{"title":"Avi Rubin, Ottoman Rule of Law and the Modern Political Trial: The Yıldız Case. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2018, xviii + 226 pages.","authors":"Burak Onaran","doi":"10.1017/npt.2021.22","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/npt.2021.22","url":null,"abstract":"which scholars and politicians Yavuz is referring to. Moreover, the fact that the term does not have an established Turkish translation equivalent calls for elaboration. I also find it difficult to believe that Ziya Gökalp was “one of Atatürk’s right-hand men” (p. 41). The Turkish War of Independence lasted until 1922 and Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk from 1934) was primarily a military leader up until then. Gökalp died in 1924, before the socially transformative reforms of the Turkish Republic were initiated. His writings may have been influential, but Gökalp was hardly Atatürk’s right-hand man. More egregious than the varying quality of factual claims is the overall framing of the work. The post-Kemalist take that was refreshing in the early 2000s appears stale when used in 2020. Perhaps it is because the party that its political version fostered has grown authoritarian, but more pertinently the scholarly version has run out of analytical purchase. If I were to be unkind, Nostalgia for Empire is a scholarly counterpart to those books and think pieces where American journalists go to “fly-over country” to interview Trump supporters in diners, essentializing “the real America” and buying/reproducing a particular narrative of where that America is (in Kansas) and what it wants (“make America great again”). The difficulty is that the resulting analysis is not only analytically problematic, but at the same time it is the legitimizing discourse of a particularly nasty political current. This review could have been the equivalent of a music fan claiming “I liked his early work better.” But the problem runs deeper. Like the “Trump voter in diner” genre, Nostalgia for Empire turns the sources’ political narrative into its own scholarly analysis. Despite extensive criticism of Erdoğan and Ahmet Davutoğlu, the book reads as an apologia for imperial nostalgia and for the post-Kemalist political project as much as an analysis of it.","PeriodicalId":45032,"journal":{"name":"New Perspectives on Turkey","volume":"65 1","pages":"137 - 141"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48006573","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Elif M. Babül, Bureaucratic Intimacies: Translating Human Rights in Turkey. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2017, xiv + 230 pages","authors":"Ş. Bahçecik","doi":"10.1017/npt.2021.23","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/npt.2021.23","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45032,"journal":{"name":"New Perspectives on Turkey","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48890324","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Neo-Ottomanism and Cool Japan in comparative perspective","authors":"Murat Ergin, Chika Shinohara","doi":"10.1017/npt.2021.17","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/npt.2021.17","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Turkey and Japan have comparable histories of modernization beginning in the nineteenth century. They have since then produced modernities that are considered a mix of “Eastern” and “Western.” Over recent decades, both faced the question of what comes after modernity and began manufacturing their versions of authenticities and cultural exports. This paper comparatively locates two symptoms of this process. “Neo-Ottomanism” refers to the increasing cultural consumption of Turkey’s imperial past while “Cool Japan” emphasizes popular products in entertainment, fashion, youth culture, and food, intending to shift Japan’s image to a “cool” place. Both projects, in different ways, are sponsored by the state; yet their reception in popular culture illustrates the vexed relationship between the state and culture: while states endeavor to colonize culture for their own interests, popular culture provides avenues to outwit the state’s attempts. Popular culture’s autonomy in both contexts has to do with the collapse of traditional hierarchies, which has paved the ways for the promotion and export of new identity claims. Local and global representations of neo-Ottomanism and Cool Japan differ. Internally, they are fragmented; externally, they are linked to international “soft power,” and offer alternatives modernities in Turkey and Japan’s regional areas of influence.","PeriodicalId":45032,"journal":{"name":"New Perspectives on Turkey","volume":"65 1","pages":"27 - 48"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-09-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41498319","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Darin N. Stephanov. Ruler Visibility and Popular Belonging in the Ottoman Empire, 1808–1908. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019. vii + 240 pp.","authors":"Fatma Öncel","doi":"10.1017/npt.2021.20","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/npt.2021.20","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45032,"journal":{"name":"New Perspectives on Turkey","volume":"65 1","pages":"141 - 145"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-09-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47570830","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Ottoman Empire, the United States, and the legal battle over extradition: the “Kelly affair”","authors":"Berna Kamay","doi":"10.1017/npt.2021.15","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/npt.2021.15","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article examines extradition in nineteenth-century Ottoman diplomacy by exploring an illustrative legal conflict between the Ottoman Empire and the United States. The Kelly affair, which revolved around the murder of an Ottoman subject by an American sailor in Smyrna (Izmir) in 1877, sparked a diplomatic dispute that lasted for several decades. The controversy stemmed from conflicting interpretations of the treaty of commerce signed in 1830. The inability to reach a consensus pushed the parties to resort to the 1874 Extradition Treaty, which was the only official Ottoman extradition agreement. The Kelly affair poignantly illustrates how extradition, an issue of international law that touched on territorial jurisdiction and subjecthood, was a complicated and ill-defined matter when addressed in practice. By investigating the confrontation between the Ottoman Empire and the USA, both putative secondary powers on the international stage at the time, this article challenges the existing historical narratives on interimperial relations that highlight Europe as the locus of power and agency. Even though ad hoc political actions overshadowed the binding force of the treaty text, it demonstrates how both governments adopted a political strategy that moved beyond the intrinsic arguments and logic of the capitulations to embrace a novel legal