[ecrea] call for chapters for an edited volume of 'new culture' in Turkey

Call for Chapters

eds. Daghan Irak, Cagri Yalkin, Suncem Kocer

In the last two decades, Turkey has been going  through a massive 
metamorphosis virtually in every possible field, as all agencies and 
institutions of this once radically secularist state have been 
transformed in line with the “New Turkey” project by Recep Tayyip 
Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP), mostly based on 
Islamic and/or conservative principles.

After Erdoğan’s victory in the 2010 Constitutional referendum where the 
tutelage of the army over democratic life and the Kemalist elites in 
state bureaucracy were effectively eliminated, the last obstacle for 
hegemony was indubitably cultural. Despite having had absolutely no 
difficulty in scoring landslide electoral victories, the AKP was unable 
to contain the growing preoccupations of a large urban population, 
predominantly comprised of secular, modern cultural capital owners. 
After the 2007 Republican rallies, which mostly aimed at restoring the 
old regime, had a limited effect probably due to their reactionary and 
nature, the Gezi Park protests in 2013 emerged as a massive backlash 
against the growingly repressive new regime, accompanied by 
unprecedented democratic alliances between traditionally adverse social 
and political layers of society in Turkey.  Even though the Gezi Park 
protests roughly gathered five million people across the country over a 
month, the movement did not fully translate into institutional politics, 
and thus it culturally represented a major defeat for Erdoğan’s 
inevitable journey to be the uncontested ruler of “New Turkey”. That was 
where the JDP project started to have substantial cultural flavours that 
seemed to be products of a legitimation crisis: a hectic contemplation 
on how to tackle the cultural dissidence, possibly by replacing the 
cultural remnants of the old regime with a newly-constructed cultural 
narrative. Limiting the Metropolitan Municipalities’ City Theatres 
performances, construction of the third Bosphorus Bridge Yavuz Sultan 
Selim which aimed to stand as the symbol new Turkey from its pro-Sunni 
name to the glorification deforestation, and shifting the ballet, opera, 
and theatre performances from Ataturk Cultural Centre to shopping malls 
such as Zorlu Centre are but a few projects in aid of a new cultural 
narrative. As a result, under the wings of an anti-Western populism 
promoted by Erdoğan himself, new cultural creations emerged as 
productions of new and old actors of the cultural scene, using the 
economic and social capacities of the massive public-private network 
established by the AKP. However, the complex and fierce cultural battle 
in Turkey is still far away of reaching a conclusion.

We are inviting chapters for an edited book on the cultural landscape in 
new Turkey.  Rising on the shoulders of Saktanber and Kandiyoti’s (2002) 
seminal work on everyday life in Turkey, we aim to examine the 
socio-cultural transformation that took place since, and its reflections 
in everyday life.  Given the social, cultural, and political changes 
that have characterized and morphed the global and regional landscape 
since 1990, we examine contemporary life in Turkey through consumption 
and cultural studies (fashion, celebrities, etc), communications 
(newsmaking, etc), sociology, anthropology, gender studies, arts and 
creative industries studies (film and tv studies, museum studies, etc.), 
urban studies, and digital lives. Chapters may respond to, but are not 
limited by, the following prompts:

  *

    Arts & popular culture (fashion, film, TV series & programs,
    literature, celebrities, museums, galleries, literature)

  *

    Consumption

  *

    Urban life (streets/spaces, shopping malls, gentrification)

  *

    Gender (inequality, masculinities, femininities, LGBT-Q, education)

  *

    Sports

  *

    Religion

  *

    Digital Identities

  *

    Food

  *

    Leisure

Please send your chapters, queries, and questions to 
(newcultureturkey /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(newcultureturkey /at/ gmail.com)>.  The 
deadline for chapter submissions is 1 September 2017.


Dr. Daghan Irak
Dr. Suncem Kocer
Dr. Cagri Yalkin


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