Friday, November 10, 2023
I recently got back from the annual Middle East Studies Association conference in Montreal. It was great. I went to university in Montreal and had only been back a couple of times since I graduated more than thirty years ago. This was my first visit since 2001.
Best of all, I had the chance to talk for a little while about my new book on Nâzım Hikmet, Red Star over the Black Sea: Nâzım Hikmet and his Generation. The hardcover is now selling for just $41. And if that's too rich for you, a paperback edition is due to come out by March of 2025.
This was something of a surprise, but Red Star was also discussed in the latest issue of a Swedish cultural magazine called Flamman. With the Turkish government holding up Sweden's entry into NATO, Turkey has apparently been a popular subject there in recent months.
It's nice to see the book getting a little traction. There was also a quite positive review of the book in The Russian Review not long ago, which was good to see.
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The MESA conference was a lot of fun as usual. I really liked the panel that I was on. We were given a pretty bad time slot--the second-to-last panel of the conference, on early Sunday afternoon. Nevertheless, we got a good turnout. Best of all, my co-panelists, discussant, and chair were excellent. We rocked the joint.
Montreal
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| In Syria, 1995, showing off some of the skills I'd picked up in college |
I'd been, overall, a pretty incompetent student for most of my university career, having double-
majored in English Literature and Bonghit Studies. By the time I went home for Winter Break of my senior year in December of 1990, I had sixteen papers from previous semesters that I still had to write. It was only during the course of my final two semesters (Spring and Summer of 1991) that I managed to finally get my act together with the finish line in sight.
The night before I graduated in October of 1991 I was showing my parents around the Arts Building at McGill, where the English department was located. My parents looked on with bemusement as I slid my final paper under the door of one of my professors from semesters past. After all, I was due to graduate the next day. The professor in question had been good enough to submit a grade for me based upon the classwork I had already completed, allowing me to graduate when I did. I'd written that last paper on the honor system. It was the last remaining assignment, so I had thought at the time that my academic career was officially over.
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| The apartment of broken dreams: corner of Rivard and Marie-Anne streets. |
Eight years later, that same professor would write a letter of recommendation on my behalf when I applied to do an MA. By that time, of course, I was a very different person, at least with respect to how I managed my responsibilities. I'd spent seven years living in Turkey, working at a job for which I wouldn't get paid unless I handled things well. I'd also developed an interest in the regions I now work on--the Middle East, Russia, and the Balkans--through a relatively organic process.
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| An old haunt from my university days. |
And for this reason, I think, I've been able to avoid the sense of burnout that I often see among colleagues of mine who jumped straight into a PhD program after college. Instead of making a career-defining decision at the age of 21, I decided to go to graduate school only after having spent years of my life living in and traveling through the countries that I now write about. Thank goodness I was a screw-up in college for whom graduate school was not even a remote possibility.
The Long Road Back
It was a long and tiring trip. I'd arrived in Montreal just after 11 on Wednesday evening, and didn't get to my AirBnB that night until after 1. And then, almost every night I was there I got to bed late. Between catching up with a dear friend from college and seeing friends from MESA, not to mention participating in the conference itself, I was pretty wiped out by the end of my stay. I needed three flights to make my way back to Big Sky country, with a lungful of phlegm to boot.
The last several days have been a slog, so I'm looking forward to resting this weekend. I sit in the sauna and feel the Crisco-like sweat ooze out of my face and think: man, do I like what I do.
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Like the book? You can purchase your own copy of Red Star over the Black Sea here.
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Are you a Turk across empires? Order your copy of my first book at the OUP website or on Amazon.
Are you a Turk across empires? Order your copy of my first book at the OUP website or on Amazon.
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More photos, commentary, and links can be found in the Borderlands Lounge.
More photos, commentary, and links can be found in the Borderlands Lounge.
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