Imagining Turkey

Imagining the End of Empire with Eugene Rogan

In this episode, we welcome Eugene Rogan, Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History at the University of Oxford, Director of the Middle East Centre at St. Anthony's College, and a Fellow of the British Academy. Author of internationally bestselling books including The Arabs: A History, The Fall of the Ottomans, and most recently The Damascus Events, Rogan has spent over three decades recovering Ottoman and Arab perspectives long marginalised by European historiography. We discuss how Turkey and the Arab remember the Ottoman imperial past in divergent ways, whether the Empire's collapse was inevitable or a consequence of fateful choices, and what the Ottoman reconstruction of Damascus after the violence of 1860 might teach us about imagining political futures in the region today.

Imagining Wastelands: Turkey's Waste and Recycling Policy at the Periphery with Adnan Khan

In this episode, the Takhayyul Project welcomes Adnan Khan, an acclaimed Canadian writer, editor, photographer, and visual storyteller. We discuss Adnan's recent work chronicling how the global trade in plastic waste has exploited some of the most vulnerable communities, such as refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in Istanbul, and of the importance in bringing empathy and depth to similar stories that often go untold.  Date of episode recording: 2025-11-09  Language of episode: English  Presenters: Meryem Zișan Köker; Hazal Aydın.  Guests: Adnan Khan  Producer: Dr. Sertaç Sehlikoglu; Meryem Zișan Köker; Hazal Aydın; edited by Alexander Pymm

Imagining Turkey with Gündüz Vassaf

In this episode, we welcome acclaimed writer, psychologist, and intellectual Gündüz Vassaf, whose work spans 17 published books blending literature, philosophy, and psychology. Author of the bestselling "Prisoners of Ourselves: Totalitarianism in Everyday Life" and his more recent novel "The Painter's Rebellion," Vassaf explores with us what it means to imagine Turkey, to be ‘Turkish’ and to be part of a community in the context of some of the world’s greatest challenges, such as global warming, Artificial Intelligence and an increasingly polarised political landscape. Transcription link: https://www.takhayyulproject.com/takhayyul-podcast-youtube Date of episode recording: 2025-05-19T00:00:00Z Duration: 00:35:58 Language of episode: English Presenter:Dr. Sertaç Sehlikoglu; Meryem Zișan Köker; Hazal Aydın Guests: Gündüz Vassaf Producer: Dr. Sertaç Sehlikoglu; Meryem Zișan Köker; Hazal Aydın. Edited by Alexander Pymm

Imagining Turkey Through Romeyka: A conversation with Professor Ioanna Sitaridou

In this episode, we are hosting Professor Ioanna Sitaridou, Professor of Spanish and Historical Linguistics at the University of Cambridge and co director of the Cambridge Centre for Greek Studies. Professor Sitaridou is widely known for her pioneering work in the study and preservation of languages, including her ongoing with the Romeyka Project, which aims to document and spread awareness of the now-endangered Greek dialect, spoken in Northern Anatolia. www.takhayyulproject.com/takhayyul-podcast-youtube [https://gate.sc/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.takhayyulproject.com%2Ftakhayyul-podcast-youtube&token=84a085-1-1748970382934] Date of episode recording: 2024-11-08T00:00:00Z Duration: 00:40:09 Language of episode: English Presenter:Dr. Sertaç Sehlikoglu; Meryem Zișan Köker; Hazal Aydın Guests: Professor Ioanna Sitaridou Producer: Dr. Sertaç Sehlikoglu; Meryem Zișan Köker; Hazal Aydın. Edited by Alexander Pymm

Turkey at the Genetic Crossroads with Dr Elise Burton

In this episode, we host Dr Elise Burton, an historian of science, race and nationalism in the modern Middle East and an Assistant Professor at the Institute of History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto. As part of a wide-ranging conversation, we discuss some of Dr Burton's findings from her recent book, “Genetic Crossroads: The Middle East and the Science of Human Heredity”, within which she draws on archival research across the Middle East, Europe, and the United States using sources in Turkish, Persian, Arabic, and Hebrew, to explore how Middle Eastern peoples—both as scientific actors and research subjects—have played an important role in the history of human genetics. Date of episode recording: 2025-01-29T00:00:00Z Duration: 00:35:26 Language of episode: English Presenter:Dr. Sertaç Sehlikoglu; Meryem Zișan Köker; Hazal Aydın Guests: Dr Elise Burton Producer: Dr. Sertaç Sehlikoglu; Meryem Zișan Köker; Hazal Aydın. Edited by Alexander Pymm.