Description:
Since coming to power, President Erdoğan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) have focused on narrating their vision of a 'New Turkey' - an ideal that has resulted in the politicisation of popular culture and people's everyday lives. Exposing the strategy of Turkey's ruling elite to obtain cultural hegemony, this book examines the AKP's efforts to rewrite Turkish public memory by promoting its ideas through TV series, movies, propaganda videos, school curricula and material culture in urban public spaces. It also explores the tactics of cultural resistance developed by the politically weak to counter the ruling elite's dominant culture of pious conservatism.
Brief description: Ivo Furman is Assistant Professor at Istanbul Bilgi University's Faculty of New Media and Communication. He completed his PhD in Sociology at Goldsmiths College, University of London in 2015. His research has been supported by numerous institutions including the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the Danish Agency for Science and Higher Education, the Turkish Science and Technology Foundation (TUBITAK) and Stiftung Mercator. He is part of the research group '"Ne mutlu ateistim diyene". Atheism and the Politics of Culture in Contemporary Turkey' funded by Stiftung Mercator.
Review Quotes:
A wonderfully wide-ranging collection of essays, critical and yet hopeful, presenting a compelling cultural map of the 'New Turkey' and in so doing making a significant contribution to the globalisation of Turkish cultural studies.
-- "Dr. John Storey, Emeritus Professor of Cultural Studies, University of Sunderland"