Turkish
Studies: Profile and News
Welcome to another entry
from the Center for European Studies in beautiful, albeit slightly humid
Gainesville, Florida. We have many
exciting projects underway, including a new grant proposal for the European
Union Delegation that deals with privacy, security, and the effects that the
cyber revolution has had upon each of these issues in an increasingly
interconnected world. This proposal has
indeed been so time consuming that “Turkish Tuesdays” is actually being published
on Wednesday, and sadly, “Turkish Wednesdays” just doesn’t have the same ring
to it. So please forgive our
delay. For now, we would like to
take a moment to introduce another essential member of the CES team – our Professor
of Turkish Studies, Emrah Sahin. Here is
what Professor Sahin has to say about his teaching philosophy, current
research, and his exciting new courses that will be sure to attract students
from a broad variety of disciplines:
I
received degrees in History and International Relations from Middle East
Technical University (B.A.), Bilkent University (M.A.) in Ankara, Turkey, and
my PhD from McGill University, in Montreal, Canada. I was fortunate to work
with a number of wonderful scholars at these institutions to whom the shape of
my intellectual pursuits is greatly indebted.
I begin this year with two research projects.
The first is a manuscript focusing on Ottoman authority and society through the
prism of foreign missionary activity in the region during the 19th and early
20th centuries. The existing literature often depicts Ottoman authorities as
rigid bureaucrats and missionaries as idealistic reformers. My research moves
beyond these stereotypes by emphasizing the complexity of Ottoman imperial
statecraft and by revealing the variety of stakeholders. It posits that the
Ottoman government was an evolving administrative body rather than the staid,
monolithic entity that previous works have described. The manuscript seeks to provide
an historical context for the contemporary debate over missionary activity in
Turkey and the Middle East. The second project is a volume on Turkish relations
with the Wider World (Europe and the United States). This volume, which I am
editing and writing with several other international scholars in the field, introduces
themes in socio-cultural encounters as well as diplomatic relations between
Turkey and the West. We also hope to
present a more nuanced approach to the transformation of the Turkish image in
the Old World and New.
This semester I am teaching
beginning and intermediate Turkish language and culture courses and co-teaching
“European Experience from a Social Science Perspective” with Edit Nagy, the CES
lecturer in Hungarian Studies. Those of
you who are familiar with European history can no doubt appreciate the irony,
at least in a historical context, of a Turk and a Hungarian working together on
a course on the “European Experience.” Next semester I will teach a course entitled “Money and the Bible in
Turkey,” which will focus on the work of merchants and Christian missionaries
in Turkey and the Ottoman Empire.
Teaching is a passion of mine and I relish the opportunity to work with
both graduate and undergraduate students. The challenge of teaching Turkish
Studies is overcoming outdated stereotypes about Turkey and the Middle East.
This challenge requires that students be equipped with historical imagination,
textual literacy, and interdisciplinary thinking; the skills necessary to
explore the interplay between history and memory. I design my classes to have
four main objectives: to generate interest in the material; make my students
aware of the available sources; to teach them how this information relates to
other contexts; and to teach them to think critically about these sources. I might add that these skills are incredibly useful in all disciplines and need not be resigned to only history classes.
I know from personal experience that a teacher’s personality and rapport
with students can make or break their enthusiasm for the subject being taught. I
strive to be enthusiastic and energetic: enthusiastic about the subject and
about how students explore it, and energetic in the teaching process. I aim for
an open and interactive teaching style designed to encourage debate on the day’s
subject. When possible, I devote time to discussing primary source texts and
encourage students to analyse rhetorical twists and historical contexts of
these texts. Ultimately my goal is to lead students through discussions wherein
they acquire the analytical and critical thinking skills necessary to assess
the validity of historical evidence.
My major aim in teaching Turkish Studies at UF is to open my students’
eyes to the personal enrichment of studying Europe and Turkey, which I see as a
unique opportunity for them to connect with the greater world through the
experiences of Turks across space and time.
Along with Turkish Tuesdays on this blog, two additions will enrich our
Turkish Studies menu: Aegean Movie Nights
and the Florida Journal of Turkey and
Turkish Studies. This semester, Aegean Movie Nights, the product of our
collaboration with the Classics Department, will show 12 Turkish and Greek
movies that we have hand picked based on variety, fluency, and quality. All are
subtitled and open to the public (for more visit, http://ces.ufl.edu/outreach/special_events/movie_nights/index.shtml).
The Florida Journal of Turkey and Turkish
Studies will publish news, research and events related to Turkish Studies
twice a year. It aims to create a platform for UF scholars and students, along
with Florida’s Turkish community to interact and promote an informed
understanding of the Turkish World. More information will be available here in
coming weeks.
K.I.T.!
