Turkish Cinema: How "Neo" Islamic Culture Influences Media - CFP

Turkish Cinema: How "Neo" Islamic Culture Influences Media (Tentative title, abstract submission till September 1, 2010)

We invite those who wish to collaborate in the implementation of this book coming from Cambridge Scholars Publishig to be published in the last quarter of 2011. We seek collaborations to explore the influence of Islam in popular culture.

This book aims to study the Islamic influence on Turkish media, especially on cinema. Turkey has a long tradition of secularism, where religion's role was limited in the public arena already by the time of Kemal Atatürk. Since then Turkey sees itself as a "secular" state, but religious belief is still dominant in the cultural sphere.

In Turkish movies, most of the traditions and rituals tend to be derived from the Islamic culture. Turning a critical eye on Turkish movies in Turkish cultural life, the book will examine the Turkish films against the backdrop of the country's overall socio-political development, starting from the beginning of the Turkish film industry. It will try to illustrate a broad array of themes; from gender relations to feminism, religion and popular ideas about sexuality and morality. Focusing on representations of religious minority, it will draw out issues such as the formation of the Turkish nation, Turkey's political and social taboos, and how these effect cinematic stereotyping.

This volume concentrates on various approaches concerning the relation between Turkish cinema and religion, the traditions and rituals of Islam, the representation of Muslim women and of the non-Muslim minorities, and changes in the narratives and characters. This will be a comprehensive source on Turkish cinema in English; a milestone at a time when numerous disciplines have shown an increasing interest in new emerging Islamic popular culture. The book is addressed to a wider public, but yet scholars such as advanced students will be more interested in this topic.

For those who are interested in Turkey's opinion about itself and for people who work in film studies, media studies, religious studies, gender studies and political sciences, who has an interest in Middle-Eastern studies as well as general world cinema enthusiasts. This study will mark an important contribution to international film studies while offering general readers an engrossing and informative perspective on some of the most popular films in Turkish cinema. The topics for proposals include, but are not restricted to, the following:

The multi-cultural and multi-religious context in Turkish society

Central concepts: culture, religion, secularism, media, and cinema

Theoretical framework

How Islamic culture influences media

Cultural Origins of Islamic cinema

Cultural and historical background of religious media

The emergence of Islam in Turkish cinema

Islamic cinema in socio-historical context

The evolution of the new Islamic cinema, how the characters shape what is the new story telling

Case studies of Turkish Islamic cinema

Case studies of ethnic and religious minority cinema in Turkey

Islam centred horror movies

Intimate relations / Representation of Muslim women / reframing women and marriage

Modernization period of Turkey

Representation of traditions, rituals, moral codes.

Representation of family relations

The politics of Islam Populism in Islamic media

Everyday life culture Narratives of cultural changes

Cinema and Islamic society

Alternative Movements Neo-Islamic culture

Proposals can be submitted only in English. The publication rules will be sent to authors. For any questions or suggestions, contact Asli Kotaman ([email protected]) and Önver Cetrez ([email protected])

Submission of articles and proposals:

1. An abstract of no more than 300 words may be in Word, WordPerfect or RTF, in this order: a) Author (s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract. The document must be sent in Times New Roman 12. Refrain from using a special text format.
2. Abstracts submission deadline: September 1, 2010. Acceptance will be notified before the end of September 2010.
3. The final extension of the chapter shall be about 6000-8000 words, including bibliography (following Harvard Anglo-APA quotation system). This also must be submitted in Word, WordPerfect or RTF. The deadlinefor submitting papers is December 20, 2010.
4. Doubts, proposals and complete chapters will be sent by email to Asli Kotaman ([email protected])
5. The chapters will be reviewed by the editors of the volume.

Editors: Asli Kotaman, Önver Çetrez, Artun Avci. Assist. Prof. Aslı Kotaman Avci Vice Director Plato Higher Education Balat 34087 İstanbul Phone:0090 212 444 76 96- (ext.108) Fax: 0090 212 621 45 03

E-mail: [email protected]

Web: http://www.plato.edu.tr