Episode 413with Nathalie Clayer, Fabio Giomi, and Emmanuel Szurekhosted by Andreas GuidiDownload the podcastFeed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloudOur latest podcast in collaboration with The Southeast Passage examines how Kemalism as a political category has been used widely and often ambiguously throughout the history of the Turkish Republic in public discourse as well as in historiography. In this episode, we discuss Kemalism from an innovative transnational perspective. The making of Kemalism was embedded in hybridity and circulations involving other regions of the post-Ottoman space. Practices of governance, material objects, new conceptions of the body and gender roles, and scientific debates created a convergence of Islam and modernity which was influenced by external references but also attracted observers from surrounding countries such as Albania, Yugoslavia and Egypt.« Click for More »

History of Modern Turkey

A Transnational History of Kemalism

Episode 411Produced and Narrated by Chris GratienEpisode Consultant: Devin NaarSeries Consultant: Emily Pope-ObedaScript Editor: Sam Dolbeewith additional contributions by Devi Mays, Claudrena Harold, Victoria Saker Woeste, Sam Negri, and Louis NegriDownload the podcastFeed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloudLeo lived in New York City with his family. Born and educated in the cosmopolitan Ottoman capital of Istanbul, he was now part of the vibrant and richly-textured social fabric of America&#39;s largest metropolis as one one of the tens of thousands of Sephardic Jews who migrated to the US. Though he spoke four languages, Leo held jobs such as garbage collector and shoeshine during the Great Depression. Sometimes he couldn&#39;t find any work at all. But his woes were compounded when immigration authorities discovered he had entered the US using fraudulent documents. Yet Leo was not alone; his story was the story of many Jewish migrants throughout the world during the interwar era who saw the gates closing before them at every turn. Through Leo and his brush with deportation, we examine the history of the US as would-be refuge for Jews facing persecution elsewhere, highlight the indelible link between anti-immigrant policy and illicit migration, and explore transformations in the history of race in New York City through the history of Leo and his family.This episode is part of our investigative series Deporting Ottoman Americans.« Click for More »

Turkino

Episode 398with Şevket Pamukhosted by Matthew GhazarianDownload the podcastFeed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloudWhat forces have governed Turkey&#39;s economic growth over the past two centuries? In this episode we speak with Şevket Pamuk about development in Turkey since 1820. In the late Ottoman period, low barriers to trade, agrarian exports, and European financial control defined the limits of economic expansion, while the transition from Empire to Republic brought more inward-looking policies aimed at protecting domestic industries. From the 1980s until the present, the Turkish government came to embrace the set of policy recommendations now called the Washington Consensus, defined by trade liberalization, privatization, and de-regulation. We discuss key moments during each of these periods, comparing Turkey to other countries around the world. We also discuss broader historical debates about Islam in economic history as well as approaches to the economic as an object of study. « Click for More »

Turkish Economic Development Since 1820

Episode 387with Nefin Dinçhosted by Chris GratienDownload the podcastFeed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloudAntoine Köpe was never a prominent politician or public figure, but he was witness to extraordinary events. Born in late Ottoman Istanbul to French and Hungarian parents, Antoine was there to celebrate the 1908 Young Turk revolution, fight in the First World War, live under an Allied occupation, and experience the emergence of the national resistance and the establishment of the Republic of Turkey. Driven by an irresistible instinct to document, he produced writings, drawings, audiovisual recordings, and a 10-volume memoir of his unusual life. In this episode, our guest filmmaker Nefin Dinç shared more about the life of Antoine Köpe, which is the subject of a documentary project titled "Antoine the Fortunate."« Click for More »

The Incredible Life of Antoine Köpe

Episode 386with Suzy Hansenhosted by Chris GratienDownload the podcastFeed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloudTurkey is a country that most Americans know little about, and yet the United States has played an extraordinary role in the making of modern Turkey. In this podcast, we explore this disparity of awareness and the role of the US in the history of the Middle East through the lens of an American journalist&#39;s slow realization of her own subjectivity and the myriad ways in which the US and Turkey have been intertwined. In this conversation with Suzy Hansen about her award-winning book "Notes on a Foreign Country," we critically examine the formation of journalistic and scholarly expertise, and we discuss reactions of readers and reviewers to Hansen&#39;s work. « Click for More »

