“There are some artifacts that are symbols of nations and states. One of these symbols is the Ayasofya,” said Turkish…
Sacred space and the (post)secular state
Turkey
Inheritance and belief
Can we apply what we have learned about religious conversion to instances in which individuals do not embrace the convictions…
Armenian return conversions in Turkey
The politics of Turkish secularism does not only impose a radical break with the multi-religious Ottoman past, but simultaneously aims…
On the recent past, fraught present, and tenuous future of Turkish Muslim civil society
To practice anthropology is to accept an implicit temporal double bind: We think we write ethnography, but frequently our expositions…
A salutary tremor
What logics, strategies, and effects characterize the category of religion as an instrument for governing social life? What possibilities and…
Beyond religio-secularism: Toward a political critique
On July 24, 2013, a “Letter to the Prime Minister of Turkey” was published as an ad in the British…
The anatomy of a public square movement
Sociologist (and longtime TIF contributor) Nilüfer Göle assesses the emerging opposition movement in Turkey at Today's Zaman.
Occupy Gezi, beyond the religious-secular cleavage
The protests in Turkey started on May 27 with a modest resistance movement against the destruction of Istanbul’s Gezi Park…
An excursion through the partitions of Taksim Square
Taksim Meydanı. Partition Square. Although it has taken on potent new resonances in recent days, the name of Istanbul’s throbbing central…
Alawites, Alevis, and Assad
n a recent article in The New Republic, Soner Cagaptay discusses how Syria's sectarian divisions could exacerbate current divisions in Turkey.