Lecture
'Who did this to us': The Discourse on Turkey's Internal and External Enemies
- Date
- 8 March 2018
- Time
- Explanation
- Free to visit, drinks after
- Series
- WHAT's NEW?! Spring Lecture Series
- Address
- Lipsius
Cleveringaplaats 1
2311 BD Leiden - Room
- 228
The powerful discourse on Turkey's enemies
One who follows the international news in recent years can't help but notice that Turkey has put the blame for a great deal of her problems on her internal and external enemies. While this attitude has peaked in recent years, it certainly is not new; Turkey has maintained this discourse on enemies for almost a century. Why is there such a powerful discourse on Turkey's enemies, what are the characteristics that make it Turkish, and why is it always valid? Drawing on the century-old official discourse as well as the Turkish media, this talk aims to answer these questions.
About Uğur Derin
Born and educated in Istanbul, Uğur Derin completed his Master's degree at Sabancı University in 2014 with his thesis "Legitimization of the Single Party Period of Turkey: A Critical Approach." Currently, he is an instructor at Leiden University and also doing his PhD with Prof. Erik-Jan Zürcher at the Turkish Studies program of LIAS, focusing on the discourse on Turkey's enemies. He has also published a book chapter with the same title ("Who did this to us?") on the same topic in the upcoming book tentatively titled Collective Violence, Exclusion, and Construction of National Identity in Turkey, edited by S. Astourian and R. Kevorkian.