Skip to main content
Browse by:
GROUP

The Geopolitics of Conspiracy from Turkey to Trump

Geopolitics of Conspiracy from Turkey to Trump poster
Wednesday, September 05, 2018
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Erda¿ Göknar
Wednesdays at the Center

Join Professor Erda¿ Göknar in the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies for our latest installment of Wednesdays at the Center. Professor Göknar will discuss the role of conspiracy as a literary, cultural and political force, with a comparative focus on contemporary Turkey and the Trump presidency. Though the inaccuracies of discourses of conspiracy can be exposed, they nevertheless have political and even electoral or legal outcomes. The talk will present a conceptual map of conspiratorial ideas in the Turkish context that have recently appeared in the US including the "deep state," the "coup," the "enemy of the people," and the "enemy within."

Erda¿ Göknar is Associate Professor of Turkish and Middle Eastern Studies at Duke University. He is a Turkish-American scholar whose research focuses on the intersection of politics and culture in the Middle East, primarily the late Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey. Through his research, he explores questions of Turkish and Muslim representation in literature, historiography, and popular culture/media. He is the award-winning translator of Orhan Pamuk's historical novel, My Name is Red and Ahmet Hamdi Tanp¿nar's A Mind at Peace. His critical articles have appeared in journals such as South Atlantic Quarterly, Novel: A Forum on Fiction, and The Journal of Middle East Women's Studies. Göknar is a recipient of two Fulbright Fellowship awards.