Saygun Gökarıksel
Biographic Data
| ID | 110674 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Saygun Gökarıksel |
| GIVEN NAMES | Saygun |
| FAMILY NAME | Gökarıksel |
| SIGNATURE | GÖKARIKSEL S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Bogaziçi University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9690-2006 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 8 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 23 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 8 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Naming the Secret Agent: Law, Suspicion, and Moral Autopsy After Communism
Situated in the long aftermath of the fall of state socialism in Poland, which was marked by suspicions of treason or collaboration with communist secret services, this article offers an ethnographic study of a trial of a historian accused of being a communist spy. It develops the notion of moral autopsy to articulate how a person comes under a judicialized and moralized examination by transitional justice processes like lustration, which produce…
Two Bodies of the Accused: The Politics of Aesthetics and the Moral Autopsy of Communism in Poland after 1989
Situated in Poland’s protracted reckoning with its socialist past, this article examines how cultural practices might fashion alternative, embodied forms of justice and history to counter the moralizing, nation-state centric transitional justice projects driven by right-wing groups. The article offers a close study of the experimental posttheater play Small Narration (Mała Narracja), performed by Wojtek Ziemilski about his grandfather, a popular …
Spying and doing fieldwork in the East
This article reflects on the anthropological scholarship of Katherine Verdery, especially her last book, My life as a spy, to explore the conditions of doing fieldwork and producing knowledge in the European East during the Cold War and onwards. In particular, I attend to the themes of secrecy, identity, surveillance, and power that are integral to fieldwork and anthropological practice more generally beyond the confines of Eastern Europe and tha…
University Embodied
This essay explores the embodied forms of power and struggle that are manifest in the Boğaziçi University protests against the authoritarian offensive of the Turkish government. By focusing on the student and faculty protests, especially, the daily gowned performances, it suggests that Boğaziçi protests could be seen as part of the making of a counter or dissident body politic, which seeks to rethink and revitalize, at this conjuncture of neolibe…
The Banality of Exception
Recent studies of authoritarianism in Turkey often conceptualize the problem as a move away from the rule of law toward rule by law; that is, law’s political instrumentalization by powerful authoritarian movements or personalities. Informed by the liberal legalist assumption that conceives law and politics as two disparate spheres, these studies tend nostalgically to idealize the liberal rule of law past as a benchmark against which today’s predi…
Facing History: Sovereignty and the Spectacles of Justice and Violence in Poland's Capitalist Democracy
This article explores the nexus of sovereignty, violence, and transitional justice through an analysis of the public exhibitions of the faces of communist-era secret service officers in Poland. During the rule of right-wing government from 2005 to 2007, the state-run Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) organized exhibitions in public squares across Poland, which stirred much contention. Was it a pursuit of justice or a call for public lynchin…
Neither teleologies nor “feeble cries”: Revolutionary politics and neoliberalism in time and space
The ends of revolution: Capitalist de-democratization and nationalist populism in the east of Europe
The Banality of Exception
Recent studies of authoritarianism in Turkey often conceptualize the problem as a move away from the rule of law toward rule by law; that is, law’s political instrumentalization by powerful authoritarian movements or personalities. Informed by the liberal legalist assumption that conceives law and politics as two disparate spheres, these studies tend nostalgically to idealize the liberal rule of law past as a benchmark against which today’s predi…
The ends of revolution: Capitalist de-democratization and nationalist populism in the east of Europe
Facing History: Sovereignty and the Spectacles of Justice and Violence in Poland's Capitalist Democracy
This article explores the nexus of sovereignty, violence, and transitional justice through an analysis of the public exhibitions of the faces of communist-era secret service officers in Poland. During the rule of right-wing government from 2005 to 2007, the state-run Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) organized exhibitions in public squares across Poland, which stirred much contention. Was it a pursuit of justice or a call for public lynchin…
University Embodied
This essay explores the embodied forms of power and struggle that are manifest in the Boğaziçi University protests against the authoritarian offensive of the Turkish government. By focusing on the student and faculty protests, especially, the daily gowned performances, it suggests that Boğaziçi protests could be seen as part of the making of a counter or dissident body politic, which seeks to rethink and revitalize, at this conjuncture of neolibe…
The ends of revolution: Capitalist de-democratization and nationalist populism in the east of Europe
Neither teleologies nor “feeble cries”: Revolutionary politics and neoliberalism in time and space
The Banality of Exception
Recent studies of authoritarianism in Turkey often conceptualize the problem as a move away from the rule of law toward rule by law; that is, law’s political instrumentalization by powerful authoritarian movements or personalities. Informed by the liberal legalist assumption that conceives law and politics as two disparate spheres, these studies tend nostalgically to idealize the liberal rule of law past as a benchmark against which today’s predi…
Facing History: Sovereignty and the Spectacles of Justice and Violence in Poland's Capitalist Democracy
This article explores the nexus of sovereignty, violence, and transitional justice through an analysis of the public exhibitions of the faces of communist-era secret service officers in Poland. During the rule of right-wing government from 2005 to 2007, the state-run Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) organized exhibitions in public squares across Poland, which stirred much contention. Was it a pursuit of justice or a call for public lynchin…
University Embodied
This essay explores the embodied forms of power and struggle that are manifest in the Boğaziçi University protests against the authoritarian offensive of the Turkish government. By focusing on the student and faculty protests, especially, the daily gowned performances, it suggests that Boğaziçi protests could be seen as part of the making of a counter or dissident body politic, which seeks to rethink and revitalize, at this conjuncture of neolibe…
Spying and doing fieldwork in the East
This article reflects on the anthropological scholarship of Katherine Verdery, especially her last book, My life as a spy, to explore the conditions of doing fieldwork and producing knowledge in the European East during the Cold War and onwards. In particular, I attend to the themes of secrecy, identity, surveillance, and power that are integral to fieldwork and anthropological practice more generally beyond the confines of Eastern Europe and tha…
Naming the Secret Agent: Law, Suspicion, and Moral Autopsy After Communism
Situated in the long aftermath of the fall of state socialism in Poland, which was marked by suspicions of treason or collaboration with communist secret services, this article offers an ethnographic study of a trial of a historian accused of being a communist spy. It develops the notion of moral autopsy to articulate how a person comes under a judicialized and moralized examination by transitional justice processes like lustration, which produce…
Two Bodies of the Accused: The Politics of Aesthetics and the Moral Autopsy of Communism in Poland after 1989
Situated in Poland’s protracted reckoning with its socialist past, this article examines how cultural practices might fashion alternative, embodied forms of justice and history to counter the moralizing, nation-state centric transitional justice projects driven by right-wing groups. The article offers a close study of the experimental posttheater play Small Narration (Mała Narracja), performed by Wojtek Ziemilski about his grandfather, a popular …
Law (7 works) · Political science (7 works) · Politics (6 works) · Sociology (4 works) · Communism (3 works) · Democracy (3 works) · Law (3 works) · Philosophy (3 works) · Authoritarianism (2 works) · Gender Studies (2 works)