I am an historian of Russia and the Middle East, focusing especially upon incidences of Russian-Turkic contact. My work mainly uses sources written in Russian, Ottoman Turkish, and the Turkic
languages of the former USSR to look at issues like human mobility, communication, politics, and cross-cultural interaction in late imperial Russia, the Ottoman Empire, and Turkey. A resident of
Istanbul from 1992 to 1999, I completed an MA from Princeton in 2001 and a PhD from Brown in 2007. Since August of 2009 I've been an assistant professor of Islamic world history at Montana State
University. Other interests of mine include skiing, record collecting, travel, and the exploits of Detroit sports teams.
What's it going to take, people? How long are we going to allow ourselves to be treated this way?
Bastards...
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A court in the far east of Russia has banned YouTube, joining the ranks of Iran and...Turkey.
I've written elsewhere on how the Erdogan government seems to be taking Russia as a model with respect to its dealings with hostile press attention, so I guess it's only appropriate that courts in Russia would begin to follow a Turkish example.
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Four children between the ages of 6 and 12 arrested, taken into custody for throwing rocks at soldiers in SE Turkey.
Agreement on new pipeline between Iran and Turkey. I guess this is another example of "neo-Ottomanism," or...wait, Iran wasn't in the Ottoman Empire, so this must be part of Turkey's "turning towards the east"....or something.
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New journal on Turkey and Eurasia on my blogroll. Like some of the links that are already on the blogroll (such as Zaman and World Bulletin), the Washington Review of Turkish and Eurasian Affairs appears to be connected somehow with the Gulen crowd (just a guess, judging from the content and the background of the people involved). But frankly, there's a lot of stuff on the blogroll (like the Jamestown spooks) that is well-funded and very pointed, but still worth following, so up it goes. Just keep this stuff in mind, dear reader.
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Russia is selling $300 million worth of missiles to Azerbaijan. The game between Russia, the US, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Turkey continues, with special guest appearances by Georgia.
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Political window dressing: Continued funding for Afghanistan quagmire passes overwhelmingly in US house, though with less support from Democrats than before. Yippee.
7/29/2010 8:40 AM
Bulent Murtezaoglu wrote: Re: the new journal. How are these things promoted? They managed to get a mention in Jenny White's blog too. Perhaps other Americans also took a look and bookmarked. I'm trying to understand just what it takes in terms of funding and man power to insert points of view into the discourse. Surely, getting your output looked at is one of the necessary steps. I note they also promise food etc. at a reception in a PoliSci meeting. What else? Reply to this
7/29/2010 8:50 AM
Jim wrote: I saw it in Jenny's blog. Otherwise I'd never heard of it. Not sure if food/drink is enough to lure people in--rather (and I think this is the case with Taraf, too) it's a perspective that is appealing to Americans. Reply to this
8/9/2010 9:46 AM
Bulent Murtezaoglu wrote: Hmm. No, food and drink by themselves probably wouldn't be enough, but fielding presentable 'nice' people in an environment that is accessible and pleasant probably has an effect. I can only look at what's freely available and visible, of course, but based on what I have seen, people who probably cannot even read Turkish are opining on things (or even lecturing Turks) as if they were experts. This kind of conceit is probably nurtured by Turks they interface with and it is that where funding, food etc. probablycomes into the picture. I don't know, something doesn't look good to me in the Turco-US interface but cannot quite pin it down. Reply to this
Re: the new journal. How are these things promoted? They managed to get a mention in Jenny White's blog too. Perhaps other Americans also took a look and bookmarked. I'm trying to understand just what it takes in terms of funding and man power to insert points of view into the discourse. Surely, getting your output looked at is one of the necessary steps. I note they also promise food etc. at a reception in a PoliSci meeting. What else?
Reply to this
I saw it in Jenny's blog. Otherwise I'd never heard of it. Not sure if food/drink is enough to lure people in--rather (and I think this is the case with Taraf, too) it's a perspective that is appealing to Americans.
Reply to this
Hmm. No, food and drink by themselves probably wouldn't be enough, but fielding presentable 'nice' people in an environment that is accessible and pleasant probably has an effect. I can only look at what's freely available and visible, of course, but based on what I have seen, people who probably cannot even read Turkish are opining on things (or even lecturing Turks) as if they were experts. This kind of conceit is probably nurtured by Turks they interface with and it is that where funding, food etc. probablycomes into the picture. I don't know, something doesn't look good to me in the Turco-US interface but cannot quite pin it down.
Reply to this