Turkey Book Talk

Turkey Book Talk #241 – Berk Esen, political scientist at Istanbul’s Sabanci University, on whether Ekrem Imamoglu’s arrest heralds Turkey’s shift from competitive authoritarianism to autocracy.

The conversation addresses the dynamics driving the intensifying crackdown, the international context for this escalation, and the critical choices facing the country’s embattled opposition.

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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.

Turkey Book Talk #240 – Cuma Çiçek, author of “The Kurds of Turkey: National, Religious and Economic Identities” (IB Tauris), on the dynamics behind Ankara’s latest push to put an end to over four decades of the PKK’s insurgency.

The conversation discusses jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan’s call for the group’s disarmament, the implications for affiliated forces in Iraq and Syria, and what it means for Turkish politics.

Download the episode or listen below:

Read a transcript of the interview on Substack

Listen to Turkey Book Talk : iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Spotify / PlayerFM / Listen Notes

Follow : Instagram / Facebook / Twitter / BlueSky

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.

Turkey Book Talk #239 – Selim Koru, analyst at the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey and fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in US, on “New Turkey and the Far Right: How Reactionary Nationalism Remade a Country” (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury)

The book dives deep into the stark worldview driving Turkey’s regime change over the past couple of decades, and its profound implications for the country’s domestic and foreign policy. 

It places Erdogan’s “New Turkey” in the context of a global trend of civilisation-fixated, far-right movements thriving in the US, Russia, India, Hungary and elsewhere – a pioneer of the emerging anti-liberal world order.

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Read a transcript of the interview on Substack

Check out Selim’s Substack Kulturkampf

Listen to Turkey Book Talk : iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Spotify / PlayerFM / Listen Notes

Follow : Instagram / Facebook / Twitter / BlueSky

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.

Turkey Book Talk #238 – Claudia Liebelt, professor of social and cultural anthropology at the Free University of Berlin, on “Istanbul Appearances: Beauty and the Making of Middle-Class Femininities in Urban Turkey” (Syracuse University Press).

Hair transplants, dental implants, botox, nose jobs, lip fillers, eye lifts… Turkey has become almost synonymous with the booming cosmetic sector among international “health tourists” in recent years.

Liebelt’s book is based on extensive research in beauty salons and cosmetic surgery centres across Istanbul, speaking to customers, workers and surgeons to explain the sector’s extraordinary growth among locals and foreigners.

Download the episode or listen below:

Read a transcript of the interview on Substack

Listen to Turkey Book Talk : iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Spotify / PlayerFM / Listen Notes

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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.

Turkey Book Talk #237 – Brett Wilson, associate professor of history and public policy at Central European University, on his translation of Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoglu‘s 1922 novel “Nur Baba” (Routledge).

The book’s account of a debauched Bektashi Sufi lodge caused a sensation at the time, raising eyebrows with its scandalous depiction of an immoral, even degenerate religious community in turn-of-the-century Istanbul.

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Read a transcript of the interview on Substack

Listen to Turkey Book Talk : iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Spotify / PlayerFM / Listen Notes

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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.

Turkey Book Talk #236 – Omar Kadkoy, foreign policy, security and migration program coordinator at Heinrich Böll Stiftung’s Istanbul office, on the future of Turkey’s Syrian migrant population after the fall of Assad.

Developments in Syria have raised expectations that the millions of Syrians in Turkey will now return home. While some have already returned, the issue is very complex and poses major social, political and economic dilemmas for both Ankara and Damascus.

Download the episode or listen below:

Read a transcript of the interview on Substack

Listen to Turkey Book Talk : iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Spotify / PlayerFM / Listen Notes

Follow : Instagram / Facebook / Twitter / BlueSky

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.

Turkey Book Talk #235 – Zozan Pehlivan, assistant professor of history at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, on “The Political Ecology of Violence: Peasants and Pastoralists in the Last Ottoman Century” (Cambridge University Press).

The book explores how extreme climate disruptions played into socioeconomic shifts and became a major underlying factor behind rising tensions between Christian Armenian peasants and Muslim Kurdish pastoralists in eastern Anatolia in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Download the episode or listen below:

Read a transcript of the interview on Substack

Listen to Turkey Book Talk : iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Spotify / PlayerFM / Listen Notes

Follow : Instagram / Facebook / Twitter / BlueSky

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.

Turkey Book Talk #234 – Samuel J. Hirst, historian and assistant professor of international relations at Bilkent University, on “Against the Liberal Order: The Soviet Union, Turkey, and Statist Internationalism, 1919-1939” (Oxford University Press).

The book examines crucial but sometimes overlooked decades of close cooperation between the young Republic of Turkey and the Soviet Union on key political, industrial and cultural projects. The conversation also discusses later episodes of collaboration between Ankara and Moscow in the 1960s and 70s, as well as the bromance between Erdogan and Putin today.

Download the episode or listen below:

Read a transcript of the interview on Substack

Listen to Turkey Book Talk : iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Spotify / PlayerFM / Listen Notes

Follow : Instagram / Facebook / Twitter / BlueSky

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.

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.

Download the episode or listen below:

Read a transcript of the interview on Substack

Listen to Turkey Book Talk:  iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Spotify / PlayerFM / Listen Notes

Follow : Instagram / Facebook / Twitter / BlueSky

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.

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.

Download the episode or listen below:

Read a transcript of the interview on Substack

Listen to Turkey Book Talk:  iTunes / PodBean / Stitcher / Spotify / PlayerFM / Listen Notes

Follow : Instagram / Facebook / Twitter / BlueSky

Subscribe to Jennifer’s Substack “Istanbul etc.“

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.