America, Turkey, and the Middle East

Bölüm 376Rita EnderSunucular: Işın Taylan ve Matthew GhazarianDownload the podcastFeed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloudMesleğiniz tarih sayfalarından silinirse ne hissedersiniz? İstanbul&#39;da yüzlerce meslek artık yok ve yok olmaya devam ediyor. Bu bölümde, Rita Ender ile Kolay Gelsin kitabı üzerine konuşuyoruz. Kolay Gelsin Agos Gazetesi’nde 2012 - 2014 yılları arasında Meslekler ve Mekanlar adıyla yayınlanmış söyleşilerden oluşuyor ve her bir söyleşi İstanbul tarihine, esnaflığa, değişen yeme-içme kültürlerine, demografik değişikliklere ve kültür tarihine ışık tutuyor.« Click for More »

Kolay Gelsin: İstanbul'da Meslekler ve Mekânlar

Episode 358with Hikmet Kocamanerhosted by Chris GratienDownload the podcastFeed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloudDiscourses surrounding the family and morality have played an important role in modern political debates. In this episode, we discuss the politics of family in Turkey and its relationship to both religion and government policy. Our guest Hikmet Kocamaner discusses how the Turkish Directorate of Religious Affairs--the Diyanet--oversees a range of activities concerning the family as part of the project of a "New Turkey" championed by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). In particular, we discuss family-oriented television programming related to Diyanet. While distinctively Islamic in their rhetoric, these programs in fact serve as a fascinating meeting point for various expert approaches to social issues and the family, demonstrating the complex entanglement of Islamic and secular institutions in modern Turkey.« Click for More »

Politics of the Family in the New Turkey

Episode 342with Selcen CoşkunLorans Tanatar Baruhand Seda Kula Sayhosted by Nilay Özlü, Susanna Ferguson and Matthew GhazarianDownload the podcastFeed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloudIn this episode, we discuss the history of Beyoğlu&#39;s Emek Cinema from its construction in 1884 to its 2013 destruction, which sparked major opposition among Turkish intellectuals, writers, researchers, members of the film industry, and lovers of cinema and of Beyoğlu, many of whom fought to keep this piece of Istanbul&#39;s cultural and architectural heritage. Through a wide-ranging discussion with architects and historians, this episode shows how the history of one building can speak to trajectories of urban development, violence, and transformation in Istanbul from Ottoman times until today. « Click for More »

Emek Cinema: Contesting Istanbul's Urban Development

Episode 341with Sara Rahnamahosted by Susanna Ferguson and Seçil YilmazDownload the podcastFeed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloudIn this episode, we explore debates about aesthetics, headwear, and dress in interwar Algeria and Turkey. Why did hats and hijabs generate so much debate among Algerian thinkers, both men and women? How did expectations about what men would wear on their heads carry different political connotations than similar debates about women&#39;s head coverings? This episode takes up the role of dress and comportment in shaping Algerian conversations about colonialism, feminism, and Islamic reform, as well as the importance of a "Turkish model" in interwar Algerian debates.« Click for More »

Hats and Hijabs in Algeria and Turkey

Episode 337with Kalliopi Amygdalouhosted by Michael TalbotDownload the podcastFeed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloudDuring the late Ottoman period, the diverse and vibrant Aegean ports of Izmir (Smyrna) and Thessaloniki (Salonica) experienced rapid growth and transformation through the increased interconnection of the Mediterranean world and the rise of maritime trade. But in the tumultuous final decade of the Ottoman period, both cities witnessed political and demographic upheaval as well as outright destruction by fire. With Thessaloniki permanently incorporated into Greece and Izmir into the new Republic of Turkey in 1923, the two cities seemed destined to follow different paths. Yet as our guest Kalliopi Amygdalou explains, interesting comparisons and parallels between the development of Izmir and Thessaloniki endured even after they ceased to be part of a unified Ottoman polity. In this episode, we follow the story of urban and architectural transformation in Izmir and Thessaloniki after the decade of war between the Balkan Wars (1912-13) and the establishment of the Republic of Turkey and the period that followed in the two cities under a transition from empire to nation-state.« Click for More »

