The Topography of Nationalism in Turkey: Actors, Discourses and the Struggle for Hegemony

The Middle East Institute presents a brown bag lecture entitled, "The Topography of Nationalism in Turkey: Actors, Discourses and the Struggle for Hegemony" with Professor Umut Özkırımlı.

Professor Özkırımlı will provide a topography of nationalist discourses in Turkey with a view to throwing light on the dynamics of the ongoing struggle for hegemony over the nation by various social and political forces at the turn of the twenty-first century. His speech aims to deconstruct the myth of the ‘homogeneous nation’ with particular reference to the case of Turkey. He will do this by drawing together a Gramscian reading of nationalism and the topographical approach of Jean Pierre Faye, and integrating this with the broader debates on nationalism in Turkey. 

UMUT ÖZKIRIMLI is Associate Professor of Politics and the Director of Turkish-Greek Studies at Istanbul Bilgi University and Senior Visiting Fellow at LSEE,The European Insitute, The London School of Economics and Political Science. His previous publications include Theories of Nationalism: A Critical Introduction (2000), Nationalism and its Futures (edited collection, 2003), Contemporary Debates on Nationalism: A Critical Engagement (2005), and Tormented by History: Nationalism in Greece and Turkey (with Spyros A. Sofos, 2008). His forthcoming publications are Nationalism and Turkey-EU Relations (2010), Nationalism in the Troubled Triangle: Cyprus, Greece and Turkey (edited collection with Ayhan Aktar and Niyazi Kızılyürek, 2010) and the second revised and enlarged edition of Theories of Nationalism (2010).