Jatkorahoitus Kone Foundation Scholars at Risk Senior Fellow’n palkkaamiseen Tampereen yliopiston tutkijakollegiumiin

Professor Mahmut Mutman, Tampere University

I had two different projects in 2020-2021.

The first one is titled “Toward A Genealogy of Islamism”. It is a project based on close readings and content analysis of data collected from both the Turkish media in general and Islamist (parliamentary-populist as well as jihadist) publications in Turkish and English, supported by socio-economic analysis of class relations and class formation. By depending on the methods of discourse and content analysis, it demonstrates how the parliamentary version of Islamist movement has developed as a particular form of nativist populism, which has gradually turned into the main executive agent of neoliberal economic reforms and a new process of urban development and accumulation. I use the same methods of discourse and visual analysis of the English publications as well as videos of international jihadist movement, especially how it creates a considerable transnational mobilization and support from Muslim diaspora.

The second project is titled “Vanishing Image: Essays on New Turkish Cinema.” By employing methods of film and visual analysis as well as interviews with the directors, I examine the works of internationally well-acclaimed young generation of Turkish “auteur” directors, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Reha Erdem and Fatih Akın. In particular, I use semiotic and as psychoanalytic approaches in delineating a fundamental characteristic which we observe in their works: a certain artistic use of visual imagery and new narrative strategies in order to bring to light subaltern and marginal characters and lives. I argue that what distinguishes this new cinema from the old political cinema or social realism is its careful avoidance of dramatic heroization or simplistic victimization as conventional narrative strategies, while carefully attending to the social problems and issues which influence its protagonists.