Rethinking Modernity and National Identity in Turkey

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.

ISBN 0295975970   Pages 304 ISBN13 9780295975979 (What's this?)   Volumes 000 Publisher University of Washington Press   Weight (grammes) 408 Imprint University of Washington Press   Published in Washington Format Paperback   Series title Publications on the Near East Publication date 15 Jun 1997   Height (mm) 241 Library of Congress R432.R48   Width (mm) 165 DEWEY 956.102   Spine width (mm) 18 DEWEY edition DC21   Academic level Professional / Scholarly

		List of Illustrations
		Acknowledgments
1		Introduction by Sibel Bozdogan and Resat Kasaba		3
2		Kemalist Certainties and Modern Ambiguities by Resat Kasaba		15
3		Whither the Project of Modernity? Turkey in the 1990s by Caglar Keyder		37
4		Modernization Policies and Islamist Politics in Turkey by Haldun Gulalp		52
5		Projects as Methodology: Some Thoughts on Modern Turkish Social Science by Serif Mardin		64
6		The Quest for the Islamic Self within the Context of Modernity by Nilufer Gole		81
7		The Project of Modernity and Women in Turkey by Yesim Arat		95
8		Gendering the Modern: On Missing Dimensions in the Study of Turkish Modernity by Deniz Kandiyoti		113
9		The Predicament of Modernism in Turkish Architectural Culture: An Overview by Sibel Bozdogan		133
10		Once There Was, Once There Wasn't: National Monuments and Interpersonal Exchange by Michael E. Meeker		157
11		Silent Interruptions: Urban Encounters with Rural Turkey by Gulsum Baydar Nalbantoglu		192
12		Arabesk Culture: A Case of Modernization and Popular Identity by Meral Ozbek		211
13		The Turkish Option in Comparative Perspective by Ernest Gellner		233
14		Modernizing Projects in Middle Eastern Perspective by Roger Owen		245
15		Finding the Meeting Ground of Fact and Fiction: Some Reflections on Turkish Modernization by Joel S. Migdal		252
		List of Contributors		261
		Index		264

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