UC Press Blog

Emrah Yıldız discusses the values—religious, political, economic, or social—behind the eight-hundred-mile journey across two international borders to the Sayyida Zainab shrine.

by Jonas Borsch, author of "God’s Wrath over Antioch, 525–540 CE: Beginning of the End?" from the new special issue of Studies in Late AntiquityThe Tyche (or "Fortune") of Antioch (modern Antakya), now at the Vatican Museum in Rome. The statue is a marble Roman copy after a Greek bronze original

By Sarah-Neel Smith, author of Metrics of Modernity: Art and Development in Postwar TurkeyThis post is designed as a classroom resource for teachers and students interested in modern Turkish art and larger themes of modernism in a global context. It is adapted from the new release Metrics of Mod

A pioneering work of Ottoman Turkish literature, Prisoner of the Infidels brings the seventeenth-century memoir of Osman Agha of Timişoara—slave, adventurer, and diplomat—into English for the first time. The sweeping story of Osman’s life begins upon his capture and subsequent enslavement during the

By Joachim J. Savelsberg, author of Knowing about Genocide: Armenian Suffering and Epistemic StrugglesThe past week marked historic recognition of injustice and suffering. In Minneapolis on April 20, a jury found former police officer Derek Chauvin guilty of murdering George Floyd, one of many k

By Christine Philliou, author of Turkey: A Past Against HistoryImagine living in a place where the political elite is deeply divided within itself. Contradictions between constitutionalism and empire are coming into violent conflict, seemingly on a daily basis. “Minority” groups who have lon

This post is part of our #MESA2020 blog series. Learn more at our MESA virtual exhibit.We're thrilled to announce Salih Can Açiksöz has won MESA's 2020 Fatima Mernissi Book Award for Sacrificial Limbs: Masculinity, Disability, and Political Violence in Turkey! This award is given to the