Turkey Book Talk

Mar 03 2025 100 ep. 37 mins 426

Turkey Book Talk Podcast artwork

Conversations with journalists, academics and writers on Turkey and its region. New episode every two weeks.

News History Arts

Copy RSS

Subscribe on Podcast Addict

Selim Koru on Turkey's role in the emerging anti-liberal world order

Mar 03 2025 46 mins

Selim Koru, analyst at the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey and fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in US, on ”New Turkey and the Far Right: How Reactionary Nationalism Remade a Country” (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury) The book dives deep into the stark worldview driving Turkey’s regime change over the past couple of decades, and its profound implications for

Claudia Liebelt on cosmetic surgery and perceptions of beauty in Turkey

Feb 17 2025 33 mins

Claudia Liebelt, professor of social and cultural anthropology at the Free University of Berlin, on ”Istanbul Appearances: Beauty and the Making of Middle-Class Femininities in Urban Turkey” (Syracuse University Press). Hair transplants, dental implants, botox, nose jobs, lip fillers, eye lifts... Turkey has become almost synonymous with the booming cosmetic sector among inter

Brett Wilson on Yakup Kadri's controversial late Ottoman novel 'Nur Baba'

Feb 03 2025 31 mins

Brett Wilson, associate professor of history and public policy at Central European University, on his translation of Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoglu’s 1922 novel ”Nur Baba” (Routledge). The book’s account of a debauched Bektashi Sufi lodge caused a sensation at the time, raising eyebrows with its scandalous depiction of an immoral, even degenerate religious community in turn-of-

Omar Kadkoy on the future of Syrian migrants in Turkey

Jan 20 2025 32 mins

Omar Kadkoy, foreign policy, security and migration program coordinator at Heinrich Böll Stiftung’s Istanbul office, on the future of Turkey’s Syrian migrant population after the fall of Assad. Developments in Syria have raised expectations that the millions of Syrians in Turkey will now return home. While some have already returned, the issue is very complex and poses major

Zozan Pehlivan on climatic shifts behind late Ottoman conflicts

Jan 06 2025 28 mins

Zozan Pehlivan, assistant professor of history at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, on ”The Political Ecology of Violence: Peasants and Pastoralists in the Last Ottoman Century” (Cambridge University Press). The book explores how extreme climate disruptions played into socioeconomic shifts and became a major underlying factor behind rising tensions between Christian Ar

Samuel Hirst on a century of Ankara-Moscow cooperation

Dec 16 2024 42 mins

Samuel J. Hirst, historian and assistant professor of international relations at Bilkent University, on ”Against the Liberal Order: The Soviet Union, Turkey, and Statist Internationalism, 1919-1939” (Oxford University Press). The book examines crucial but sometimes overlooked decades of close cooperation between the young Republic of Turkey and the Soviet Union on key politica

Ralph Hubbell on the work of Turkish literary giant Oğuz Atay

Dec 12 2024 37 mins

Ralph Hubbell on translating Oğuz Atay’s ”Waiting for the Fear” (New York Review Books). Atay is widely seen as one the great Turkish fiction writers of the 20th century, but he has largely yet to appear in English until now. ”Waiting for the Fear” is made up of eight short stories and was first published in Turkey in 1975. Coming in at under 200 pages, it’s a relati

Jennifer Hattam on Istanbul's shifting cultural landscape

Nov 18 2024 34 mins

Jennifer Hattam reflects on a decade-and-a-half of reporting on Turkey’s environmental, political and cultural agenda, as well as wrenching changes in journalism and staying afloat amid Istanbul’s relentless urban upheaval. Subscribe to her Substack ”Istanbul etc”: https://istanbuletcetera.substack.com/ Become a member on either Patreon or Substack to support Turkey Book

Salim Çevik on Turkey's Middle East reset

Nov 04 2024 37 mins

Salim Çevik, visiting fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), on his recent paper ”Turkey’s Reconciliation Efforts in the Middle East: Ambitions and Constraints in a Changing Regional Order”. The piece examines Erdogan’s shift away from trying to overthrow the established regional order by supporting Muslim Brotherhood allies, and towa

Orçun Selçuk on populist polarisation in Turkey and Latin America

Oct 21 2024 40 mins

Orçun Selçuk, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Luther College, on ”The Authoritarian Divide: Populism, Propaganda, and Polarization” (University of Notre Dame Press). The book compares what Selçuk calls ”affective leader polarisation” in Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Venezuela under Hugo Chávez, and Ecuador under Rafael Correa. It shows that Turkey’