Turkey Book Talk membership update – Review archive added
October 12, 2018
Hello all!
Just a quick message here to announce an upgrade to Turkey Book Talk’s membership system.
As you may know, I stopped writing weekly reviews for Hurriyet Daily News back in July. The archive of my reviews was still standing for a few months but it now seems to have been wiped from history (ie. the HDN website) – apart from a few pieces that apparently weren’t filed properly.
Rather than let all that work just disappear, I’ve decided to add the archive of almost five years (231 articles) to the Turkey Book Talk membership system. The reviews cover a pretty diverse spread of subjects from Turkish and international fiction and poetry to history, journalism, politics, the Middle East and Europe. They are filed under 13 different categories so hopefully it’s fairly straightforward to browse through them. I’m sure that you will find it rich and rewarding!
Existing members have received the archive as PDFs in a RAR folder via email. New members will receive it along with all the other extras that a Turkey Book Talk membership brings for $3 per episode.
Have a look at Turkey Book Talk’s Patreon account for details on how to join as a member and support Turkey Book Talk.
As always, many thanks to all members and listeners.
Cheers!
William
Nazlı Alimen on faith, headscarves and conservative fashion in Turkey
September 18, 2018
Turkey Book Talk episode #73 – Nazlı Alimen on her book “Faith and Fashion: Consumption, Politics and Islamic Identity” (IB Tauris).
Download the episode or listen below.
Subscribe to Turkey Book Talk : iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / RSS
Follow Turkey Book Talk on Facebook or Twitter
Support Turkey Book Talk by becoming a member. Membership gives you full transcripts in English and Turkish of every interview upon publication, transcripts of the entire Turkey Book Talk archive (over 60 conversations so far), and access to an exclusive 30% discount on over 200 Turkey/Ottoman History titles published by IB Tauris (including the book we focus on in this episode!)
Halil Karaveli on ‘why Turkey is authoritarian’
August 21, 2018
Turkey Book Talk episode #71 – Halil Karaveli, Senior Fellow at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, on his stimulating new book “Why Turkey is Authoritarian: From Atatürk to Erdoğan” (Pluto Press).
Against popular ideas that the division between secularism and Islam is the fundamental driver of Turkey’s modern history, Karaveli takes an uncompromisingly class-based perspective. He argues that the urge to protect dominant bourgeois class interests lies behind authoritarianism in its civilian and military guises.
Download the episode or listen below.
Read Halil’s most recent article at CACI’s Turkey Analyst: ‘Can Turkey Change?’
Subscribe to Turkey Book Talk : iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / RSS
Follow Turkey Book Talk on Facebook or Twitter
Support Turkey Book Talk by becoming a member. Membership gives you full transcripts in English and Turkish of every interview upon publication, transcripts of the entire Turkey Book Talk archive (over 60 conversations so far), and access to an exclusive 30% discount on over 200 Turkey/Ottoman History titles published by IB Tauris.
Dimitar Bechev on Turkey-Russia relations, past and present
August 7, 2018
Turkey Book Talk episode #70 – Dimitar Bechev on the past and present of Turkey-Russia relations, “rich in history, ambivalent, multifaceted and rich in nuance, blending fierce competition with cooperation.”
Bechev is a research fellow at the Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. He is the author of “Rival Power: Russia in Southeast Europe” (Yale University Press), and he has written extensively on Turkey, its policy in Europe and the Middle East, and its relationship with Russia.
Download the episode or listen below.
Subscribe to Turkey Book Talk : iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / RSS
Follow Turkey Book Talk on Facebook or Twitter
Support Turkey Book Talk by becoming a member. Membership gives you full transcripts in English and Turkish of every interview upon publication, transcripts of the entire Turkey Book Talk archive (over 60 conversations so far), and access to an exclusive 30% discount on over 200 Turkey/Ottoman History titles published by IB Tauris.
Turkey Book Talk episode #69 – Amy Spangler on the life and work of Sevgi Soysal, whose classic 1973 novel “Noontime in Yenişehir” she translated into English. She also discusses co-founding the literary agency AnatoliaLit and her work on “Seher,” a collection of stories penned in jail by former HDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş.
Download the episode or listen below.
Here’s my review of the (great) novel from a few weeks ago.
Subscribe to Turkey Book Talk : iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / RSS
Support Turkey Book Talk by becoming a member. Membership gives you full transcripts in English and Turkish of every interview upon publication, transcripts of the entire Turkey Book Talk archive (over 60 conversations so far), and access to an exclusive 30% discount on over 200 Turkey/Ottoman History titles published by IB Tauris.
Michael Provence on ‘the last Ottoman generation’
July 10, 2018
Turkey Book Talk episode #68 – Michael Provence of UC San Diego on “The Last Ottoman Generation and the Making of the Modern Middle East” (Cambridge University Press).
