EUME Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation 2019-20
Politics of Time and History: Turkey’s Regime of Historicity in the Coup d’Etat of 1960
Previous Fellowships: 2018/ 2019, 2013/ 2014
is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Mimar Sinan Güzel Sanatlar University, Istanbul. He received his MA in History from Boğaziçi University (2002) and his PhD in History from the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) (2009). His research interests cover mainly social, political and culinary history of the Ottoman Empire and Republican Turkey. His first book, based on his dissertation, examines two plots against the sultan after the abolition of Janissaries (1826) in the context of the transformation of the Ottoman political system and its social implications, and thus, contributes to a better understanding of the changes in the Ottoman political space through the analysis of the idea and practice of regicide: Détrôner le Sultan, Deux conjurations à l’époque des réformes ottomanes: Kuleli (1859) et Meslek (1867) (Leuven: Peeters, 2013; published in Turkish translation as Padişahı Devirmek: Osmanlı Islahat Çağında Düzen ve Muhalefet: Kuleli (1859), Meslek (1867); Istanbul: İletişim, 2018). His second book is a collection of fourteen articles, attempts to re-write a political history through culinary culture, primarily in a late Ottoman and Turkish Republican context: MutfakTarih: Yemeğin Politik Serüvenleri (History [in the] Kitchen: The Political Adventures of Food), (İstanbul: İletişim, 2015). During the years 2019-2020, he is a EUME Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.
2019-2020
Politics of Time and History: Turkey’s Regime of Historicity in the Coup d’Etat of 1960
Burak’s current research project focuses on the period surrounding the 1960 coup d’état (May 27) in Turkey, which was long considered the second foundational period of the Turkish Republic. Attempts to govern time and history have always been an important feature of modern politics. This tendency becomes much more visible in the course of radical political transformations, during which history is rapidly rewritten, national calendars are reorganized, and daily routines of citizens are interrupted or modified. Focusing on the conception of time as an element which determines and is determined by political culture is essential to expanding the horizons of Turkish political history. Following this line of thinking, the main objective of his research is to shed light on the complex relationship between politics, history, and the experience of time during the period in question. It also aims to bring into view the temporal perspective and historiographical undercurrents that characterize the political culture of modern Turkey beyond May 27, 1960.
At the Crossroads of Biopolitics, Secularism and Islamic Reform: The Issue of “Helâl Pork"
During his stay in Berlin as an Affiliated Fellow of EUME, Onaran will work on his project entitled: The Helâl Pork Debate and State Pig Farms in Early Republican Turkey (1920-1950)
