MER Article Imperiled Academics in Turkey Dilsa Deniz, an anthropologist of the Alevi-Kurdish religion, was fired from her position as an assistant professor at Nişantaşı University in Istanbul after she signed the Academics for Peace petition issued in Turkey on January 10, 2016. More than 1,000 scholars signed the petition to protest the Jeannie Sowers • 6 min read
MER Article The Emergence of Alevi Televisual Activism Alevis are the second largest faith community in Turkey. As a religious collective incorporating aspects of Shi‘i Islam into their teachings, Alevis have faced systematic state exclusion since the 1923 establishment of the Turkish nation-state, which privileges Sunni Islam despite its avowed secular Nazlı Özkan • 5 min read
MER Article Kurds, Turks and the Alevi Revival in Turkey Until a few years ago, Kurdish nationalism was the only movement in Turkey that openly defied the official doctrine that Turkey is a homogeneous nation-state. Informally, people would freely apply ethnic labels to their acquaintances, [1] but publicly most people were reluctant or afraid to define themselves as anything but Martin Van Bruinessen • 12 min read
