Making Sense of Turkey’s Cold War

This event has passed.

26.03.2021 | 13.00 – 19.00

Turkey’s Cold War history has received only limited attention from scholars. Most studies focus on conventional questions of either diplomacy or governance, sidelining the history of cultural developments, social movements, and transnational dynamics. Addressing these gaps in the literature, this webinar features new and original research on how to make sense of Turkey’s “Cold War experience” during the 1950s–’80s.

Webinar organized by Alp Yenen (Leiden University) & Jan-Markus Vömel (University of Freiburg / University of Konstanz)

13:00–13:30 CET │ Round of Introductions

13:30–15:30 CET │ Panel I: Reconsidering Global and Local Entanglements

Chair: Alexander Balistreri (University of Basel)

– Cangül Örnek (Maltepe University): “Tints of Anti-Imperialism/Anti-Colonialism? Turkish Islam Encountering the Cold War Debates in the Middle East.”
– Nadav Solomonovich (University of Haifa): “Fear of World War III in Early Cold War Turkey?”
– Jiayi Zhu (Tsinghua University): “Global Maoism in Turkey.”
– Çimen Günay-Erkol (Özyeğin University): “Cold War Turkish Literature on the World Stage.”

16:00–17:30 CET │ Panel II: Revisiting Political Movements

Chair: Joost Jongerden (Wageningen University)

– Sevil Çakır Kılınçoğlu (University of Göttingen): “The Left and Political Violence in Turkey in the 1970s.”
– Jan-Markus Vömel (University of Freiburg / University of Konstanz): “The 1970s Generation in Turkish Islamism: Youth Activists, Literary Avant-Gardists, and Global Politics during the Late Cold War.”
– Zeynep Bursa-Millet (CETOBaC/EHESS Paris): “Intellectuals’ Hearth (Aydınlar Ocağı): Anticommunism Above All?”

18:00–19:00 CET │ Panel III: Rethinking Regional Dynamics

Chair: Cengiz Günay (University of Vienna / Austrian Institute for International Affairs)

– Eldad Ben Aharon (Leiden University): “The 1980 Military Coup as a Turning Point? The ‘Second Cold War’ and Counter-Terrorism as a Means to Rapprochement in the Israeli-Turkish Relations.”
– Alp Yenen (Leiden University): “The Case of the Missing Turkey: The Global Cold War, The Middle Eastern Crisis of the Late 1970s, and Turkish Studies.”

This event is connected with Leiden University’s Turkish Studies, DFG Research Network on Contemporary History of Turkey, and Turkey Studies Network in the Low Countries.