discourse.","PeriodicalId":45032,"journal":{"name":"New Perspectives on Turkey","volume":"65 1","pages":"78 - 99"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/npt.2021.15","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41539029","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"NPT volume 64 Cover and Front matter","authors":"","doi":"10.1017/npt.2021.18","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/npt.2021.18","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45032,"journal":{"name":"New Perspectives on Turkey","volume":"64 1","pages":"f1 - f4"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/npt.2021.18","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46142584","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"NPT volume 64 Cover and Back matter","authors":"","doi":"10.1017/npt.2021.19","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/npt.2021.19","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45032,"journal":{"name":"New Perspectives on Turkey","volume":"64 1","pages":"b1 - b2"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/npt.2021.19","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47490163","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Editors’ Introduction","authors":"Biray Kolluoğlu, Deniz Yükseker","doi":"10.1017/npt.2021.16","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/npt.2021.16","url":null,"abstract":"Volume 64 of New Perspectives on Turkey is the second issue of this journal produced during the COVID-19 pandemic. While our lives continue to be turned and twisted in various ways, this volume, with its rich and diverse content, is testimony that we are settling down with the “new normal.” This volume brings together four independent articles and a mini dossier consisting of three articles and a lengthy introductory essay. The independent articles cover populism and elections, conflict resolution and women, collective memory and national identity, and finally climate change and public health. The final article is one that contributes to the nascent scholarship in Turkey on the impact of climate change. As editors we are happy to lead the discussion in this field and we will try to pursue it in the future. The mini dossier, guest edited by Cenk Özbay and Kerem Öktem, became increasingly topical as the articles were being processed. At this writing, the increasing visibility and mobilization of the LGBTI community since the turn of the century is confronting a serious backlash. Attacks against women’s demands for equality and attacks against the LGBTI community have been on the rise especially in the past few years. On the first day of 2021, the President of Turkey made a top-down appointment to the rectorship of Boğaziçi University, which triggered protests by its students, to which the government has responded by arresting and demonizing the protestors, especially LGBTI individuals. More recently, on March 20, 2021, the President pulled the country out of the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, better known as the İstanbul Convention, through a late-night presidential decree. These acts are the most recent examples, and in a way, just the tip of the iceberg, in the government’s increasing gender conservatism and authoritarianism. Hence, the mini dossier is a very timely attempt to critically reflect on these developments. The first article of this issue is by Osman Şahin on populism and elections, a topic that has global reverberations in countries across the globe from India to the United States, from Russia to Brazil. As social scientists around the world are grappling to understand the ways in which populist regimes generate support, Osman Şahin studies the 2015 general elections in Turkey which were held twice within a period of five months. He argues that by triggering perceptions of ontological insecurity through the Kurdish issue, the ruling populist Justice and Development Party (AKP) managed to increase its 1","PeriodicalId":45032,"journal":{"name":"New Perspectives on Turkey","volume":"64 1","pages":"1 - 3"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/npt.2021.16","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47474021","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Remembering hope: mediated queer futurity and counterpublics in Turkey’s authoritarian times","authors":"Yener Bayramoğlu","doi":"10.1017/npt.2021.14","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/npt.2021.14","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article explores how hope and visions of the future have left their mark on media discourse in Turkey. Looking back at some of the events that took place in the 1980s, a decade that was shaped by the aftermath of the 1980 coup d’état, and considering them alongside what has happened since the ban of Istanbul’s Pride march in 2015, it examines traces of hope in two periods of recent Turkish history characterized by authoritarianism. Drawing on an array of visual and textual material drawn from the tabloid press, magazines, newspapers, and digital platforms, it inquires into how queer hope manages to infiltrate mediated publics even in times of pessimism and hopelessness. Based upon analysis of an archive of discourses on resistance, solidarity, and future, it argues that queer hope not only helps to map out possible future routes for queer lives in (and beyond) Turkey, but also operates as a driving political force that sustains queers’ determination to maintain their presence in the public sphere despite repressive nationalist, militarist, Islamist, and authoritarian regimes.","PeriodicalId":45032,"journal":{"name":"New Perspectives on Turkey","volume":"64 1","pages":"173 - 195"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-04-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/npt.2021.14","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42646810","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Salih Can Açıksöz. Sacrificial Limbs: Masculinity, Disability, and Political Violence in Turkey. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2020, xxiv + 246 pages.","authors":"Hazal Hürman","doi":"10.1017/npt.2021.13","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/npt.2021.13","url":null,"abstract":"future holds. Başcı adeptly demonstrates that cinema has the power to defy official narratives and disturb conventional accounts of identity and history while constructing a new public discourse through the depiction of the suppressed. Social Trauma and Telecinematic Memory reminds us of the refreshing notion that cinema has the power to rewrite history. Despite the all-pervading authority of official history that silences memories, “[c]hildren remember, and grow up to tell stories” (p. 196).","PeriodicalId":45032,"journal":{"name":"New Perspectives on Turkey","volume":"64 1","pages":"212 - 216"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-04-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/npt.2021.13","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45199339","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}