Izmir & Thessaloniki: from Empire to Nation-State

Episode 321with Peter McMurrayhosted by Nir Shafir and Huma GuptaDownload the podcastFeed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloudWhat is the aural possibility of Islamic life in European cities today? This special episode begins with a ten-minute segment from an audio composition crafted by our guest, musicologist Peter McMurray, from recent field recordings and ethnographies he conducted among various Turkish communities in Berlin. As the discussion progresses we weave in and out of two discussions. First, we look at the means by which Turkish migrants from the Alevi, Shi’i, and Sufi communities use the different private and public spaces of the city as a stage for their religiosity. We add to this a second discussion of how ethnography, aesthetics, and the aural intersect in scholarship today. « Click for More »

The Sounds of Islamic Berlin

Episode 299with Angela Andersenhosted by Chris Gratien and Shireen HamzaDownload the podcastFeed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloudIn this episode, we approach the religious architecture of the Alevis, to examine how practice shapes architectural space and how socioeconomic change transforms such spaces. Many of our episodes on Ottoman History Podcast have focused on how monumental architecture, such as mosques and other buildings of religious significance, are tied to political transformation and expressions of political power and ideology. Taking a different perspective, our guest, Angela Andersen, researches the history and development of Alevi architectural forms in Turkey and abroad. Historically, Alevi religious practice and cem ceremonies took place in homes and other multi-purpose buildings, which could be configured as ad hoc meeting places for local communities during the communal cem ceremony. But with Alevi urban migration to cities in Turkey, Germany, and elsewhere, the creation of a "permanent address" for Alevis has emerged in the form of community centers providing a number of services, including designated rooms or halls for the cem. In this episode, we trace the genealogy of the modern cemevi to older contexts of Alevi religious practice and consider the role played by the cemevi in Turkey&#39;s new political landscape.« Click for More »

Alevi Religious Ceremony, Architecture, and Practice

Episode 293with Daniel-Joseph Macarthur-Sealhosted by Nir Shafir featuring additional material by Samuel DolbeeDownload the podcastFeed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloudThe Opium Wars and the massive trade in opium between South Asia and China over the nineteenth century attest to the prominent role of opium within the history of colonialism and globalization. But it is less well known that in the early twentieth century, the Republic of Turkey became the largest exporter of opium in the world. In this episode we speak with Daniel-Joseph Macarthur-Seal about how and why opium became an export commodity in Turkey and how Turkish citizens smuggled the substance out once it became formally illegal. Along the way we gain a glimpse into the economic history of the young republic, the legal life of its citizens abroad, and how these smuggling operations built new forms of cosmopolitanism from the ground up as the Turkish republic became less and less accommodating for non-Muslims.« Click for More »

Opium Smuggling in Interwar Turkey and Beyond

Episode 290with Emmanuel Szurek  hosted by Chris Gratien and Aurélie Perrier  featuring Seçil Yılmaz and Nir ShafirDownload the podcastFeed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloudNational language politics and the transformation of literacy have effected major changes in both spoken and written language over the course of the last century, but few languages have changed as dramatically as modern Turkish. The reform of the language from the 1920s onward, which not only replaced the Ottoman alphabet with a new Latin-based alphabet but also led to a radical transformation of the lexicon and grammar, has been described by Geoffrey Lewis as "catastrophic success" due to the extreme but unquestionably successful nature of this attempt to revolutionize language in Turkey. In this episode, we talk to Emmanuel Szurek about his research on the politics of the alphabet change, the language reforms, and the surname laws of the early Republican period. Our extended interview is followed by a brief conversation in French about the history of French Turcology.Release Date: 4 January 2017« Click for More »

The Politics of Turkish Language Reform

with Lerna Ekmekçioğluhosted by Chris Gratien, Nir Shafir, and Eda ÇakmakçıDownload the podcastFeed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloudAfter facing the destruction of their community during the First World War, former Ottoman Armenians set about rebuilding in Turkey first during a period of relative optimism under the Allied occupation of Istanbul and later as non-Muslim citizens of new Turkish nation-state. In her new work entitled Recovering Armenia, Lerna Ekmekçioğlu explores the changes and continuities in the identity of Istanbul&#39;s Armenian community during this transformative period. In this interview, we explore Armenian collective politics, feminist movements, and expressions of loyalty through the Armenian press and through the writings of women in particular, and we examine the issue of Armenian belonging in Turkey through the lens of "secular dimmitude" among non-Muslim citizens of a predominantly Muslim but secular republic.« Click for More »

Secular Dhimmis of the Republic

Interviews with scholars about the history of Turkey since its founding in 1923