Frederike Geerdink on Turkey’s Kurdish question
February 5, 2016
This week’s podcast is with Frederike Geerdink, author of “The Boys are Dead: The Roboski Massacre and the Kurdish Question in Turkey” (Gomidas).
We chat about her time as a journalist in the Kurdish-majority city Diyarbakır, her deportation from Turkey last year, and the troubled history/present of the issue in the wake of the collapse of the peace process last summer.
Download the podcast, or listen below:
Here’s my review of the book at Hürriyet Daily News.
Subscribe to the Turkey Book Talk podcast via iTunes or via PodBean.
Follow Frederike Geerdink on Twitter.
Added bonus: I’ve dug out this interview from last year with sociologist Cem Emrence, co-author of “Zones of Rebellion: Kurdish Insurgents and the Turkish State” – quite a thought-provoking book.
Ryan Gingeras on ‘Atatürk: Heir to an Empire’
January 23, 2016
This week I spoke to author Ryan Gingeras on his new biography of Turkey’s founding father, “Mustafa Kemal Atatürk: Heir to an Empire” (Oxford University Press).
Or just listen here:
Here’s an edited transcript of the interview.
And here’s my review of the book (which is highly recommended).
As I mentioned in the podcast, here’s a link to an interview I did with Ryan last year about another of his books, “Heroin, Organized Crime, and the Making of Modern Turkey.”
Subscribe to the Turkish Book Talk Podcast via PodBean, or via iTunes.
Kaya Genç talks Istanbul writing
January 9, 2016
Happy New Year!
First Turkey Book Talk pod of the year is with novelist Kaya Genç, the editor of “An Istanbul Anthology” (AUC Press), a new selection of classic writing on Istanbul by classic names including Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.
Happily, I’ve finally picked up a decent mic so the podcasts should now be more listenable. Hooray!
Here’s text of interview at the Hürriyet Daily News.
And here’s my review of the book.
Subscribe to the Turkey Book Talk podcast via iTunes or PodBean.
Nilgün Önder on the economic transformation of Turkey since 1980
December 12, 2015
This week’s podcast is with Nilgün Önder of the University of Regina, who joined to discuss her new book “The Economic Transformation of Turkey: Neoliberalism and State Intervention” (IB Tauris).
It’s a great and detailed book on some of the paradoxes of the economic reforms passed after Turkey’s military coup of 1980 – rather than rolling back, the authority of the state was substantially deepened by the reforms.
Download the podcast here. Or listen/subscribe via PodBean.
Here’s a transcript of the interview at Hürriyet Daily News.
And here’s my review of the book.
Subscribe to the Turkey Book Talk podcast via iTunes, PodBean, or Soundcloud.
Thanks for listening!
Lastly, apologies for the dodgy sound quality in these first few podcasts. I’ve got a new mic in the post so that should go some way to sorting it out.
Markus Dressler on the ‘making of Turkish Alevi Islam’
November 28, 2015
This week’s interview/podcast is with Markus Dressler, author of the book “Writing Religion: The Making of Turkish Alevi Islam.” The book examines how the idea of Alevism is an almost entirely modern concept, formed towards the end of the Ottoman Empire as part of efforts to integrate disparate Anatolian religious groups into the Turkish and Muslim nation.
Download a podcast of our conversation.
Here’s a transcript of the interview at the Hürriyet Daily News.
Here’s my review of the book.
Subscribe to the Turkey Book Talk podcast via iTunes, PodBean, or Soundcloud.
NB – I’ve also just created a Facebook page for the podcast, where I’ll be posting new episodes. Check it out here.
Cengiz Şişman on the Dönmes of Turkey
November 14, 2015
This week I spoke to Cengiz Şişman about his new book on the history of the Dönmes, a crypto-religious sect that first developed around Jewish messiah Sabbatai Sevi in cities around the Ottoman Empire in the 17th century.
Download a podcast of our conversation. Or listen below:
Subscribe to the Turkey Book Talk podcast via iTunes, PodBean, or Soundcloud.
Read an edited transcript of the interview at the Hürriyet Daily News.
And read my review of Şişman’s book, “The Burden of Silence: Sabbatai Sevi and the Evolution of the Ottoman-Turkish Dönmes.”
Michael M. Gunter on the Kurds of Syria in peace and war
October 24, 2015
My interview this week was with Professor Michael M. Gunter, author of “Out of Nowhere: The Kurds of Syria in Peace and War” (Hurst).
The slim book charts the Syrian Kurds’ rise to international profile since 2011, taking in their modern history under Ba’athist oppression, their development of “national conscience,” and ties between the PYD in northern Syria and the PKK in Turkey.
Download the interview in podcast form.
Please subscribe to the Turkey Book Talk Podcast via iTunes, via Podbean, or via Soundcloud.
