Main Content
Research
Research in the department focuses primarily on media of Turkey, with work on television, film festivals, and the role of media screens in public demonstrations. Areas of focus include image studies, platform studies, everyday life, popular representations of the national past, necropolitics, the role of media in the rise of “post-truth” phenomena, and the role of rumor and conspiracy theory in political culture. A further project is the production of an ethnographic film on shepherding in the Lebanese highlands. Ongoing research includes the following:
A dizi-ying past: Ottoman costume dramas and the consumption of history in Turkey and beyond
... investigates ways in which the national past is mediated through popular culture to serve political demands of the present in Turkey and beyond. Set against the global rise of the Turkish “dizi” (TV serial), it examines varied articulations of national identity in the costume dramas Magnificent Century (Muhteşem Yüzyıl, 2011-2014) and Resurrection Ertuğrul (Diriliş Ertuğrul, 2014-2019), which, though apparently similar in their glorification of the Ottoman past and in their global success, were diametrically opposed ideological projects within the authoritarian political milieu of Turkey.
Re-sieved wisdom at the margins of authoritarianism: Domestic distinction and transnational publics for Turkish television drama (dizi)
... explores the limits of the dizi, both in terms of genre and geographical distribution. The project first compares texts and publics between Video On Demand (VOD) platforms and terrestrial broadcast in Turkey, where heavy censorship and industry norms have led to a flight to the digital realm. It then examines how these dynamics affect the global circulation of Turkish TV drama, particularly with reference to the online publics that form to subtitle, share, and discuss dizi informally. The “Re-sieved” in the title refers to the interplay whereby the dynamics of domestic reception appear to be filtered by translation and discussion on informal platforms for sharing dizi, but nonetheless present as a concern amongst the genre’s global publics.
Censor-seep: film festivals as crucible for censorship in ‘New Turkey’
... is an ethnographic project based on work at film festivals in Turkey during the crucial period of 2014-2016, as new strictures were leveled against many forms of expression in the country. It examines the organizing strategies of anti-censorship activists on the one hand, and the trajectories of particular films on the other to evaluate the successes and shortcomings of those campaigning for the right to expression under an authoritarian regime.
The Sheep From The Future?
... is an ethnographic documentary film that takes the dual catastrophes of current economic crisis and pending environmental collapse in Lebanon seriously, exploring the possibility that longstanding transhumant practices in the Levant may represent the most sustainable, and yet threatened, modes of dairy and meat production for both the current crisis and the difficult times to come.