Description
Book SynopsisIn 1909, US courts set out to decide whether a Turkish citizen shall be naturalised as a white person. Turkish elites had already undertaken to portray the Turks as the historic source of Western civilization, white racial stock, and human language. Examining this interaction between global racial discourses and local responses, Ergin recentres Turkish modernisation on imaginings of race.
Table of ContentsACKNOWLEDGEMENTS INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 1: WHY THIS BOOK SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN WRITTEN Race and the Turkish Case Why Care About the Turkish Case? The West = Theory; The Rest = “Mere” Case Cases and National Boundaries CHAPTER 2: THE REPUBLICAN CONVERSION NARRATIVE Rewriting History CHAPTER 3: ENCOUNTERS WITH THE “WEST” Becoming White The Ghosts of the Past: Ottoman Modernization and Encounters with the West The Ottoman Interest in Race Ziya Gökalp: The Official Ideologue of the Republic? The Formation of the “Terrible Turk”: Western Perceptions The Problem of Periodization CHAPTER 4: RACE IN EARLY REPUBLICAN TURKEY Racial Vocabularies Mermaids, Fish, Humans: The Taxonomic Discourse Biometric Mobilization to Protect and Improve the Race Anthropometric Mobilization to “Discover” the Turkish Race CHAPTER 5: CLOSE ENCOUNTERS AND RACIAL DISCOURSES Intellectual Exchange and Historical Contingency The University Reform and Émigré Scholars Conflicting Loyalties: Expertise in the Service of Local and Universal Agendas Afet Inan and Eugène Pittard: Personal Interaction in Search of Anthropometric Essences CHAPTER 6: RACE IN CONTEMPORARY TURKEY Race, and Ethnicity, and Nation Race in Contemporary Turkey CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX
