New Islamist Architecture and Urbanism: Negotiating Nation and Islam through Built Environment in Turkey

Time: March 30, 2018, 3 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.

Location: Eggers 060, reception to follow in Maxwell Atrium

Bülent Batuman (Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey and Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Pennsylvania State University)

In this public presentation (preceded by daytime workshops), Batuman provides an overview of his new book, New Islamist Architecture and Urbanism, which claims that, in today’s world, a research agenda concerning the relation between Islam and space has to consider the role of Islamism rather than Islam in shaping – and in return being shaped by – the built environment. Defining Turkey’s transformation in the past two decades as a process of “new Islamist” nation-(re)building, the book investigates the role of built environment in the making of an Islamist milieu.

Drawing on political economy and cultural studies, this talk explores the prevailing primacy of nation and nationalism for new Islamism and the spatial negotiations between nation and Islam. It discusses the role of architecture in the deployment of history in the rewriting of nationhood and that of space in the expansion of Islamist social networks and cultural practices. Looking at examples of housing compounds, mosques, public spaces and the new presidential residence, the talk scrutinizes the spatial making of new Islamism in Turkey through comparisons with relevant cases across the globe: urban renewal projects in Beirut and Amman, nativization of Soviet modernism in Baku and Astana, the presidential palaces of Ashgabat and Putrajaya and the neo-Ottoman mosques built in diverse locations as Tokyo and Washington DC.

DAYTIME CONFERENCE:
De/constructing the Middle Eastern City: Places, Publics, and Geographies of Global Connection
9:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. at Eggers 341
The day begins with breakout sessions with scholars from Syracuse University and visitors from Cornell, Colgate, and Binghamton. Download the Call for Participants and Abstracts, due February 19. Conference schedule will be finalized on February 26.

RSVP to Natalie Koch by February 19; to particpate in any of the 9am-3pm sessions. Please include any request for accessibility accommodations.

Additional supporters:

Department of Geography
Middle Eastern Studies Program
Moynihan Institute

Natalie Koch, Geography, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs