Oct 16

Britain and the Ottoman Maghreb, 1662–1712 with Nat Cutter (Oxford UP, 2026)

From the mid-seventeenth to early eighteenth century, a wide network of English-speaking men, women, and children took up residence in the Ottoman Maghrebi regencies of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. There they formed expatriate communities, engaged with the societies around them, ... Show More

49m 1s

Oct 7

To Exist as a Problem: Being Black, Being Palestinian with Zahi Zalloua (Bloomsbury, 2026)

In the first pages of The Souls of Black Folk, W. E. B. Du Bois meditates on the question, "How does it feel to be a problem?"In this profound response to that question, Zahi Zalloua endeavours to think through the shared Black and Palestinian experience of being racialized as ... Show More

49m 48s

Oct 6

Egyptian Male Film Stars in the Nasser Era: Envisioning a National Identity with Samar Abdel-Rahman (American U of Cairo Press, 2026)

Samar Abdel-Rahman's Egyptian Male Film Stars in the Nasser Era: Envisioning a National Identity (American University of Cairo Press, 2026) explores male stardom in Egyptian cinema produced during the early years following the Free Officers' revolution of 1952, through the lives ... Show More

1h 15m

Aug 2023

Anthony Bigio on Gad Franco, Sephardi Turkish patriot in times of turmoil

Anthony Gad Bigio on “A Sephardi Turkish Patriot: Gad Franco in the Turmoil of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic” (Hamilton Books). The book describes the turbulent and difficult life of Gad Franco, a prominent journalist, social activist and lawyer in the late Ottom ... Show More

37m 7s

Jun 2021

Christine Philliou on reimagining Turkish history and the roots of political dissent

Christine Philliou, associate professor of history at UC Berkeley, on “Turkey: A Past Against History” (University of California Press). The book examines the life of the writer Refik Halid Karay (1888-1965), interrogating the shifting meaning of political dissent from Ottoman to ... Show More

42m 15s

Sep 2023

Spyros Sofos on Turkey’s many nationalisms

Spyros Sofos on “Turkish Politics and ‘The People’: Mass Mobilisation and Populism” (Edinburgh University Press). The book delves into the ambiguities behind the term “the people” from the late Ottoman era to today, and how religious, secularist, left ... Show More

26m 28s

Jul 2025

Bilge Yabancı on Turkey's civil society under siege

Bilge Yabancı on “Civil Society and Authoritarianism: Co-optation, Repression and Contestation in Turkey” (Edinburgh University Press). The book examines the transformation of civil society groups under pressure from mounting authoritarianism. Support Tu ... Show More

38m 42s

Jul 2024

Sami Kent on stories from Turkey’s first hundred years

Sami Kent on “The Endless Country: A Personal Journey Through Turkey’s First Hundred Years” (Picador). The book paints a portrait of Turkey by combining accounts of key events with Sami’s personal reflections on growing up learning about his paternal homeland from afar, before ... Show More

32m 40s

Jul 2023

Şebnem Gümüşcü on the past and future of Islamism in Turkey

Şebnem Gümüşcü on “Democracy or Authoritarianism: Islamist Governments in Turkey, Egypt and Tunisia” (Cambridge University Press). The book looks in depth at how intra-party factional struggles were key in shaping the AKP’s authoritarian direction, while also comparing this wi ... Show More

44m 28s

Jan 2024

İlkim Büke Okyar on Arabs in Turkish popular culture

İlkim Büke Okyar on “Arabs in Turkish Political Cartoons, 1876-1950: National Self and Non-National Other” (Syracuse University Press). The conversation addresses how Arabs are typically viewed in Turkish popular culture, also examining the impact of the influx of Syrian migra ... Show More

32m 53s

Nov 2023

Sinem Adar on Turkey’s dilemmas amid the Israel-Gaza war

Sinem Adar, associate at the Centre for Applied Turkey Studies at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, on Turkey’s response to the Israel-Gaza war. The conversation builds on her recent article arguing that the crisis shows the limits of Turkey’s region ... Show More

35m 15s

Nov 2023

Cihan Dizdaroğlu on Turkey-Greece ties through turbulence and rapprochement

Cihan Dizdaroğlu on “Turkish-Greek Relations: Foreign Policy in a Securitisation Framework” (Edinburgh University Press). The book looks at how ties between Athens and Ankara have gone through various cycles of improvement and deterioration from the early Republic of Turkey to ... Show More

37m 34s

Sep 2014

The War That Changed The World: Istanbul - Modernity and Secularism

Turkey emerged from the First World War as a new republic, with a secular and modern identity, attempting to break from its Ottoman past. How has this influenced Turkey today? With historians Aksin Somel and Ahmet Kuyas, and novelist Elif Shafak.

50m 2s

Anthony Gad Bigio, "A Sephardi Turkish P...