Rethinking Modernity and National Identity in Turkey

Edited by Sibel Bozdogan and Resat Kasaba

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• Published: 1997
• Subject Listing: Middle East Studies
  Political Science
• Bibliographic information: 304 pp., 25 illus., notes, bibliog., index
• Series: Publications on the Near East
• Contents

In the first two decades after W.W.II, social scientist heralded Turkey as an exemplar of a 'modernizing' nation in the Western mold. Images of unveiled women working next to clean-shaven men, healthy children in school uniforms, and downtown Ankara's modern architecture all proclaimed the country's success. Although Turkey's modernization began in the late Ottoman era, the establishment of the secular nation-state by Kemal Ataturk in 1923 marked the crystallization of an explicit, elite-driven 'project of modernity' that took its inspiration exclusively from the West. The essays in this book are the first attempt to examine the Turkish experiment with modernity from a broad, interdisciplinary perspective, encompassing the fields of history, the social sciences, the humanities, architecture, and urban planning. As they examine both the Turkish project of modernity and its critics, the contributors offer a fresh, balanced understanding of dilemmas now facing not only Turkey but also many other parts of the Middle East and the world at large.

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Kemalist Certainties and Modern Ambiguities
Whither the Project of Modernity? Turkey in the 1990s
Modernization Policies and Islamist Politics in Turkey
Projects as Methodology: Some Thoughts on Modern Turkish Social Science
The Quest for the Islamic Self within the Context of Modernity
The Project of Modernity and Women in Turkey
Gendering the Modern: On Missing Dimensions in the Study of Turkish Modernity
The Predicament of Modernism in Turkish Architectural Culture: An Overview
Once There Was, Once There wasn't: National Monuments and Interpersonal Exchange
Silent Interruptions: Urban Encounters with Rural Turkey
Arabesk Culture: A Case of Modernization and Popular Identity
The Turkish Option in Comparative Perspective
Modernizing Projects in Middle Eastern Perspective
Finding the Meeting Ground of Fact and Fiction: Some Reflections on Turkish Modernization
List of Contributors
Index