Here’s the text of the interview at HDN.
And here’s my review.
Ozan Özavcı on liberalism in Turkey
October 10, 2015
This week I spoke to Ozan Özavcı about his book “Ahmet Ağaoğlu and the Genealogy of Liberalism in Turkey” (Brill), on the life of one of the most prominent intellectuals bridging the late Ottoman/early republican years.
Download the podcast of the interview here.
Subscribe to the Turkey Book Talk Podcast via iTunes, via Podbean, or via Soundcloud.
Here’s an edited version of the interview at HDN.
And here’s my review of the book.
If you’re interested in the subject, here’s my interview with Ankara University’s Alexandros Lamprou from earlier this year, discussing social engineering in the early Turkish Republic.
Finally, a shout out to my brother James Armstrong, who has designed the terrific icon for my podcast above. Follow him on Twitter and check out his great work at his website.
Diana Darke on ‘My House in Damascus’
September 12, 2015
This week I spoke to Diana Darke, the author of “My House in Damascus: An Inside View of the Syrian Revolution.” The book describes her experiences after buying a 17th century courtyard house in the center of Damascus in 2005, including Syria’s descent into bloody civil war after 2011.
Here’s a link to my interview with Darke at the Hurriyet Daily News.
And here’s my review of the book from a couple of days ago.
The interview is also available in podcast form. Download here.
Subscribe to the Turkey Book Talk podcast via iTunes (and while you’re at it do rate the show!)
Subscribe via PodBean.
I should say that the two things in the title are unrelated.
My interview this week was with Toni Alaranta of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, discussing his new book “National and State Identity in Turkey: The Transformation of the Republic’s Status in the International System” (Rowman). In the book, Alaranta traces how the entrenchment in power of authoritarian political Islam in Turkey after 2002 was critically aided by the West’s misguided search for a “moderate Muslim democracy” after the end of the Cold War and the 9/11 terror attacks.
Read the interview at the Hürriyet Daily News here.
And read my review of the book here.
This also marks my first step into the world of podcasting. From now on I’ll be publishing these author interviews in audio as well as written form, through my new podcast “Turkey Book Talk.” The podcast will include some extra parts that didn’t make the written edit, as well as some fancy music, etc.
Click here to listen to the first episode (a work in progress as I’m still figuring out the best host, player, etc).
To subscribe to the feed, visit my PodBean page.
Please spread the word to anyone you think may be interested, and do get in touch with any suggestions on how I can improve the podcast!
Turkey’s LGBT crackdown
July 31, 2015
I’ve been walking in north Wales so haven’t had chance to post this piece I wrote on Turkey’s nervous LGBTIs and the “perils of visibility.” Clouds have darkened in recent weeks for LGBTIs in Turkey after last month’s police crackdown on the annual Pride March and a broader uptick in violent incidents and homophobic rhetoric.
The paradox I try to explain in the article is that this has accompanied an increasingly vocal LGBT rights activism that has flourished in the country over the past couple of decades:
“Yeşim Başaran, who works at LGBTI rights group Lambda Istanbul, agrees that a ‘conservative resistance’ has arisen in response to the campaign for recognition. ‘The two things have happened at the same time. The issue of LGBTI rights has become more visible in the media and activists have become more vocal. Opposition parties have nominated gay candidates in elections and have LGBTI people working in their party organizations. That would not have happened a few years ago,’ she says. ‘Life for LGBTIs in Turkey was never easy. They already were subject to attacks in public and within their families. They were at risk of being fired from their jobs or committing suicide. But in the last few weeks it has become more concrete.'”
Read the whole piece at Balkanist.
Istanbul’s 2013 Pride March, in happier times. Source: Wikipedia Commons.
It was particularly interesting to meet the pro-Erdoğan AK-LGBTI group. Many people assumed they were trolls, but I can confirm that they are serious and in the process of becoming a legally recognised “dernek” (association). Turkey is certainly full of surprises.
Turkey and the PKK at another crossroads
July 25, 2015
This week saw some of the worst clashes between Turkish security forces and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) since the (now ended?) peace process officially started over two years ago.
As a result my interview and review this week are sadly topical. I spoke to Cem Emrence, who co-authored a new title on the history of the Turkey-PKK conflict, “Zones of Rebellion: Kurdish Insurgents and the Turkish State.” It is a slim but rich book, elaborating a complex theory of path dependence that has limited the options of both the Turkish state and the PKK over three decades and ultimately led to stalemate.
Read the Q&A with Emrence in Hürriyet Daily News here.
And read my review of the book from earlier this week here.
And something completely different: In next week’s Times Literary Supplement I review a new English selection of the great Sait Faik’s stories. It’s only available in print form so you’ll have to seek out an actual real physical copy of the TLS if you’re interested in reading it.
Turkey Book Talk 