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New Books in Turkish Studies

New Books in Turkish Studies

By: New Books Network
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 This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: ⁠https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/⁠ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetworkNew Books Network Art Literary History & Criticism Political Science Politics & Government World
Episodes
  • Julia Elyachar, "On the Semicivilized: Coloniality, Finance, and Embodied Sovereignty in Cairo" (Duke UP, 2025)

    Julia Elyachar, "On the Semicivilized: Coloniality, Finance, and Embodied Sovereignty in Cairo" (Duke UP, 2025)
    Jan 4 2026
    On the Semicivilized: Coloniality, Finance, and Embodied Sovereignty in Cairo (Duke University Press, 2025) by Julia Elyachar is a sweeping analysis of the coloniality that shaped—and blocked—sovereign futures for those dubbed barbarian and semicivilized in the former Ottoman Empire. Drawing on thirty years of ethnographic research in Cairo, family archives from Palestine and Egypt, and research on Ottoman debt and finance to rethink catastrophe and potentiality in Cairo and the world today, Elyachar theorizes a global condition of the “semicivilized” marked by nonsovereign futures, crippling debts, and the constant specter of violence exercised by those who call themselves civilized. Originally used to describe the Ottoman Empire, whose perceived “civilizational differences” rendered it incompatible with a Western-dominated global order, semicivilized came to denote lands where unitary territorial sovereignty was stymied at the end of WWI. Elyachar’s theorizing offers a new analytic vocabulary for thinking beyond territoriality, postcolonialism, and the “civilized"/"primitive” divide. Looking at the world from the perspective of the semicivilized, Elyachar argues, allows us to shift attention to embodied infrastructures, collective lives, and practices of moving and acting in common that bypass lingering assumptions of territorialism and unitary sovereign rule.Julia Elyachar is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    36 mins
  • Jacob Daniels, "The Jews of Edirne: The End of Ottoman Europe and the Arrival of Borders" (Stanford UP, 2025)

    Jacob Daniels, "The Jews of Edirne: The End of Ottoman Europe and the Arrival of Borders" (Stanford UP, 2025)
    Dec 3 2025
    At the turn of the twentieth century, the city of Edirne was a bustling center linking Istanbul to Ottoman Europe. It was also the capital of Edirne Province—among the most religiously diverse regions of the Ottoman Empire. But by 1923, the city had become a Turkish border town, and the province had lost much of its non-Muslim population. In The Jews of Edirne: The End of Ottoman Europe and the Arrival of Borders (Stanford UP, 2025), Jacob Daniels explores how one of the world's largest Sephardi communities dealt with the encroachment of modern borders. Using Ladino, French, English, and Turkish sources, Daniels offers a new take on the ways in which ethno-religious minorities experienced the transition "from empire to nation-state." Rather than tracing a linear path, Edirne Jews zigzagged between the Ottoman Empire and three nation-states—without moving a mile. And by maintaining interstate Sephardi networks, they resisted pressure to treat the shifting border as a limit to their zone of belonging. Ultimately, proximity to the border would undo Edirne's Jewish community, but the way this ending came about—local Jews were rarely killed or deported—challenges common assumptions about state borders and Jewish history. By studying Jewish encounters with the nation-state alongside the emergence of modern borders, Daniels sheds light on both phenomena. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 21 mins
  • James Grehan, "Empire of Manners: Ottoman Sociability and War-Making in the Long Eighteenth Century" (Stanford UP, 2025)

    James Grehan, "Empire of Manners: Ottoman Sociability and War-Making in the Long Eighteenth Century" (Stanford UP, 2025)
    Oct 17 2025
    It is easy to believe that manners are empty gestures, little more than social artifice or practiced etiquette whose sole purpose is to project civility and facilitate social interaction. But if we look more closely, they can tell us much more than we might first suppose, revealing what conventional accounts of state, economy, and religion often ignore. With Empire of Manners: Ottoman Sociability and War-Making in the Long Eighteenth Century (Stanford UP, 2025), Dr. James Grehan offers a panoramic view of manners and sociability across the eighteenth-century Ottoman Empire, from the Balkans to the Middle East to North Africa. Studying chronicles, biographical dictionaries, and travel accounts, he throws new light on the inner dynamics of Ottoman society during a transitional period in Ottoman history which has too often been misunderstood. Empire of Manners proposes a new way of thinking about the history of manners, arguing that violence and war-making, as much as civility and etiquette, have a central role in shaping them. The eighteenth century proved to be a turning point in this paradoxical relationship between violence and manners as war-making turned into a substantially more complex and costly enterprise, leaving a deeper and wider social footprint. The interplay between violence and manners, an unlikely couple, unexpectedly narrates the Ottoman path to the modern age. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    36 mins
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