Donnerstag, 13. März 2025, 17:00 - 18:00 iCal

Ringvorlesung Turkologie Sommersemester 2025

Contemporary trends in the study of modern Turkish literature

March 13th, 2025 – June 12, 2025, 5PM - 6:30PM

Institut für Orientalistik, Hörsaal
Spitalgasse 2, Hof 4.1 (Campus Universität Wien), A-1090 Wien

Vortrag

Hybrid

A Microcosm of Ottoman Decline: Sufism, Sexuality, and Morality in Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu's Nur Baba

Brett Wilson (Central European University, Vienna)

Abstract

This talk will explore one of the most controversial novels of the early twentieth century with attention to its use of history and historical narratives to address current problems. The novel in question, Nur Baba, intervenes in numerous debates such as the character of the Turkish nation, the place of women in society, a perceived collapse of morality and ethics, and the role of Sufi mysticism and lodges. This will lead us to a discussion about the function(s) of Sufi institutions in the late Ottoman empire and the larger debate over the decline of the Ottoman Empire that is central to dominant narratives about the foundation of the Turkish Republic.

Bio

M. Brett Wilson is Associate Professor of Historical Studies and Public Policy at Central European University in Vienna. His research and teaching explore religious, intellectual, and cultural history with specialization in late Ottoman and modern Turkish contexts. Originally from the southeastern United States, he earned his MA and PhD at Duke University. His current book project examines the abolition of Sufi orders in the early Turkish Republic and the subsequent transformation of Ottoman Sufi traditions into national culture and heritage. His first book Translating the Qur’an in an Age of Nationalism (Oxford University Press, 2014) is a cultural history of translations of the Qur’an in late Ottoman and modern Turkey. Recently, he published the first ever English translation of the late Ottoman novel Nur Baba: A Sufi Novel of late Ottoman Istanbul (1922) by Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu - about a debauched Sufi lodge in turn-of-the-century Istanbul.

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Veranstalter

Institut für Orientalistik


Kontakt

Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Yavuz Köse
Department of Near Eastern Studies
+431427743430
yavuz.koese@univie.ac.at