TV Costume Dramas and the Consumption of History in Turkey and Beyond

FAIN: FEL-289364-23

Josh Carney
American University of Beirut (New York, NY 10017-2303)

Research and writing of a monograph on how the Turkish national past is mediated through popular costume dramas in present-day Turkey and beyond.

This project investigates ways in which the national past is mediated through popular culture to serve political demands of the present in Turkey and beyond. Set against the global rise of the Turkish “dizi” (TV serial), it examines varied articulations of national identity in the costume dramas Magnificent Century (Muhtesem Yüzyil, 2011-2014) and Resurrection Ertugrul (Dirilis Ertugrul, 2014-2019), which, though apparently similar in their glorification of the Ottoman past and in their global success, were diametrically opposed ideological projects within the authoritarian political milieu of Turkey. The project makes scholarly interventions in the fields of Media Studies, Turkish Studies, and Middle East Studies. The primary output will be a scholarly monograph.