Over the past four years the centenary of the First World War has prompted a new focus on the conflict’s historical importance. In Europe the war ushered in the modern age and precipitated the downfall of old regimes, but it perhaps had an even more cataclysmic impact in the Middle East, precipitating a crumbling of the regional order that caused chaos and destruction.
“The Last Ottoman Generation” looks at continuities rather than ruptures, focusing on various individuals who came of age in the final years of the Ottoman Empire, socialized into ways of thinking and operating in a vanished network of Ottoman institutions.
Download the episode or listen below.
Subscribe to Turkey Book Talk : iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / RSS
Here’s my review of the book from a few weeks ago.
Support Turkey Book Talk by becoming a member. Membership gives you full transcripts in English and Turkish of every interview upon publication, transcripts of the entire Turkey Book Talk archive (over 60 conversations so far), and access to an exclusive 30% discount on over 200 Turkey/Ottoman History titles published by IB Tauris.
Turkey Book Talk episode #67 – Jonathan Varjabedian on “My Dear Son Garabed: Kojaian Family Letters from Efkere/Kayseri to America (1912-1919)” (Histor Press).
The book is a collection of 88 letters written from the Anatolian village of Efkere to America between 1912 and 1919. They were sent to Garabed Kojaian and his father Harutian, who were among the many Ottoman Armenians migrating to America in the early 20th century.
Download the episode or listen below.
Subscribe to Turkey Book Talk : iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / RSS
Here’s my review of the book from a few of weeks ago.
As mentioned in the episode, check out the website efkere.com, where Jonathan, the grandson of the late Garabed Kojaian, pieces together the lost history of the village.
Purchase the book (highly recommended) from Histor. Details on their Facebook page.
Support Turkey Book Talk by becoming a member. Membership gives you full transcripts in English and Turkish of every interview upon publication, transcripts of the entire Turkey Book Talk archive (over 60 conversations so far), and access to an exclusive 30% discount on over 200 Turkey/Ottoman History titles published by IB Tauris.
Turkey Book Talk episode #66 – Cengiz Erişen of Istanbul’s Yeditepe University on “Political Behavior and the Emotional Citizen: Participation and Reaction in Turkey” (Palgrave Macmillan), focusing on the months between the June 2015 and November 2015 elections.
Our conversation also takes in the current campaign for the snap presidential and parliamentary elections, the surprisingly energetic performance of main opposition candidate Muharrem İnce, and the critical importance of the Kurdish issue.
Download the episode or listen below
Subscribe to Turkey Book Talk : iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / RSS
Here’s my review of the book from a couple of weeks ago.
Support Turkey Book Talk by becoming a member. Membership gives you full transcripts in English and Turkish of every interview upon publication, transcripts of the entire Turkey Book Talk archive (over 60 conversations so far), and access to an exclusive 30% discount on over 200 Turkey/Ottoman History titles published by IB Tauris.
Turkey Book Talk #61 – DIANA DARKE on “THE MERCHANT OF SYRIA: A HISTORY OF SURVIVAL” (Hurst), which tells the story of Abu Chaker, a textile merchant from Homs who lived from 1921 to 2013.
The book traces Abu Chaker’s life in parallel with the story of the modern history of Syria, examining the social, cultural and political context that shaped him. It also touches on the emergence of the ongoing war, which Darke herself witnessed as she was living in a historical courtyard house in Damascus’ old town until a few years ago.
Download the episode or listen below.
Subscribe to Turkey Book Talk : iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / RSS
Here is Diana’s article on Afrin for the BBC that we mention in the conversation.
Become a member to support Turkey Book Talk and get extra content. Members get full transcripts (in English and Turkish) of every interview upon publication, transcripts of the entire Turkey Book Talk archive (in English) and access to an exclusive 30% discount on over 200 Turkey/Ottoman History titles published by IB Tauris.
Turkey Book Talk episode #59 – Ceren Baysan of University of California, Berkeley on her paper “Can More Information Lead to More Voter Polarization? Experimental Evidence from Turkey.” The study was based on voter surveys in the months before the April 2017 referendum on granting President Erdoğan more powers and also measured Turkish parties’ own polling operations.
Baysan measured Turkish voters’ opinions about various issues as well as the major parties’ own polling operations: How much they know about voters’ preferences and how they adapt their work in light of that information.
The report is full of interesting insights about the state of Turkish parties and the deep polarization that is only getting worse in the country.
Download the episode or listen below
Here’s a link to download/read the report itself.
The Kayhan Delibaş book mentioned in the episode is called “The Rise of Political Islam in Turkey: Urban Poverty, Grassroots Activism and Islamic Fundamentalism.” Here’s an interview with Delibaş on his research.
