Religion, Politics and Nationalism in Contemporary Turkey

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Jenny White
Boston University

Date: March 25, 2015

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Abstract

Turkey is at a crossroads. Under the Islam-rooted AK Party that has been in power for more than a decade, Turkey has been transformed in both positive and negative ways, modernizing, globalizing, and fostering entirely new ways of being Turkish and being Muslim. Since 2011, however, the country has begun to slide into a one-man autocracy beset with corruption allegations and all-out war between the Sunni AKP and its former Sunni ally, the Hizmet movement. The government has begun to dismantle democratic institutions and听enormous tensions are building.

Speaker Bio

Jenny White

Jenny White听is a professor of anthropology and director of undergraduate studies at Boston University. Her research focuses on Turkish politics, with interests including political Islam, civil society, and ethnic identity. Her most recent book,听Muslim Nationalists and The New Turks, examines how contemporary Turkish nationalism and Islam intersect to produce a new conception of Turkish national identity. She is also the author of听Islamic Mobilization in Turkey: A Study in Vernacular Politics听补苍诲听Money Makes Us Relatives: Women鈥檚 Labor in Urban Turkey, as well as three critically acclaimed historical novels set in nineteenth-century Istanbul. White is a former president of the Turkish Studies Association and has received numerous grants and fellowships, including from the Social Science Research Council, the MacArthur Foundation and the National Science Foundation. She earned a B.A. from the City University of New York, an M.A. from Hacettepe University (Ankara, Turkey) and a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin.

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BU anthropology professor Jenny White speaking about religion, politics and nationalism in Turkey.

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Further Reading

Mustafa Akyol,听(New York: Norton, 2013).

Philip Dorroll, 鈥溾,鈥澨Journal of the American Academy of Religion听82:4 (December 2014): 1033-1069.

Dexter Filkins, 鈥,鈥澨New Yorker,听March 12, 2012.

Fethullah Gulen, 鈥,鈥澨New York Times,听February 3, 2015.

Suzy Hansen, 鈥,鈥澨New Republic,听November 10, 2010.

Cinar Kiper, 鈥,鈥澨Atlantic,听April 5, 2013.

Jenna Krajeski, 鈥,鈥澨New Yorker,听January 27, 2012.

Nate Lavey, 鈥,鈥澨New Yorker,听February 14, 2014.

Ahmet T. Kuru and Alfred Stepan, ed.,听(New York: Columbia University Press, 2012).

Iren Ozgur,ed.,听(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012).

Philip Shishkin, 鈥,鈥澨Wall Street Journal,听March 30, 2007.

Yuskel Sezgin, 鈥?鈥澨Washington Post,听November 8, 2014.

Semiha Topal, 鈥,鈥澨International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society听25 (2012): 1-14.

Berna Turam,听(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007).

Ufuk Ulutas, 鈥,鈥澨Middle Eastern Studies听46:3 (May 2010): 389-399.

Jenny White,听(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012).

Jenny White, 鈥,鈥澨National Interest听10:4 (March/April 2015).

Jenny White, 鈥,鈥澨Current History听113 (December 2014): 356-361.

In the News

Hundreds of Turkish soldiers recently crossed the border into Syria to protect听, the grandfather of Ottoman Empire founder Osman I, from attack by the Islamic State. Turkey鈥檚 veneration of its Ottoman heritage has contributed to a growing strain of nationalism in Turkish politics, which听Jenny White will discuss at the Boisi Center听on听Wednesday, March 25.