interview upon publication, transcripts of the entire archive of episodes, and an archive of 231 reviews written by myself covering Turkish and international fiction, history, journalism and politics. A great Christmas present!
Sign up as a member to support Turkey Book Talk via Patreon.
Nur Deriş on the epic life and times of Turkish journalist Sabiha Sertel
September 10, 2019
Turkey Book Talk episode #98 – Nur Deriş on the extraordinary life of journalist Sabiha Sertel (1895-1968).
Deriş is co-editor of “The Struggle for Modern Turkey: Justice, Activism and a Revolutionary Female Journalist” (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury).
The volume is the first ever appearance in English of Sertel’s autobiography “Roman Gibi” (Like a Novel), a fascinating window into an era covering the war of independence and Turkey’s entire single-party period until 1950.
Download the episode or listen below:
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This book is one of over 400 books in IB Tauris/Bloomsbury’s Turkey/Ottoman history category, which you can get a 35% discount on if you sign up to become a Turkey Book Talk member. Members also get English and Turkish transcripts of every interview upon publication, transcripts of the entire archive of 90+ episodes, and an archive of 231 reviews written by myself covering Turkish and international fiction, history, journalism and politics.
Sign up as a member to support Turkey Book Talk via Patreon.
Turkey Book Talk episode #89 – Reuben Silverman, author of “Turkey’s Ever Present Past: Stories from Republican Turkish History” and “Politics in Turkey: Parties, Politicians and the Struggle for Power” (Libra Books), talks about his wide-ranging research on contemporary Turkish history.
Unfortunately, after yesterday’s election board decision to re-run the Istanbul mayoral election the first part of the conversation is slightly out of date. But hopefully the rest is enlightening!
Download the episode or listen below.
Do check out Reuben’s excellent blog, a real treasure trove of articles.
Subscribe to Turkey Book Talk : iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / RSS
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Join as a member to support Turkey Book Talk and get a load of extras: A 35% discount on any of over 400 books in IB Tauris/Bloomsbury‘s excellent Turkey/Ottoman history category, English and Turkish transcripts of every interview upon publication, transcripts of the entire archive of 80+ episodes, and an archive of 231 reviews written by myself covering Turkish and international fiction, history, journalism and politics.
Sign up as a member to support Turkey Book Talk via Patreon.
One more head’s up – Friends of the podcast, the Bosphorus Review of Books, have published a book containing a number of their pieces since launching. “The Two Currents” anthology can be bought online at the locations listed here, so do check it out.
Turkey Book Talk 