Erdağ Göknar
Officially, Islam plays no role in decisions to accept Turkey as a member of the EU, yet debates frequently focus on whether a “Muslim” country belongs in Europe. Working from this context, this course introduces students to issues of cultural history and identity from the emergence of the Ottoman Empire to Turkey’s EU accession process. In addition to providing a general historical survey, reading assignments will alternate from the descriptive to the analytical as they help us examine, interpret, and question assumptions about Ottoman, Turkish and Muslim polities in European contexts. One of our goals will be to decode dominant narratives about “Turks” and to situate scholarly debates about Turks and Europe into interpretive frameworks. Our discussions will focus on recent scholarship that addresses topics such as the “gazi thesis,” the “Sultanate of Women,” conversion, Sufism, gender, and Euro-Islam.
