Book Talk: Contesting Pluralism(s) Islamism, Liberalism, and Nationalism in Turkey and Beyond

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• Nora Fisher Onar, San Francisco State Universiy
• Monday 23 June 2025, 13:00-14:30
• Alison Richard Building, 7 West Road (Sidgwick Site), Room S2.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Dr Ayse Zarakol.

Contesting Pluralism(s) challenges a widespread tendency to limit studies of Turkish – and Muslim – politics to ‘Islamist vs. secularist’ or ‘Islam vs. democracy’ debates. Instead, Nora Fisher-Onar’s innovative argument centers on coalitions for and against pluralism. Retelling Turkey’s story from the late Ottoman Empire to the present as a tale of pluralizing vs. anti-pluralist coalitions, this book offers an alternative explanation for major outcomes from elections and coup d’etats to revolutions. Here, cross-camp alliances pit those who are willing to coexist with ‘Other(s)’ against those who champion a unitary, national project in which everyone speaks, believes, looks, and loves as they do. Drawing on a rich array of primary and secondary data, Fisher-Onar introduces an analytical framework for capturing causal complexity in political contestation. This study rejects Orientalist exceptionalism, rereading the relationship between political religion, pluralism, and populism via a framework that travels across and beyond the Muslim-majority world.

This talk is part of the POLIS Department Research Seminars series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• Africa Research Forum
• Alison Richard Building, 7 West Road (Sidgwick Site), Room S2
• All POLIS Department Seminars and Events
• Centre of African Studies Lent Seminar Series
• Centre of African Studies Michaelmas Seminars
• Centre of African Studies Occasional Talks
• Economics and Philosophy
• Gem's List
• POLIS Department Research Seminars
• The Audrey Richards Annual Lecture in African Studies
• The Smuts Memorial Fund Lecture
• hc446
• jer64's list
• mas270

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