Subscribe to Turkey Book Talk : iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / RSS
Consider supporting Turkey Book Talk and get extra content by becoming a member. Members get full transcripts (in English and Turkish) of every interview upon publication, transcripts of the entire Turkey Book Talk archive (in English) and access to an exclusive 30% discount on over 200 Turkey/Ottoman History titles published by IB Tauris.
Mehmet Kentel on the world of Ottoman caricaturist Yusuf Franko
February 20, 2018
Turkey Book Talk episode #58 – Mehmet Kentel on the life and work of Yusuf Franko, an obscure Ottoman bureaucrat who lived a remarkable double life as a caricaturist depicting Istanbul’s cosmopolitan late 19th century high society.
Kentel is a PhD Candidate in Near and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Washington, and was adviser to the exhibition “The Characters of Yusuf Franko: An Ottoman Bureaucrat’s Caricatures” at the Koç University Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations.
Download the episode or listen below.
Here’s the great website where you can view all of Yusuf Franko’s remarkable pictures and read the essays in “Youssouf Bey: The Charged Portraits of Fin-de-Siecle Pera,” the catalogue accompanying the exhibition.
And here’s my review of that book in Hurriyet Daily News.
Subscribe to Turkey Book Talk : iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Acast / RSS
Follow on Facebook or Twitter.
Consider supporting Turkey Book Talk and get extra content by becoming a member. Members get full transcripts (in English and Turkish) of every interview upon publication, transcripts of the entire Turkey Book Talk archive (in English) and access to an exclusive 30% discount on over 200 Turkey/Ottoman History titles published by IB Tauris.
Introducing Turkey Book Talk’s new membership system
February 7, 2018
[Read this introduction on Medium]
Hello Turkey Book Talk listeners. Let me start by thanking you for continuing to divert your attention to the podcast — most importantly to our guests and their work.
This week I published our 57th episode – many more than I expected when I started the podcast over two years ago based on my HDN book reviews. I think we have made big strides: From sound quality to editing, from questioning to general presentation. I hope you find that the listening experience has improved.
I want to keep making the podcast better, so I’m pleased to unveil a new membership system for Turkey Book Talk listeners.
The original podcast will still be free to listen for everyone. But I’ve decided to adapt our Patreon account for a special membership scheme.
What does that mean?
Basically from now on you will be able to both support the podcast and get access to more content and benefits as a paying member. Membership perks include:
Full transcripts – in both English and Turkish – of every future interview published on Turkey Book Talk in PDF form, when the episode is published.
Full transcripts of the entire Turkey Book Talk archive (in English) – over 50 conversations so far. Many of these interviews were previously published at Hurriyet Daily News but from now on membership will be the only way to access them. The archive also includes a number of interviews not previously published on the podcast.
Access to an exclusive 30% discount on Turkey/Ottoman History books published by the great IB Tauris. They have a fantastic archive of titles and over 200 books from their Turkey/Ottoman History series are available at cut price through a special discount code exclusive to Turkey Book Talk members. We have featured a number of IB Tauris authors on the podcast, so becoming a member is a great way to get more acquainted with their work.
Signing up as a member will help further develop the podcast going forward, giving you a warm fuzzy feeling. If we get memberships up to a certain level I’ll be able to start publishing episodes weekly (up from the current one episode every two weeks), providing a bigger platform for even more authors, academics, researchers and journalists to get the word out about their work.
In order to access these benefits and to support Turkey Book Talk going forward, all you have to do is pledge a minimum of $3 per episode via Turkey Book Talk’s official Patreon account. Here’s a link to it.
That Patreon account was previously used as a general “donation” page. The new membership scheme simply adapts it. Already existing donors contributing at least $3 per episode have automatically become members. At present I publish new episodes biweekly, so the monthly membership price is no more than $6. If ultimately I become able to publish a new episode every week then that maximum will go up to $12 monthly. It’s basically less than the price of a cup of coffee per episode.
If you’re feeling particularly generous and want to pledge more, of course everything helps and you are more than welcome. However much you pledge, membership is entirely at your own discretion. Members are only charged when a new episode is published so there is no prior commitment or strings attached: All members are free to sign off whenever they want.
Please do also share the podcast – and news of the membership system – with friends, colleagues and basically anyone you think may be interested. Word of mouth is crucial for initiatives like Turkey Book Talk. The aim is to turn it into a self-sustainable, reliable and wide-reaching source. We also want to develop the website and listener network and potentially branch out further into Turkish-language content in the medium to long-term.
It’s no secret that the country is currently going through a difficult period of wrenching changes – often depressing, sometimes surprising. At such a confusing time when news sources are proliferating but ever more difficult to rely on, many Turkey professionals and interested amateurs say they are hungry for dependable, informed and independent insights from voices on the ground.
Turkey Book Talk will not be able to exist without listeners, contributors and paying members. I hope you can join us, helping to strengthen the platform for our guests at a time when their work is more important than ever.
Many thanks
William Armstrong
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