IRP/PSC/SOC 458/MES 400.1

All students also enroll in the required 3-credit Contemporary Issues seminar taught by the SU Director. This course provides an opportunity to examine 21st-century challenges at the interface between modernity and history, secularism and Islam, democracy and authoritarianism, human rights and strategic security, development and sustainability, and the politics of gender and urban development.

Course Description

This course introduces and engages students in critical debate about some of the key contemporary issues concerning the modern Turkish state.

Building on the historical foundations of the Signature Seminar, we begin by examining some of the most important legacies of the Ottoman and early Republican periods and their implications in the modern era.

We then turn to the question of Turkish democratization, examining Turkey’s oscillation between semi-authoritarian and democratic regimes, including the role of Kemalism, populism, the military and political Islam.

This is followed by an examination the ways in which nationalism and secularism have shaped current political, social and cultural dynamics, including the complex relationships between the Turkey’s majority Sunni Muslim community and her religious and ethnic minorities, Alevi Muslims, Christian, Jewish and Kurdish communities.

Students also examine the politics of gender in Turkey in light of these concepts. Finally, we turn to questions of Turkish foreign policy, focusing on Turkish-American relations, Turkey’s long tempestuous relationship with the EU, and Turkey’s aspirations as a regional leader in the Middle East.

Students will engage with these issues through course lectures and discussions, argumentative group presentations, exams and a final paper Class discussions and presentations will encourage students to explore key issues of contestation and debate through the use of core concepts, including the roots and implications of the current protests and state responses in Turkey today.