Ralph Hubbell on Turkish literary giant Oğuz Atay
December 3, 2024
Turkey Book Talk #233 – Ralph Hubbell on translating Oğuz Atay‘s “Waiting for the Fear” (New York Review Books).
Atay is widely seen as one the great Turkish fiction writers of the 20th century, but he has largely yet to appear in English until now. “Waiting for the Fear” is made up of eight short stories and was first published in Turkey in 1975. At under 200 pages, it’s a relatively slender work – a striking contrast with Atay’s most celebrated novel, the sprawling “Tutunamayanlar” (The Disconnected).
The conversation talks about Oğuz Atay’s exploration of paranoia, alienation and absurdity, the humour in his work, as well as his life and the notorious difficulty of translating his fiction.
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Jennifer Hattam on Istanbul’s shifting cultural landscape
November 19, 2024
Turkey Book Talk #232 – Jennifer Hattam reflects on a decade-and-a-half of reporting on Turkey’s environmental, political and cultural agenda, as well as wrenching changes in journalism and staying afloat amid Istanbul’s relentless urban upheaval.
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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.
Salim Çevik on Turkey’s Middle East reset
November 5, 2024
Turkey Book Talk #231 – Salim Çevik, visiting fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), on his recent paper “Turkey’s Reconciliation Efforts in the Middle East: Ambitions and Constraints in a Changing Regional Order“.
The piece examines Erdogan’s shift away from trying to overthrow the established regional order by supporting Muslim Brotherhood allies, and towards rapprochement with the ruling regimes in Egypt, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Syria and others.
Our conversation weighs up the successes and failures of this initiative, how it has been impacted by Israel’s Gaza war, and how it could be affected by the results of the US presidential election.
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Orçun Selçuk on populist polarisation in Turkey and Latin America
October 22, 2024
Turkey Book Talk #230 – Orçun Selçuk, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Luther College, on “The Authoritarian Divide: Populism, Propaganda, and Polarization” (University of Notre Dame Press).
The book compares what Selçuk calls “affective leader polarisation” in Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Venezuela under Hugo Chávez, and Ecuador under Rafael Correa. It shows that Turkey’s experience under the AKP can often be more usefully compared with examples in Latin America than cases of right-wing populism in Europe or Islamism in the Middle East.
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Ezgi Başaran on the new spirit of Islamism
October 8, 2024
Turkey Book Talk #229 – Ezgi Başaran, journalist and academic at St. Anthony’s College, University of Oxford, on “The New Spirit of Islamism: Interactions Between the AKP, Ennahda and the Muslim Brotherhood” (IB Tauris).
The book looks at the aspirations of Islamist actors in Turkey, Tunisia and Egypt after the Arab Uprisings from 2011 to 2013. Based on interviews with dozens of officials in all three countries at that time, it seeks to understand what motivated them, how they viewed each other, and whether they prioritised pragmatism or religious ideology.
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Samim Akgönül on 100 years of Turkish-Greek relations
September 24, 2024
Turkey Book Talk #228 – Samim Akgönül, director of the Department of Turkish Studies at the University of Strasbourg, on “One Hundred Years of Greek-Turkish Relations: The Human Dimension of an Ongoing Conflict” (Edinburgh University Press).
Based on over two decades of research in Turkey and Greece, the book examines popular conceptions of the other in both countries, showing how lived experience complicates straightforward historical narratives.
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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.
Karabekir Akkoyunlu on religion and democracy in Turkey and Iran
August 27, 2024
Turkey Book Talk #226 – Karabekir Akkoyunlu, Lecturer in Politics and International Studies at SOAS, on “Guardianship and Democracy in Iran and Turkey: Tutelary Consolidation, Popular Contestation” (Edinburgh University Press).
The book makes the case that the political systems under the clergy in the Islamic Republic of Iran and the military in the Republic of Turkey have had surprising similarities – as well as important differences.
The conversation also considers how the two systems have transformed in recent decades, as well as how present-day social and political power struggles are shifting the landscape in both countries.
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Umit Kurt on Gaziantep’s forgotten Armenian past
July 30, 2024
Turkey Book Talk #224 – Umit Kurt, assistant professor of history at the University of Newcastle, Australia, on ”The Armenians of Aintab: The Economics of Genocide in an Ottoman Province” (Harvard University Press).
The book draws on Armenian, Ottoman, Turkish, British and French archives, memoirs, personal papers, oral accounts and property liquidation records to detail the dispossession of Antep’s historic Armenian community and the transfer of their wealth and resources to Ottoman and later Turkish Muslim elites.
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Turkey Book Talk #223 – Ozge Samanci, artist and associate professor at Northwestern University, on her new graphic novel “Evil Eyes Sea” (Uncivilized Books).
The semi-autobiographical story is a murder mystery centred on a group of students at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul in the 1990s. It follows up from her highly successful graphic novel “Dare to Disappoint”.
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Become a member on Substack or Patreon to support Turkey Book Talk. Members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and links to articles related to each episode.
Turkey Book Talk #222 – Sami Kent on “The Endless Country: A Personal Journey Through Turkey’s First Hundred Years” (Picador).
The book paints a portrait of Turkey by combining accounts of key events from previous decades with Sami’s personal reflections on growing up learning about his paternal homeland from afar, before coming to work in the country as a journalist.
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Turkey Book Talk #221 – Istanbul-based photojournalist Bradley Secker discusses his work on migration, LGBT+ asylum seekers in the Middle East and Europe, the difficulties of practicing journalism in Turkey and the broader state of photojournalism.
Bradley recently launched a Substack, in which he tackles various aspects of his work and the challenges of working in the industry.
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Read a transcript of the interview on Substack.
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Become a member on Substack or Patreon to support Turkey Book Talk. Members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and links to articles related to each episode.
Bilge Yesil on Turkey’s global media operations
June 4, 2024
Turkey Book Talk #220 – Bilge Yesil, associate professor of media culture at City University of New York, on “Talking Back to the West: How Turkey Uses Counter-Hegemony to Reshape the Global Communication Order” (University of Illinois Press).
The book examines how the Erdogan regime has mobilised English-language media apparatuses to counter foreign criticism and project Turkey as a rising power opposed to Western imperialism, supposedly giving a voice to oppressed Muslims around the world.
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Become a member on Substack or Patreon to support Turkey Book Talk. Members get a 35% discount on all Turkey/Ottoman History books published by IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, transcripts of every interview, transcripts of the whole archive, and links to articles related to each episode.
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