Keyman MTS Talk with Ilkim Okyar

Join the Keyman Modern Turkish Studies Program for "Drawing Boundaries: Historical Legacies, Visual Politics, and the Making of Turkish National Identity" with Ilkim Okyar, Yeditepe University, Fulbright Visiting Scholar, Keyman Modern Turkish Studies and the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, on Wednesday, November 16th at 12:30pm in Harris Hall, Room 108.

Lunch will be served at 12:00pm.

How do historical legacies shape national identity across profound political transformations? Examining the transition from the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic, this talk explores how representations of Arabs as ethnic other contributed to the construction and redefinition of Turkish national identity between 1876 and 1950. Bringing historical institutionalism into conversation with visual politics, it investigates how inherited cultural repertoires persisted, adapted, and acquired new meanings amid institutional rupture. Through political cartoons, the talk traces continuities and transformations in the symbolic boundaries of national belonging, raising broader questions about the relationship between institutional change, historical legacies, and the reproduction of collective identities.

İlkim Büke Okyar is a Fulbright Senior Visiting Scholar in residence at the Roberta Buffett Institute's The Path Not Taken: Post-Imperial Democratic Transition & the Free Republican Party as a Case, which examines how post-imperial state-building shaped democratic transition and government–opposition relations in early Republican Turkey. Her research examines post-imperial democratic transitions, government–opposition relations, and the institutional legacies of state formation, with a particular focus on modern Turkey and the Middle East. Her previous work has investigated nationalism, state-building, and the construction of national identities through political discourse and visual culture. Methodologically, she combines historical institutionalism with discourse analysis and visual discourse analysis to examine how political ideas, institutions, and identities evolve over time.

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Northwestern University, Harris Hall Room 108, 1881 Sheridan Road, Evanston, United States

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