Talk:
\n\u201cPopulist Nostalgia: Yearning for the Ottoman Past in Turkey\u201d<\/p>\n
by
\nYagmur Karakaya
\nYale University
\nyagmur.karakaya@yale.edu<\/p>\n
Date and Room Info
\nFriday, April 3, 2026, 12:30 p.m.
\nA-130<\/p>\n
Abstract<\/p>\n
In the last decade and a half, Turkey has been gripped with nostalgia for the Ottoman past, and it has become an increasingly authoritarian state. The forthcoming book Populist Nostalgia: Yearning for the Ottoman Past in Turkey explores how nostalgia has been strategically deployed to reshape Turkish culture and politics. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, seventy-five interviews, and analysis of popular media, including TV series like Magnificent Century and Resurrection Ertugrul, as well as state-led initiatives such as the Panorama History Museum and Conquest Rallies, it examines the transformation of Ottoman nostalgia from a cosmopolitan, playful phenomenon into a tool for populist mobilization.<\/p>\n
Taking reception seriously, the study parses the role of entertainment and shows how suspension of disbelief becomes a key in audience response. In a quest for sublation, I uncover how individuals actively engage with, critique, or resist populist rhetoric, rather than passively absorbing it. While \u201cSpectacle Seekers\u201d embrace state-led entertainment and \u201cHistory Guardians\u201d resist the politicization of the Ottoman past, \u201cAppraising Skeptics\u201d remain critically in the middle. By situating Turkey\u2019s case within a global context of rising populism, I highlight the broader implications of nostalgia in shaping political culture and collective memory and its potential to both sustain and challenge authoritarianism.<\/p>\n
Short Bio<\/p>\n
Yagmur Karakaya is an Assistant Professor at Yale University and the Associate Director for Center for Cultural Sociology. She received her PhD from the University of Minnesota\u2019s Sociology Department in 2020. Her work focuses on political culture broadly. Specifically, she studies nostalgia as a collective force, highlighting its central place within both populist political discourse and popular culture. In her award-winning article in American Journal of Cultural Sociology (2020), she argues that state-led populist nostalgia mobilizes both emotions and reflexive cognition to shape political engagement. Her work has also appeared in Social Forces, Poetics, New Perspectives on Turkey and Sociological Forum. Her book, Populist Nostalgia: Yearning for the Ottoman Past in Turkey is under contract with University of California Press. She is spending her sabbatical year as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Sabanc\u0131 University in Turkey. Her next project examines therapy in authoritarian political contexts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Talk: \u201cPopulist Nostalgia: Yearning for the Ottoman Past in Turkey\u201d by Yagmur Karakaya Yale University yagmur.karakaya@yale.edu Date and Room Info Friday, April 3, 2026, 12:30 p.m. A-130 Abstract In the last decade and a half, Turkey has been gripped with nostalgia for the Ottoman past, and it has become an [\u2026] <\/p>\n